Generation Kill

Timothy OConnor · Post by **Timothy OConnor** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:51 am

Haven't seen it yet but I've enough good stuff that I intend to buy the DVD set when released (I think that's in December).

David F · Post by **David F** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:08 am

On the hits side, I will say that whoever advised them on technical aspects did quite well for "Hollywood".

On the misses, I must say that it is your usual skewed "hollywood" story:

Officers are incompetent or glory hounds
Senior NCOs are unneccesarily tough or sucking up to the senior leaders
Junior NCOs are appologizing to their Soldiers for the leadership failures
Lastly, The privates have it all figured out! Gosh, they are sooo amart, why aren't They in charge?

Notice a whole lot more misses than hits. Come on hollywood show us real life...oh yeah, it wouldn't make such an exciting story! I may be in the Army and not in the Marines but your average Service member is still the same...not all messed up as Hollywood likes to portray.

Timothy OConnor · Post by **Timothy OConnor** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:47 pm

David F wrote:On the hits side, I will say that whoever advised them on technical aspects did quite well for "Hollywood".

On the misses, I must say that it is your usual skewed "hollywood" story:

Officers are incompetent or glory hounds
Senior NCOs are unneccesarily tough or sucking up to the senior leaders
Junior NCOs are appologizing to their Soldiers for the leadership failures
Lastly, The privates have it all figured out! Gosh, they are sooo amart, why aren't They in charge?

Notice a whole lot more misses than hits. Come on hollywood show us real life...oh yeah, it wouldn't make such an exciting story! I may be in the Army and not in the Marines but your average Service member is still the same...not all messed up as Hollywood likes to portray.

I read the book and didn't get that impression at all. Maybe the movie version is different?

In the book there are a couple of officers who come across as goofy but one of the primary subjects is an officer who's treated quite sympathetically.

As for NCOs apologizing to the troops for leadership failures and privates having everything figured out, that's just human nature which applies to the business world as well as the military.

Like NCOs middle managers must walk the line between supervising their staff and comiserating/working with them on a daily basis. And guys sitting on bar stools are always convinced that they know more than senior business executives and government leaders and are often presented as such in movies and television (If they're so smart why are they sitting on a bar stool in a dive instead of on their yacht?). And as with the goofy officers in Generation Kill there really are goofy business leaders and government leaders (see news re debacles in healthcare, Iraq, New Orleans, auto industry and the financial industry for proof).

Remember too it's the outlyers and unsual events make for an interesting story, so they get the attention. Look at the book Ambush Alley for similar treatment. A battalion CP group gets mired in a bog which didn't appear on satellite photos and later authorizes an air strike which kills a number of fellow marines. Incompetent? No and yes respectively. Interesting? Yup!

Devildog · Post by **Devildog** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:27 pm

Yes, the book reflecs the experiences of an embedded journalist looking into a military unit - for a balance to that I recommend "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" by Nathaniel C Flick - he is the platoon leader of the unit from 1st Recon Battalion portrayed in "Generation Kill."

Timothy OConnor · Post by **Timothy OConnor** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:41 pm

Devildog wrote:Yes, the book reflecs the experiences of an embedded journalist looking into a military unit - for a balance to that I recommend "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" by Nathaniel C Flick - he is the platoon leader of the unit from 1st Recon Battalion portrayed in "Generation Kill."

He's also the officer given the sympathetic treatment by the author/embedded journalist who wrote Generation Kill.

Strictly from an entertainment perspective I thought GK was a better read. But I also enjoyed reading Flick's perspectives on the military. Both are well worth the investment in time and money.

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:43 am

I went out to California this weekend and saw my stepdaughter and my grandkids as well as my youngest daughter and her boyfriend. I was talking to Tony over pizza and wings at the nearby Round Table Pizza Place. I asked him about what he knew about the series, Generation Kill. It turns out that Tony was in C Company of the same battalion. According to him, they had kicked out their two embedded reporters one of which was a female. He said that his comany did a lot of the grunt work during the drive and some of the fighting that was attributed to the other units in the series was actually done by his company. I'm not here to start any flame wars or any such thing but what a small world it is. I talk to him some more about this but found it very interesting about his perspective of having been there.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

kgpanzer · Post by **kgpanzer** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:23 pm

I thought it was a great mini series

Cheers
Anthony