Tag: military

Military Movies Before and After Joining the Army

Tiberius1 Comment

The changes you notice when you’re in those boots too

By now, regular viewers know that I’m currently in the U.S. Army, but if you’re just joining us: Hello, I run an entertainment-based blog during my free time in the Army. I do what I can to not make it my personality, and sometimes I’ll update you if it interferes with this blog (especially deployments and whatnot); occasionally, I add insight in my experiences in training whenever I see the military in media and the military shows up a handful of times in media.

Not the few times where they’re a side piece to the main event, but when they are the main event, and within the military and veteran communities, because of how we’re trained, the issues that fly over the heads of those who never served are all too obvious to those who have. I don’t normally go out of my way to hunt down military movies to watch; the most recent movie I saw was a touching love story about a man with a metallic skeleton traveling across the multiverse with his dumbest friend because they’re both too dangerous to be left alive.

All things considered, Deadpool is a menace to existence. Can’t wait to see him do it again with the web slinger.

Of the military movies I did see in recent memory were Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, and Full Metal Jacket, and I’ll go over them one by one based on what I know now that I’m in the Army. I’ve seen others, but these are the ones I can remember vividly.

Released in 2001, Black Hawk Down is a retelling of an actual event that happened to U.S. Soldiers overseas. For context, Somalia has a lot of the problems that were present in Afghanistan at least in the lead up to the Taliban’s first takeover in 1996. Post-colonialism was an opportunity for Cold War politicking and with Somalia and Ethiopia barking at each other, the U.S. and Soviets got involved. Glossing over the latter half of the Cold War in the Horn of Africa, the regimes changed, Somalia’s communist government was overthrown by an anticommunist government that was just as ruthless as the last and the most infamous man at the helm was warlord, Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

In the middle of the Somali Civil War which began at the end of the Cold War (no one can agree on a starting year, just that it’s still going on), one of the warlords Mohamed Farrah Aidid made a name for himself when those loyal to him attacked Pakistani military personnel in June 1993, followed by attacks on UN peacekeepers, prompting an American retaliation on his lieutenants. Aidid spat back by deliberately targeting American troops in the area, and the Clinton administration was done playing games, sending in Special Forces Group Delta and spearheading Operation Gothic Serpent with the sole purpose of bringing him to justice for crimes against humanity.

This was easier said than done and probably foreshadows the logistical issues of the later War on Terror which the Somali Civil War folded into down the line: who’s the enemy? The inciting incident that kept Delta Force in Mogadishu overnight in October 1993 was the downing of a pair of Black Hawk attack choppers. U.S. soldiers never leave a fallen comrade behind, so a garrison was tasked with finding the downed soldiers and bringing them home broken or in a box. It may be a trope these days, but we do take care of our own.

To put it mildly, U.S. soldiers were lost in a horror show even Satan would reject. Aidid’s paramilitary, the Somali National Alliance, wasn’t exactly a uniformed entity. The movie depicts them as dressed casually albeit adorned with military gear over their everyday attire, and scenes like this would come back to bite U.S. forces in the ass in the Middle East, especially in Iraq in the early years and after during the ISIS years.

The movie focuses mainly on the U.S. Army and its special forces contingents, but the reality was that more troops from other services (Navy SEALs and Air Force Parajumpers) were also involved. Those who survived the initial crash were trapped in the downed chopper, desperately awaiting help from other U.S. forces while the Somali population barreled down on them. Of the two Delta Force operators killed that day, Sergeants First Class Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart were the two who were given posthumous Medals of Honor. As for the rest of U.S. forces, the situation forced them to retreat with their fallen comrades in tow. Photos exist of what was done to the bodies afterward, but I’m not comfortable showing it. Just know that it was grizzly.

From what I’ve heard of people who’s family members served, those who were sent to Somalia would 9 out of 10 times rather be deployed literally anywhere else. Even Vietnam vets of the time, would rather fight the Viet Cong and NVA again than take their chances with Aidid’s forces again. Normally, I’d question the validity of these statements, but there’s enough evidence from retired servicemembers who were there to pretty much write it off as a living nightmare. Somalia is still a grave danger to residents and guests alike, but U.S. Special Forces are training Somali military units so that’s a silver lining.

