National Archives

American troops liberate the town of Bitche, France, in an image from Ken Burns' series for PBS, "The War."

National Archives

An American soldier, whose name was not recorded, held a bazooka near the Hurtgen Forest, Germany, in November 1944. The battle of the Hurtgen Forest was one of the longest ever fought by the U.S. Army, lasting four months

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In the media blitzkrieg that has already begun for "The War," Ken Burns' upcoming seven-part documentary on PBS, there's an abundance of accolades, at least two controversies and probably some eye-rolling among TV consumers across the country.

Who wants to devote 15 hours of viewing time to a stuffy documentary about events that happened more than 60 years ago?

The good news is that despite the issues that came up weeks and months before its airing, "The War" is worth the time commitment, both in its creation and in the viewing. The series starts at 7 p.m. Sunday on KNME Channel 5.

Burns ("The Civil War," "Baseball," "Jazz") tells the stories of four American towns during World War II: Sacramento, Calif.; Mobile, Ala.; Luverne, Minn.; and Waterbury, Conn. All of those interviewed on camera have some connection to the four towns. Generals, military experts and historians were intentionally not asked to speak.

Interviewed are veterans of battles - all of whom are lucid despite advancing age - and veterans of the home front. Airmen and infantrymen, their family members and neighbors tell their stories. Through the events etched in their memories, we get what might be the truest remembrance on record of the American side of the war.

That's saying a lot, considering all that's been written and filmed on the subject. Another miniseries of great scope, shown in America in the mid-1970s, was the British "World at War." Burns' effort will ultimately be compared to that 26-part, 22-hour exhaustive production by Thames Television. But "World at War" was told from a European perspective, while "The War" chiefly tells how World War II affected Americans.

What makes Burns so good at telling this story is his emphasis on accounts from ordinary people. As we hear the subjects tell their stories, we begin to get to know them a little and thereby begin to understand, a little, the Second World War. We can never know what it was really like, but this series helps us get closer.

A case in point is Quentin Aanenson of Luverne, Minn., a fighter pilot who flew many missions, was shot at and hit several times, made emergency landings, yet lived to tell his story. This soft-spoken, intelligent man still remembers the horrific details of fighting alone in his single-engine plane.

He recalls the first time he knew he had killed a German, who was with others in a truck on an exposed stretch of road in France. He steeled himself to shoot because that's what he was trained to do. But when he got back to his base in Normandy, he got sick. He had to face what he had done. "Now, that didn't change my resolve for the next day," he says. "I went out and did it again. And again and again and again."

No one interviewed in Burns' film considers himself a hero, but there are heroes, nonetheless. That includes those taken prisoner. Especially tear-jerking is the story of a Sacramento family living in a Japanese internment camp on the grounds of Santo Tomas University, Manila, the Philippines, told through the pages of a young girl's diary. Sascha Weinzheimer was 10 years old when she and her mother and sister joined her father in the internment camp.

About 4,000 Americans and Europeans lived there. They had to make their own shelter from palm trees. Food and water were scarce. Many died of starvation. The rules of the Geneva Convention were ignored.

Before finally being liberated in 1945 by the Americans, Sascha's mother, who weighed 140 pounds when she entered the camp, almost died. She weighed 70 pounds when the soldiers finally burst through the camp. Somehow, the family hung on in that horrible environment for two years. Yet when they returned to California, no one really wanted to hear their story. Weinzheimer tells it now.

The editing in "The War" seems just right. It's not breathless, not ponderous. Burns seems to want to get on with it, yet pauses long enough to allow the testimonials to come at their own pace. There is little analysis; the generals' war strategies are shown on maps when necessary, but they are very simple and explicit.

The whole presentation can only be described as incredible. Even experts of World War II lore will discover film clips they've never seen, and many more in color than they might expect. In searching the globe for the film clips, Burns and company had to distill thousands of hours into the 15 hours we see.

On top of that, almost none of the discovered footage had sound. The sounds effects were, according to a PBS video, as close to reality as possible. PBS says every explosion, every airplane engine we hear has research behind it.

So, back to the initial question: Is "The War" worth 15 hours of your time? Yes, and here's why.

As I was sitting at my comfortable desk, watching "The War" on my new computer, in my snug house, with its new air conditioner, listening to my dog gently snore in complete safety on the rug, it finally dawned on me how much we owe to those who faced down evil and conquered it.

What if they had failed? Hitler had already drawn up plans for the Nazi colonization of the United States. What if the Allies had given up the hard, cruel fight to win back the Pacific for free people to use? It must have been tempting to do so.

Is "The War" worth it? Without the sacrifice of so many thousands of brave people, we wouldn't even be asking the question.