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The controversy surrounding the absence of Hispanic soldiers from Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS documentary The War may or may not be over. But Burns appears to have done all he’s going to do. The Associated Press reports that Burns added 28-minutes to the seven-part film.

Profiles of two Hispanics will conclude the first and sixth episodes of the roughly 15-hour, seven-part “The War,” debuting Sept. 23 on PBS, Burns told a news conference. An Indian soldier’s story will be at the end of episode five, he said.

“There’s been a hot political battle, and we tried to rise above and take the high road and respond as best we could,” Burns said.

“It doesn’t alter the vision of the film that we made and completed a year and a half ago,” he told a meeting of the Television Critics Association. …

Antonio Morales of the American GI Forum, a Hispanic veterans group, welcomed the inclusion of two Hispanic veterans.”The two Latino Marines who are part of the documentary ‘The War’ represent the honor and patriotism of all Hispanic-Americans,” he said in a statement.

The Washington Post has a story covering the same press conference.

Despite the the controversy around The War, Burns remains committed to PBS. Bill Harris writing in the Edmonton Sun says, “there’s one very simple reason why [Burns] hasn’t wound up working for one of the major U.S. television networks.”

“The commercials,” Burns said. “It seems so obvious. There are none of those here (on PBS). (On network TV) every six minutes you interrupt to sell eight different things. All of broadcast television is skywriting: The first breeze comes along and it’s gone.”

“I’ve had lots of offers through the years, in Hollywood and things like that,” Burns said. “But I sit around the table with my friends who are A-list directors who you would recognize and they’re complaining, ‘Oh, they took it away, I couldn’t do this, I had to use this music.’

“And I’m looking around going, ‘I haven’t had that.’ If you don’t like any of my films, it’s all my fault. But who would want it any other way?”

Finally, a PBS press release announced that many of Ken Burns’ documentaries will be available in his own page on Apple’s iTunes Store.

The Ken Burns area within the iTunes store offers all of the Ken Burns-related multi-media available in the store, such as documentaries, music, audiobooks and podcasts, including one for Burns’s upcoming documentary THE WAR, airing on PBS beginning September 23, 2007.

There are episodes from his Jazz, America, and American Lives series. Episodes cost $5 to $10 each.