Channel: Warographics

The thing about the movie that stood out to me the most was a moment when Nelson and Twombly were left behind to cover for their unit while they headed to the crash site. Some time later, Yurek returns and presumably following their training, Twombly and Nelson fired until they realize it was another soldier. Yurek asks why they’re pulling security for a single deserted street corner where the two reveal that they were left there, assured that the rest of the unit would return shortly and that they have no radio or other means of communication because it was unnecessary.

Shortsighted orders are not unheard of at all in the military–in fact, it happens a lot. Military-based subreddits have members past and present sharing stories of commanders and senior enlisted leaders lying to themselves about the worst orders sent from the top down. Often they’re in a humorous light, but in the case of this scene in Black Hawk Down, a soldier stranded with no means of getting aid is above and beyond a blue falcon moment. Even if the unit didn’t know how long that rescue mission would take, leaving with just one radio would’ve been far better than deeming it unnecessary.

Overall, I can’t dispute the numbers. Critics liked it, audiences liked it, servicemembers talk about it, I liked it; inaccuracies exist about the finer details of the involved units, but isn’t enough to turn you off from the movie. It’s one of the good war movies. Give it a watch if you haven’t already.

Next is: Saving Private Ryan.

A classic 1998 war film about a platoon-sized element sent on a mission to find a sole survivor whose three other brothers perished at Normandy and send him home. Fun fact: when the movie debuted, it ignited a flurry of calls to the PTSD hotline because the Omaha landing scene triggered PTSD in veterans young and old.

The characters within this film are all fictional, but director Steven Spielberg relied on real-life accounts of families being drafted into World War II and losing brothers along the way. One such family whose sons were sent to Europe in the 1940s was that of the Niland brothers from Tonawanda, New York. Journalist Stephen Ambrose wrote of stories like those of the Niland brothers, and it wasn’t uncommon at the time for entire families of soldiers to get sent to combat. In World War I, for instance, Ike Sims, a former slave from Georgia, fathered 11 sons, all of whom died in combat.

The little details I noticed in Saving Private Ryan were numerous but the ones that stood out to me was when Corporal Reiben called attention for Captain Miller while in garrison, with Miller responding “as you were.” This is the rule for whenever an officer enters or exits a room. The troops stand at the position of attention and render a salute accompanied by the greeting of the day. The officer returns the salute and replies, “carry on,” to let the troops return to their previous activities.

Speaking of officers, while I’m not one, the rule of thumb that I know of with officers is that once they reach the rank of Major (Lieutenant Commander in the Navy and Coast Guard), they stop leading troops on the frontlines and work as battalion support, unless otherwise directed by higher-ups. I don’t know if that’s true, so don’t quote me on that. I just noticed that during the movie, more field-level officers are dressed in service uniforms than in combat/field uniforms. The exception is the lieutenant colonel who updates Miller on the situation and what he needs to do next, i.e. the plot of the movie.

There’s always praise to go around in a Spielberg flick, no matter how it turns out and while I did love this movie, there are criticisms or comments to make about it. It might be because of Spielberg’s professional background (with Schindler’s List under his belt), his religious upbringing, or the general portrayal of World War II as a black-and-white war, or all of these, but Saving Private Ryan can be viewed as a typical “saving the world” movie. Not that that’s a bad thing, but the reality on the ground was more complicated than western contemporary sources would have us believe. The Nazis had set up conscript battalions of nonethnic Germans in most of their occupied territories, feeding them the same old nationalistic manure to get them into the meat grinder. This was far more prevalent on the Eastern Front where there were more opponents of the Soviets than the Nazis until the war crimes were committed by both swastika and hammer and sickle standard-bearers, though I think Spielberg acknowledged this. It’s not an overall World War II film about stopping Hitler; it’s about a soldier who survived when his brothers gave their lives and is eventually sent back home.

Don’t let that discourage you from watching it if you haven’t already. You’re bound to have done so; Matt Damon aging five decades is a timeless meme for when you’re feeling old.

