Tom Hanks believes that his new TV series The Pacific shows there are similarities between World War II and the current war on terror.
The actor/director has once again teamed up with Steven Spielberg to produce a World War II mini series, after the success of Band of Brothers, which was based on the Stephen Ambrose book.
Speaking to Time magazine Hanks said: "Certainly we wanted to honour US bravery in The Pacific. But we also wanted to have people say, 'We didn't know our troops did that to Japanese people'.
"From the outset, we wanted to make people wonder how our troops can re-enter society in the first place. How could they just pick up their lives and get on with the rest of us?
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different.
"We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
The Pacific tracks the three entwined, real-life journeys of Leckie, Sledge and Basilone and their fellow Marines over the vast landscape of the Pacific in World War II.
The mini-series follows them from their first battle with the Japanese on Guadalcanal, through the rain forests of Cape Gloucester and the strongholds of Peleliu, across the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima and through the horror of Okinawa, and finally to their triumphant but uneasy return home after V-J Day.
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