To End All Wars (2001)

Ciarán McMenamin: Capt. Ernest 'Ernie' Gordon

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ernest Gordon : Lt. Jim Reardon, Merchant Marine, one of the few Americans in the area, attached himself to the Argyles during the Allied surrender. We called him "Yanker," because he was an American - and a bit of a wanker.

• Ernest Gordon : When you surrender in war, you're stripped of your dignity as a soldier. And all you've got left is your fellow comrades, many of whom you've just met.

• Ernest Gordon : What is the consequence of a single life weighing less than a feather? What is the final destination of hatred? When you look in the eyes of the enemy and you see yourself. At what price mercy? Who is my neighbor? How many times shall I forgive my brother? What does it mean to love ones enemies? What can a man give in exchange for ones soul? These are the questions that I faced in my prison camp; the answers changed my life forever.

• Dr. Coates : [to a freshly-beaten Gordon]  Ah. Looks like you didn't bow. Always bow before a guard, Korean or Jap. And *never* look 'em in the eyes when they pass you: that's pure defiance. Always look away. Rules of Bushido.

  Lt. Jim Reardon : Bushido?

  Dr. Coates : Yeah. Their kind of chivalry. Respect and obligation. If you don't respect them, they feel obligated to beat you. Nothing personal.

  Ernest Gordon : Well, it sure as bloody hell feels personal.

  Dr. Coates : Yeah, well, it works both ways. They do the same to their own.

  Lt. Jim Reardon : Now there's a comfort.

• Ernest Gordon : How I miss Scotland and the sea. The sea. There's nothing like it in all the earth. Salt in your face, the wind at your back, and all the world before you, and you're freer than a bird in the air or a fish in the ocean. To be free - I reckon that's why I joined the second war to end all wars. I was at the university studying to be a teacher when the call to arms occurred. I was only too eager to put aside my studies for the glory of action. I stopped reading history and became a part of it.

• Ernest Gordon : [narrating]  When dusty Miller died, something in the hearts and minds of every man died with him. What we had somehow managed to hold on to for years of survival now seemed utterly meaningless, like God himself was playing a cruel joke on us all.

  Ernest Gordon : Until I remembered Dusty's words so very long ago. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

• Ernest Gordon : [narrating]  I stopped reading history and became a part of it.

• [first lines] 

  Ernest Gordon : [narrating]  How I miss Scotland, and the sea. The sea. There's nothing like it in all the earth. Salt in your face, the wind at your back, and all the world before you. And you're freer than a bird in the air or a fish in the ocean. To be free. I reckon that's why I joined the second war to end all wars.