I put the template instead of an actual meme because I come across this one daily. Put your own spin on it; bonus points if it’s dark.

Lastly, is the movie that was supposed to decry war and the military, but ironically inspired more young men to sign up.

The most striking of this movie is that the character who would fill the role of Senior Drill Instructor Hartman wasn’t supposed to be R. Lee Ermey, but someone essentially coached by him. But looking at the final product, Ermey put the hat on once again and delivered a performance that’s been inspiring real and fictional servicemembers to this day. I’m pretty sure one of the senior drill sergeants from my basic at Fort Leonard Wood was in some way inspired by Ermey’s performance.

The first half is Marine Corps Boot Camp, and the second half is the characters in South Vietnam. The Marines are there own branch, and I don’t know what chicanery they get up to in boot camp, but it’s an extra month of training. Maybe if I find a Marine, I can ask, but I’m looking in from the outside for now. Being a Vietnam War-era film, it’s quite nuanced in some of the characters, the most famously nuanced character being Private Leonard Lawrence, i.e. Gomer Pyle. Knowing Better said it best when he said that Hollywood influences the military more than the other way around. Gomer Pyle was a satirical TV show from the 1960s, so every character in the film knows who DI Hartman is talking about, compared to my company at basic who might not know the origins of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C…. or funnily enough, Yogi Bear.

It’s a long story. Look up the “Yogi Bear is dead” marching cadence for context.

Other Hollywood characters regularly referenced in the movie is Mickey Mouse. Three little circles printing infinite money that Venezuela and Zimbabwe could’ve used when s[dial tone]t got flipped turned upside down.

For Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence, he’s a character who reflects a controversial policy launched by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Dubbed Project 100,000 or derisively as McNamara’s Morons or Misfits or Folly, the goal of the project was to bring the active duty troop number across the military from five to six figures in an effort to turn the tides of the war in the U.S.’s favor. This meant an aggressive draft that targeted the most disadvantaged in America, most notably those who would’ve suffered physically and/or mentally from training alone, let alone a combat deployment to South Vietnam. These ranged from the nearly mentally retarded to the high school dropouts to the literal illiterates with a 4th grade education.

Pvt. Pyle fits the category of McNamara’s Misfit to a T. He’s quite slow mentally, is about 150 pounds of chewed bubblegum, can barely understand the simplest of instructions until the entire platoon starts paying for his f[Attention!]k ups, and overall brings the platoon down, largely by accident. He struggles, yes, but he does try his best until he suffers a mental breakdown that leads to the death of both Hartman and himself in a murder-suicide.

The movie then cuts to Pvt.’s Cowboy and Joker in Vietnam, but in reality, an investigation would’ve been conducted. Different time or no, it’s not different enough where the service’s law enforcement agency wouldn’t investigate the death of both a drill instructor and a recruit. The predecessor to the modern Naval Criminal Investigative Service (then-called the Naval Investigative Service) would’ve questioned everyone about the incident and possibly divvied up the blame based on hazing. None of those Marines would’ve been sent to Vietnam. If charged and convicted of hazing, that’s turning in the olive greens in favor of prison denim or civilian clothing with barriers to re-entry. That, or barrier to promotion depending on how a JAG officer would like to see things. It does get the McNamara’s Folly part right that mass conscription of those deemed unfit would get mixed results at best. A lesson we swiftly forgot when it came time for the 2007 Iraq War troop surge if accounts from troops of the time are to be believed.

But whatever, Kubrick never served, he just directed the movie. The war part of the war film is something I don’t have experience with and–god-willing–it stays like that, but much of the film is essentially a repetition of the central “war is bad” message seen in insert work of art here. Even Saving Private Ryan is an antiwar movie with three out of four brothers going back in one piece.

I kinda pulled my punches selecting these movies for assessment only because I was sparing myself the disappointment that would come with other war/military movies that would get the military egregiously wrong. Sooner or later, I’ll bite the bullet and bring out the worst military movie I’ll have seen by then. Of the worst, The Hurt Locker is regularly decried and maligned by the veteran community.

I think I’ll watch it to see for myself.

