"The Winds of War" Into the Maelstrom (TV Episode 1983) - Robert Mitchum as Victor 'Pug' Henry

[final voiceover as Pug watches Warren sortie at dawn aboard the USS Enterprise]

Victor 'Pug' Henry : O Lord, in a world so rich and lovely, why can your children find nothing better to do than to dig iron from the ground and work it into vast, grotesque engines for blowing each other up? Is it because Abel's next-door neighbor was Cain? Is it because if my enemies make deadly engines then I must do it better, or die? Maybe the vicious circle will end this time. Maybe not. Maybe it will take Christ's second coming to end it. Maybe it will never end. But it is 1941 and I know this: Until the life is beaten out of the monster Hitler, the world cannot move another inch toward a more sane existence. There is nothing to do now, but win the war.
[voiceover as Pug writes a letter to Pamela]

Victor 'Pug' Henry : Pamela, I'm finishing this letter in Pearl Harbor. In Manila, Byron and I visited the old house we once lived in. Memories overwhelmed me. Rhoda, the kids. Those were the sweetest and the best days of my life. Is it really in the cards for me to start over, to have new babies learning to talk, little boys playing on the grass, a little girl twining her arms around my neck? Facts are sometimes hard on dreams. The facts are plain to me at last. I'm a family man. I'm a one-woman man. And I've got to fight a war. I said I loved you, Pamela. I do. I guess I'll love you until I die. Don't come. Yours forever, Pug.

Robert Mitchum: Victor 'Pug' Henry