The Six Triple Eight is no Saving Private Ryan, but it’s just as Poignant 

Opinion By: Joseph Dunnigan

I went into watching Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight with low hopes. 

After growing up on Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Saving Private Ryan, it was hard for me to imagine that a Netflix movie about a postal battalion could pique my interest. 

After watching the film, I can say I was wrong.

Sure, there’s the tropes of bootcamp scenes. There is climbing over walls, crawling under barbwire, and forming of camaraderie. There is also blatant disrespect and racism perpetrated in the film by the media coverage of the all black- female battalion, superior officers, and even subordinates. And with the female oriented story, there’s women talking shop about the uniforms not made for their curves.  

It’s not a simple movie about an all women outfit. Neither is it a straightforward war movie. It’s an inbetweener of a time and place that one wishes was left only to the history books, if that, but as time has shown, is ever present. 

The movie reminded me of a trip to the Palisades Mall, in Nyack, NY, of all places.

It was a random day. A random trip. And a random observation. On my way to park the car, I noticed to the left a cemetery. It was between two parking lots as if the mall had tried to buy the land from the dead and the dead like good holdouts snuffed the offer. This cemetery was not just a regular cemetery. No sir! It was a veteran’s cemetery. 

Mount Moor is the name. Those buried in its hallowed grounds are heroes. The brown plaque at the front states that the cemetery holds “colored” veterans of the American Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War 1 and 2, and the Korean War. The cemetery is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

The African American Historical Society of Rockland County states on their website, “Many grave markers are too badly worn to identify, but community leaders and veterans dating back to the Civil War have been found among the plots.” And to think, there are still those alive who may have served with those buried in that cemetery. That they may have to come to pay their respects in a burial ground that now sits between two black top parking lots of a “Church to Commerce” we call a shopping mall. 

Yes, I thought of that cemetery as I watched The Six Triple Eight, because as I saw not only women of color go through training and experience their own war front, I also witnessed the mistreatment of a group of people based solely on preconceived notions where to prove one’s worth, if that is even a good way to put it, one must somehow be “better than.” That being human is seen as a blemish in and of itself. And where the reward is ever worse conditions, ever more scrutiny, ever more trials and tribulations. 

The women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, did boost morale. That was clear by the movie and by my perusal of articles already written on the matter. The US Army’s own Military Review quotes the 6888th motto, “No mail, low morale,” in an article published on their website. Even the Wounded Warrior Project talks about the 6888th in an article entitled, ‘The “Six Triple Eight” Proved That No Role Was Too Small During World War II.”’ They discuss the importance of mail in boosting the morale of troops by stating, “Providing and sustaining a connection between soldiers and their families was as vital to victory as an ammunition surplus.” 

Still, the women of the 6888th were not rewarded with pomp and circumstance. As that same article by the Wounded Warrior Project says, “The last members of the 6888th arrived back in the States in February 1946 to no fanfare… The group’s lone recognition was Maj. Charity Adams’ well-deserved rise to lieutenant colonel.”

Then as now, certain groups of people, regardless of how they perform or how much they achieve, are constantly overlooked or taken for granted. 

I believe this too is what was in the spirit of DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. A program that has recently come under scrutiny. A procedure that aimed to incorporate those who have the skills and knowledge but have been overlooked due to biases or “not being part of the club.” 

That, I believe, is the message of the movie called The Six Triple Eight.

While it was not a tank bustin’, machine gun totin’, grenade explodin’ typical war film, it carried with it a message that packs as powerful a punch as any previously mentioned. And in fact, it means as much today as it ever did. For who knows where the next mall will be built. And who knows whose grave may one day be overlooked.