Generation Kill

[jshiver15]

My buddy turned me on to this series when I was home on leave. And now that I'm home with readily available HBO onDemand, I can't stop watching the show. Anyone else watch 'Generation Kill'? If you haven't, I should warn you that it is a tad bit graphic in nature as well as contains some pretty brutal language.

[JPsuff]

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I'm not into war porn.

Besides, isn't the real thing bad enough?


-JP

[halk]

Personally I think that is one of the problems of this modern society. Too many violent TV shows and first person games. At times it seems that some young people have no value for life of any kind. Almost as though if they go out and shoot a place up or shoot someone up all they have to do is hit replay. Just my 2 cents for what it is worth.

[Badbub45]

I haven't seen it since I don't have HBO. But I know it follows the stories of Marines at war. Looks pretty interesting.

[jshiver15]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

.


I'm not into war porn.

Besides, isn't the real thing bad enough?


-JP

I think it is probably an adequate reality check to what a lot of Marines/Soldiers/Airmen/Sailors are experiencing right now. Even if you don't agree with it, you could probably gain a little appreciation for what these guys are going through. I have friends over there right now and it scares me to death knowing that they're getting shot at.

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by jshiver15

I think it is probably an adequate reality check to what a lot of Marines/Soldiers/Airmen/Sailors are experiencing right now. Even if you don't agree with it, you could probably gain a little appreciation for what these guys are going through. I have friends over there right now and it scares me to death knowing that they're getting shot at.

And why do we need an HBO program to do that?

If it was a documentary showing the day-to-day events that REAL soldiers REALLY deal with in REAL LIFE, that's different. But these are actors being paid to act and as such - no matter how sincere or well intentioned this show may be - they can't possibly show anyone what's really going on because they're not really there.

The "appreciation" you speak of is impossible to acquire in this country because we do not regard war as anything more compelling than this HBO show. We think war is fun and games and we as a nation make ZERO sacrifices in its prosecution. If we in this country were having entire cities and towns destroyed on a daily basis and the loss of life and its ensuing misery were a day-to-day expectation, THEN we might begin to understand what war is all about.

But as long as the closest we ever get to war is some "reality" show, don't hold your breath waiting for any sympathy from the American public. Shoot, if anything, you'd most likely get complaints from viewers claiming that there's too much drama and not enough "body parts" on this show.
War is something that destroys people's lives and I don't think that anything HBO could conjure up in an air-conditioned writer's office over sushi and cappucino could ever capture that reality, no matter how many gravel-voiced actors they can hire to play "pretend" soldiers.

You want to wake people up? Have HBO station a camera a Dover AFB and let them film the aluminum caskets being off-loaded from C130's. Have them film incoming wounded to Ramstein AFB and show us all closeups of head wounds and missing limbs. Or have them travel around Iraq and shoot footage of where a family of ten were living just a few moments ago until some "smart bomb" blew them all into ten thousand bloody pieces and then have them run a crawler across the bottom of the screen explaining that it costs us all two billion dollars a week to make all of that possible.

That, my friend, is reality.


-JP

[Diane]

JP - What does it matter where people get their "reality" from? Many people out there don't watch the news, documentaries or read the paper. So if they get their understanding of what is going on in the world from HBO or MTV for that matter - who cares just as long as they get it.

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by Diane

Many people out there don't watch the news, documentaries or read the paper.

And you don't see THAT as a problem?

Of course, Zippy doesn't read the paper either, so monkey see, monkey do I guess.



Pretty sad, if you ask me.



-JP

[Diane]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

And you don't see THAT as a problem?

Of course, Zippy doesn't read the paper either, so monkey see, monkey do I guess.
Pretty sad, if you ask me.
-JP

JP - People weren't reading the paper long before Bush was even born - you can't blame him for everything.

Hey - there is a positive to ignorance - there's a huge pool of potential jurors out there.

[jshiver15]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

And why do we need an HBO program to do that?

If it was a documentary showing the day-to-day events that REAL soldiers REALLY deal with in REAL . . .

-JP

I don't think you actually realize that this series is based on actual events, told by those who were there. It isn't exactly easy for a camera to follow Marines around and expect to get a dose of reality. Marines are held accountable for every syllable that comes out of their mouths. Why not let someone speak vicariously for them? Sure, there is a little bit of humor added in here and there, but the general idea of it is to display an actual first hand opinion of what is really going on there. The show is neither pro-war nor anti-war. It's just war. Maybe this is a better way to convey what is going on to the American public rather than force-check reality into them by making them watch actual Soldiers/Airmen/Marines/Sailors with war wounds or being unloaded from aircrafts in caskets.

[JPsuff]

Originally Posted by jshiver15

I don't think you actually realize that this series is based on actual events, told by those who were there. It isn't exactly easy for a camera to follow Marines around and expect to get a dose of reality. Marines are held accountable for every syllable that comes out of their mouths. Why not let someone speak vicariously for them? Sure, there is a little bit of humor added in here and there, but the general idea of it is to display an actual first hand opinion of what is really going on there. The show is neither pro-war nor anti-war. It's just war. Maybe this is a better way to convey what is going on to the American public rather than force-check reality into them by making them watch actual Soldiers/Airmen/Marines/Sailors with war wounds or being unloaded from aircrafts in caskets.

OK, you raise a valid point and from a "what's going on?" point of view, I suppose that ANY information is better than none. I just feel that if people really want to affect change or at least demand to be informed, they should be petitioning the government for full disclosure rather than having to depend upon second or third-hand information or an entertainment network's interpretation of things.

When Bush declared Dover AFB as "off limits" to cameras, there should have been a public outcry. When he specified that journalists could not have free access to Iraq but rather had to be "embedded" with U.S. Forces, there should have been thousands of citizens demanding to know why.

Maybe HBO is trying to do something that our own government has been loathe to to since the beginning of this fiasco - which is to tell the people of this country the truth about Iraq and what's really happening and I suppose that they should be commended for trying. It's just sad that a television network has to do what our own "elected leaders" can't or won't do.


-JP

[Badbub45]

Its always been like this. The government will never tell anyone in depth about what is going on in war. When my cousin was over there he wasn't allowed to tell us a thing about where he was at certain times or what the mission was. Its just how things are and how they will always be. And tv networks help a little by trying to show what life is over there. If they sent actual camera men in to film combat, people wouldn't be able to handle it.

[JimSomebody]

Originally Posted by JPsuff

When Bush declared Dover AFB as "off limits" to cameras, there should have been a public outcry. When he specified that journalists could not have free access to Iraq but rather had to be "embedded" with U.S. Forces, there should have been thousands of citizens demanding to know why.

When those things happened, I thought, "So, the government did learn something from Vietnam."
Another lesson learned was: It's easier to get away with a war of choice if there aren't any draftees involved.

[Ty_Webb]

Originally Posted by Badbub45

Its always been like this. The government will never tell anyone in depth about what is going on in war. When my cousin was over there he wasn't allowed to tell us a thing about where he was at certain times or what the mission was. Its just how things are and how they will always be. And tv networks help a little by trying to show what life is over there. If they sent actual camera men in to film combat, people wouldn't be able to handle it.

While I think it would be terrible if media broadcast specifics about actions being carried out, I still don't like the idea of government keeping the generalities away from their electorate. I think politicians are far too quick to forget that all they do is exercise the will of the people. When they hide from the people what they're doing, that's very bad, IMO.