HBO mini-series (war movies)

[Badgersmilk]

http://www.hbo.com/#/the-pacific

I'd picked up "Band of Brothers" on blueray as soon as it came out and it was AWSUME!!!  Great stuff!

I keep walking past "The Pacific" at the local Sams club, thinking about getting it each time, but has anybody seen it?  Worth the money?

Only thing keeping me from it is how soooooo many WWII movies are sugar coated and slanted toward making the US look infallible.    Showing the story Americans "want" to see.  Nothing about the truth.  I've spent a good deal of time talking to vets and researching.  Our movies / history books are pretty disgustingly biased.    

"Band of Brothers" stayed away from all that, and was REALLY GOOD!

Nobody talks about "The Pacific" to much.  

Or even "Generation Kill"
http://www.hbo.com/#/generation-kill

[twyacht]

Both the Pacific, and Generation Kill, are worth watching, owning is up to you. But there are some great scenes, including the very effective combat 12g in the Pacific.

get'em.

[tombogan03884]

Get "The Pacific" ! You will NOT be sorry !
It follows several well known Marines, MOH recipient John Basilone, Richard Tregaskis (Helmet for my Pillow ) EB Sledge ( With the "Old Breed" ) from Guadalcanal through the end of the war.
I only caught one technical error, at Guadalcanal the Marines were still using the flat "Tommy" style helmets, but in the series they have regular "pot's".  Weapons are accurate, although you don't see any more Water cooled machine guns after the Guadalcanal episodes.

[DGF]

I liked "A band of Brothers" a lot. Excellent. I liked "The Pacific" as well. I got the feeling though that the marines in 'The Pacific" didn't like each other very much. They bordered on being  mean to each other. I had an uncle ( now deceased) that went ashore on Tarawa and his telling of it was more like the camaraderie you see in Band of Brothers. Of the two I felt Brothers was the better series.

[fightingquaker13]

Not real sure about group dynamics in WWII. Liking each other is a lot less important than disliking the Japs more. What matters is trusting someone on your six and that's a function of trusting their training (generally a yes for Marines even if he's an FNG) and then trusting their character, which you can't hide for long in the field. There are some interesting studies about Vietnam where racial and political tensions were high. They seem to show that in field units, even with high personal animosity, the units still functioned effectively as there wasn't a lot of choice in the matter. I would be curious to see some side by side comparisons on the small unit level as there wasn't the extreme social division in 1943 as there was in 1968.
FQ13 who will turn off his inner history/poli sci geek now

[Sponsor]

[Badgersmilk]

What DGF's saying sounds about right from what I've heard to.  The WWII vets I've spoke with who were enlisted all had packs of friends.  Usually 4 or 5 guys that were pretty tight.  Officers usually had one, maybe two guys they were tight with if any at all.  And that's exactly how things were portrayed in "Band of Brothers".  To tell the truth, its how things were before and durring my time in Iraq.    Soooo, not much has changed in 60+ years in that perspective I guess.

And oh yeah, nearly all Vietnam vets I've spoke with sooner or later get around to how the different races each did their own thing and stayed away from each other as much as possible durring that erra.

I'd also say "Full Metal Jacket" was amazingly accurate in the "group dynamics" thing.  In fact, in about every part of military life as I recall it.  We didn't have a guy shoot himself in basic, but one night one did go into the shower and ram his head into the wall as hard as he could till he split his skull...  That proved...  Memorable.

As far as what vets think about the enemy...  I believe every opinion I ever heard.  And my own for that matter.  Was "They're the reason I'm here."  Minute, and political details of that, and group dynamics aside, the one shining fact in your mind was.  "Their the reason I'm here and not home right now.  If they're not here, I don't have to be."   Guess how we fix that problem?

It's not about hating the enemy, as much as it's about hating the situation your in.  And being willing to kill to get out of it.  It really just doesn't matter who's on the other end of the weapon if he's the one between you and getting out of that situation.


Hmmm, why does it feel so wrong talking about that stuff???  It's what we were trained.  It works.


Weren't we talking about movies a minute ago?  

[tombogan03884]

FQ, most of those studies are probably bullshit. As an example, if 2 guys had a fist fight, it generally got blown off as no big deal, unless one was black, then it was a "racial incident" and every one from the platoon Sgt. up to the base CG got his nose in it and the white guy generally got Brig time.

[fightingquaker13]

FQ, most of those studies are probably bullshit. As an example, if 2 guys had a fist fight, it generally got blown off as no big deal, unless one was black, then it was a "racial incident" and every one from the platoon Sgt. up to the base CG got his nose in it and the white guy generally got Brig time.

I'm not so sure. Take you, me, and Path. We aren't  always exactly tight. Yet, in a SHTF scenario, we'd trust each other because we'd be better than the alternative. That bond would be stronger between you and any other Marine on the planet, because even if you never met the guy, or hated his politics, you could rely on his training and the code of never leaving a fellow Marine behind. I'll give you James Carville and Montel Williams as exhibits A and B. I'd bet my bottom dollar they'd take a bullet for you and you'd do the same.Training matters, as does culture as it creates trust among strangers and that's what holds nations together.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

First off, Montel Williams was Navy,
Seriously, the simple fact of both being Marines, or sailors etc is far less relevant than previous shared experience.
It doesn't matter that 2 people were in the same service, what matters is, "I went through PI with that guy" or  "I was on mess duty with that guy", "He's in my Company".
The chain of connection expands upward from your 2 or 3 closest buddies,  your fire team, these are the people you work, eat, sleep,and shit with. These people are with you  24/7/ 365,  the connection gets less intense as it expands, from squad level up through Platoon level, there might be people at the Company level you don't even know by name.
Beyond that it pretty much ends, you will show more loyalty to some one you dislike from your own Company than to a stranger who may be a nice guy.

[Badgersmilk]

Well, I found out I can order the entire series of "The Pacific", and "Generation Kill" DVD's from Netflix.  So I signed up and their on the way for free!  

In the meantime I decided to watch "WWII in HD" by the "History" Channel.  BIG mistake!  The ONLY voices you'll hear in the entire production are those of jewish people...  So do you think "history" has got just a LITTLE slant on it here?!?!  WHAT TOTAL BS!  The people who put this together can smoke a giant t#rd in #ell for what they did.    Some "history".  

Yes, Gary Sinise is a Catholic.  NOW.  He converted because his wife.  Guess what he grew up as?  

I've got NOTHING against jews if they'd just let the world know the truth about what Germany was like BEFORE Hitler!  And why they were persecuted!!!  

If nothing else the Jews should certainly be proud of their unmatched ability to deceive the western world for more than 70 years!  

Doesn't hurt having the "History" Channel in you pocket I guess.  

Do you suppose Time magazine voted Hitler "Man of the Year" for no reason?

Do you hear the Pollocks crying / lying to the world?  Whats worse is that THEY got the short end of the stick without asking for it.  They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And got it WORSE than the jews!!!