HBO Honors WWII Veteran with Private Screening of The Pacific

March 19, 2010 - PRLog -- Leon Cooper, the subject of the award-winning documentary www.ReturnToTarawa.com on the Discovery Network's Military Channel, was recently invited to a private screening in Santa Monica of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' ten-part HBO series The Pacific. Photos from the event can be seen here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddb56tbv_393gff6sjf7  

Cooper was accompanied by award winning filmmaker Steven C. Barber and associate producer Tamara Henry.

HBO CEO Bill Nelson arranged for this amazing tribute and welcomed Cooper by  extending an invitation that said, "I salute you for your heroic service to this great country. HBO would be pleased to have you review this film in a private setting at our Santa Monica office."

Cooper was visibly moved throughout the presentation and was especially hard hit when the scene of the higgins boat instantly transported him back to 1943 where he was a real life higgins boat commander in six operations of the Pacific theater.

Cooper remarked, "The music that Hans Zimmer scored for this piece was especially moving to me."

Barber commented, "I would personally like to thank HBO for this magnanimous private screening for 90-year-old WWII Veteran Leon Cooper."

Barber has been invited by JPAC to go back to Tarawa this summer 2010 to search for the remains for more than 300 missing marines that are still unaccounted for on the atoll of Tarawa. Barber says, "Spielberg and Hanks' timing could not be better as our film Return to Tarawa was so powerful that we were able to enact legislation based on the power of Return to Tarawa on the Discovery's Military Channel." Barber plans on going back for his third documentary on this gripping subject matter.

Leon Cooper is finishing his third book titled "Searching for Private Somes" based on his time on Tarawa where he located the grave-site of a PFC Somes that is memorialized and buried in the New Zealand memorial known as the Coast Watchers. Cooper is also busy on a day-to-day basis with his new non-profit to help shed light on the MIA situation.

www.ReturnToTarawa.com