So you're busy trying to fight a war and an important day in your religious calendar comes up.

What do you do?

How do you deal with the fact that your religion demands that you set a day aside to honor this or

atone for that when you're trying to make everyone wearing the other uniform

die for their country. The holidays interact with war in such peculiar ways. These two phenomena are both so

human and yet so incompatible. In the context of war, holidays make no sense, and in the context of holidays, war makes no sense and in the context of holidays war makes no sense.

History has lots of interesting examples of this puzzling interplay.

In 1968 North Vietnam took advantage of a supposed ceasefire surrounding the Tet holiday

to launch a major offensive across South Vietnam in one of the bloodiest chapters of that war. A few years later a coalition of Arab states

launched a surprise attack to try and retake the Sinai Peninsula from Israel

on Yam Kippur one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. That one also happened to take place during

the Islamic observance of Ramadan, which is another non-ideal time to be waging war from a piety standpoint.

If these days are so holy you would think that the

nations that espouse these religions would shy away from offending the

Almighty by using the Almighty as cover for the element of surprise.

You'd think a lot more lightning bolts would be dropping if the Almighty gave a shit.

Precedent would indicate that the Almighty does not,

and that whatever religion the commanders claim the advantage of that false sense of holiday

security is too good to resist in a clash of civilizations.

Well today's film is partly about that tension. in a clash of civilizations.

Well, today's film is partly about that tension.

It's a war movie and kind of a Christmas movie too.

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