Mobile's Dr. Sid Phillips Enjoying Celebrity at 85

85 year old Sid Phillips says for years he was enjoying being a retired doctor living out in the country. Now, he's attending Hollywood movie premieres.

Phillips figures prominently in the upcoming HBO series 'The Pacific.' Fresh off of being featured in Ken Burns' 'The War,' Phillips says, "it's getting wild."

He says he was first contacted about this latest project seven years ago. 'The Pacific' is based on the book by Hugh Ambrose, son of historical author Stephen Ambrose. Much of that book is adapted from Mobile native Eugene Sledge's book, 'With the Old Breed,' and Robert Leckie's book 'Helmet for my Pillow.'

All of those books chronicle the everyman in the Great War. The histories of individual soldiers were almost lost history because so many veterans came home from the war and stopped talking about what they experienced. Says Phillips, "I jokingly tell people that veterans couldn't talk about it without cussing, so they just kept quiet."

But in retrospect, Phillips says, "I think many of these veterans felt they had a job to do, did it and then felt let's get on with living, with life. They didn't want to tell horror stories to their family, to people."

Phillips has become a figure in a surge of new interest about World War II history. He hopes that the interest leads to a renewal of patriotism among Americans, something he believes is "certainly" lacking in this country.