Generation Kill

[bobby knoxville]

There is a movie called "Flags of Our Fathers" which was written by the son of a WW2 Corpsman...and the book is not too shabby either. For further Corpsman stuff there is the mention of "Doc" in the book "Jarhead" but I guess it did not translate to the movie. That is all....

[nighthawk]

This series really does shadow all my experiences in OIF1. So much so I had to stop and ponder things I had forgotten. From the Mustache growing contest to the problems with the leadership to the sarcastic racial humor. Yes I too, thought Pamela Anderson was dead! The situation was chaotic and funny and sad. Very fluid. SgtMaj of the Marine Corps, SgtMaj Kent (whom I met and respect he loves his Combat Docs) said he watched 15 minutes of it and turned it off because it didn't reflect the Corps he knows. But he’s not Recon. Not only that every time he goes somewhere... we all act differently around him and I’m sure that’s true of every command he visits. He has a skewed view of the Corps. You can say that GK shows a break down in Command. But I think it shows good men wanting to be apart of a mission even though it’s not ideal. Even though things are backwards at times... we all still have that honor to drive on no matter what the circumstance. Mr Murphy raises his ugly head even in special units. Lots of memories… I have not seen anything that compares to its authenticity. With that in mind Hollywood does make creative decisions and a movie is not the same as a documentary. I would say it’s generally about 90% accurate and some scenes spot-on.

[HMC-FMF-PJ]

Well then I guess I am on SgtMaj Kent's side of the fence for this one....

I did not turn it off but it did turn me off. The series is portrayed as a docu-drama but definitely does not portray the Marine Corps I know either. I am not 8427 but I've been around the community and we often strap hang together over the past decade. My accuracy rating is much lower than 90%.

Sure, the initial invasion was pretty much the wild west and we had a (unofficial, unsanctioned) mustache growing contest once we got to the staging areas in Kuwait. We had a UK reporter that ran with us much of the time. We had our share of Murphy's Law, clowns and stupid stunts too (Bored Marines + high explosives = bad), but we had absolutely no thought, or care, of Pamela Anderson. The few Marines in my unit that were unable to make the transition from peace time training to combat did not get to keep their positions and were quickly replaced by another Marine who could do the job.


Our CO did not refer to himself in 3rd person continually seeking glory, chasing missions outside our scope and making repeated hair brained decisions. We came home with our colors and certainly did not destroy our own colors. Our supply shortages were not our own making. We did not have an officer (or enlisted) that repeatedly got on the radio pissing his pants ranting doom & gloom (or abuse prisoners). SNCO's were not put on restriction or placed under investigation for the actions of an officer. We did not call an airstrike on a non-hostile target full of women & kids. Or mistake a town miles away for attacking tanks and bomb an empty desert. SNCO & NCO's did not allow the Marines to stand uncovered & highlighted while taking incoming when cover & concealment was readily available. No incompetent senior enlisted was brown nosing the Co CO, dropping the ball with the troops, bad mouthing & sabotaging Plt commanders. We did not get fired upon by our own Marines. We did not loose track of friendlies and fire upon them. We did not treat fellow Marines as 2nd class citizens or run & hide from our attachments....

The list goes on and on, but why continue to beat a dead horse.

[Apollo89]

HMC, the thing is. Each unit is different, and acts differently. While your unit did not do any of that, some other unit can probably relate better and so on. Nit picking all of the actions of one unit and comparing each situation to your is unrealistic in the end, mostly because no two groups act the same. There may be a standard marine corp doctrine, but each unit and hell, squad will implement it their way so that it works for their group of marines and sailors.

[jeepinva]

I can promise AT LEAST one of those things listed above happened with my unit and we skirted a few of the others. Every unit is different and my last deployment, I'm fairly certain, is going to be a far cry from my next, even though we should be slated to go to the same exact AO. A dysfunctional family and a "different" type of SgtMajor is what my battalion has. We sometimes joked that if we got hit or stepped on something, that the first thing to come out of SgtMajors mouth is if we had a shave, white sox {unauthorized}, de bloused boots, torn frogs, bandanas under kevlar or what have you and that's more than likely what indirectly caused the incident, because of being undisciplined. He even said to another group that it isn't our tactical proficiency that matters, it's how we strictly adhere to regulations.

I guess to make it "seem" to others we're the best. We were very lucky as a Battalion on our last deployment, very lucky.

[Sarc88]

My favorite had to be Sarg Major though, that guy had my wife and I crying with laughter!

"WHERE IS YOUR HEEMIT!!!" hahahhaah!!

I actually served with the real guy when he was a SSGT, and the script for GK wasn't too far off.

[Addisonee]

Well, the show is really nice and i really enjoyed while watching it. Specially its nicely directed by Susanna White, Simon Cellan Jones. I wanna watch it again in my spare time.

[Sarc88]

The plt HM was Tim Bryan, one of the most motivated young men I put thru the SARC pipeline.

[joana10]

After watching the HBO series, I rushed out to find the book as soon as I could. I felt the book gave a broader view of events than the series. The writer has explained a lot of the 'whys?' I ended up with while watching the story play out on tv.

[style86]

HBO always manages to produce top-notch shows. Generation Kill is one of them!!