Philips stayed in the US. It seems like he was one of the "lucky" ones. He got through Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester and then was sent home.

I said before this series started that if it was as half as good as Band of Brothers, it would still be a really good series. I felt that is about as good as it probably was, which in my mind makes it very very good, but not nearly as outstanding as BoB. And the problem boils down to that Band of Brothers was able to tell a cohesive story with several characters you felt a connection with by the time the show was over, and The Pacific didn't. I think they would have had a stronger show if they'd just followed Sledge's story from beginning to end. His story and friends were the most interesting part of the series to me. I know that he didn't fight at the Canal, but I think they could have expanded to areas beyond his experience by featuring parts that Snafu and Syd experienced before Sledge joined.

I will definitely be giving this a second viewing on Blu-ray, though I may just Netflix it. Maybe I'll pick up more on the secondary characters this time. It seemed like almost none of the characters ever referred to each other by name, so it was hard to learn who anyone was.

Touching end to the show to see the guys who they were playing. I too, felt disconnected to this in compared to BOB due to so many characters and being confusing. It was good TV, but certainly not the masterpiece that BOB was.

Same here.

I really enjoyed the finale - I've seen the treatment of the brutal conditions of war done many times (and this series certainly did it well), but you rarely get to see the aftermath of war from a personal standpoint. I kind of wish we had gotten 2 episodes of it since the finale was so well done.

Now I have to borrow BoB from a friend of mine and watch it this summer.

Have there been any interviews with Hanks/Spielberg now that the show has finished airing? It seems like the views expressed in these threads are pretty universal across the internet (disjointed at the beginning, we didn't know many of the characters, didn't hit its stride til the Sledge story became the focus, etc). I'm wondering if the team has any regrets about how they approached it.

I finally saw the finale tonight (appropriate for Memorial Day) and I liked how it wrapped up. Good closure for some storylines (particularly Sledgehammer and Leckie) and the end with the photos of the real men and description of what they did after the war was fitting. My only complaint would be that I would've also liked to have scenes of what happened to Snafu after he got back to New Orleans.

I dont think anyone knows. None of the marines heard from Snafu until 30 years later when Sledge's book came out and Snafu contacted him. I'm guessing he didnt write a detailed account of his post war time activities

A neighbor recounts Merriell "Snafu" Shelton.http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/...e-pacific.html