More Thin Red Strands

In his review of “The Thin Red Line,” Kenneth Turan notes the poetic qualities of the film (“ ‘Red Line’: A Distant Epic,” Dec. 23). As with much poetry, all of its layers are not immediately apparent. One point Turan missed is that more than half the voice-over narration, including the opening and closing lines of the film, was done by John Dee Smith, who played the young Southern soldier Edward P. Train.

Smith is seen in the beginning of the film as a naive young private talking to Sean Pean and then at the end of the film as a seasoned combat veteran. It is his philosophical questioning about the nature of good and evil that provide one of the through lines of the film.

JULIET GREEN

Beverly Hills

Green is Smith’s personal manager.

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Hovering in the background in the early scenes of “The Thin Red Line” is an unsung hero of World War II: the SS Lane Victory, the last sailing Victory ship, a survivor, a national historic landmark, situated in San Pedro.

The ship’s merchant mariners and Navy Armed Guard brought the troops and all of their equipment (large guns, ammunition, tanks, trucks, food, water, medical supplies, even much of the aircraft) to the battlefields.

The Merchant Marine and the Navy Armed Guard lost nearly 10,000 men to torpedoings, air raids and kamikaze attacks. I think they deserve honorable mention.

THOM HENDRICKSON

Seal Beach