Evan Wright’s Generation Kill

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War journalism brought to life

I’m doing something different this week. It had come to light that the author of the novel Generation Kill, Evan Wright, had taken his life on July 12, 2024 at the age of only 59. I’ll be upfront and say that I lack the expertise to deal with a subject as delicate as suicide and the most I can do for those who’ve fought or are currently fighting those demons is direct them to crisis prevention organizations and hotlines, which I feel would come across as hollow since anyone can do those things.

Instead, I’d like to do something that I think would be more thoughtful and remember Wright by his work, namely the novel that I’d had a lot of time reading and it’s TV miniseries adaptation: Generation Kill.

My introduction to the book was a bit of a cascade. I first heard of it through reviews of the miniseries of the same name, licensed by HBO in 2008. It got a brief mention in Knowing Better’s video on his own service in the U.S. Army, where he said it was as accurate a depiction of the average servicemember as one could get, next to actually signing up.

Channel: Knowing Better

And also a more in-depth review of the series by The Almighty Loli.

Channel: TheAlmightyLoli

Yeah, the subject matter means you’d have to view it on the site. Good viewing if you have 1.5 hours to spare.

To summarize it, Evan Wright was attached to the Marines’ 1st Recon Battalion during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, documenting every single action of the jarheads from actual combat operations to random silliness and off-color conversations carried in their off time. Anyone whose exposure to military operations is limited only to Hollywood would be surprised to learn how juvenile and sophomoric the humor can get, but to circle back to something Knowing Better said in a different video, the military doesn’t influence Hollywood. It’s often the other way around, and this makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Just because you wear camouflage and a helmet doesn’t mean you’re not also a nerd about something. And in my own little circle, the Army’s Signal Corps has a bunch of sci-fi fans interspersed with weebs, two things I happen to be as evidenced by all my blog posts.

I can’t speak for every veteran, but from what I’ve heard and read, military media gets a lot of scrutiny from these groups. Living day-to-day in the military trains you to pick through every detail with a fine-tooth comb, and the small details often make or break a piece of media for a servicemember. There’s a bunch of regulations on how things should look and how to behave or react or respond to fire. No matter the branch, the US military follows the rules of engagement to heart. As a result, there’s loads of ire launched at films like The Hurt Locker whereas In the Army Now, Black Hawk Down, or even Saving Private Ryan get praise not just for the storytelling but the miniscule details that vets and servicemembers would notice from a mile away. A single deviation from the standard tells them all they need to know about how much or how little the producers cared about the subject matter.

Because Evan Wright saw the Marines fight tooth and nail to capture and secure Baghdad, he had earned himself a lot of respect from military vets and the community on a wide scale for sticking his neck out, even if he didn’t have to. That said, war journalism is nothing to scoff at. It’s a serious and dangerous branch of journalism that can and does kill the reporters on scene. In just the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, little more than a dozen war correspondents have come under fire, some of them fatally and more may follow as the conflict progresses. Both sides know who their enemy is, but the tools of war are themselves not loyal to a flag, president, or even constitution. A pen isn’t going to miss you if it gets lost in your house and in a similar vein, a rocket’s area of impact largely depends on the capabilities of the mapper; and even then the enemy isn’t a guaranteed hit. Sometimes friendlies or civilians get caught in the crossfire.

Wright and countless others in his position knew this prior to going into the conflict zone and many more following such examples will take that to heart before stepping off attached to a unit in the field.

It’s worth mentioning that popular as the book was and still is, it wasn’t controversy-free. Some of the Marines at the center of the book faced backlash initially until 1st Recon commanders intervened and advocated for firsthand viewership of the book. A few of those same Marines even helped with the miniseries adaptation in 2008 and starred as themselves in the show during its run. Even now, over a decade and a half later, Generation Kill gets praise for its reporting and up close depiction of the lower enlisted as they were neck deep in the fight between the Iraqi Army, Saddam’s Republican Guard, and the Fedayeen death squads.

Speaking of which, another thing the book and series does well is display the troubles of modern warfare. The early stages of the War on Terror were wrought with controversy and opposition most of which still lives on to this day in the form of popular myths. In the case of the Iraq War specifically, some of those concerns centered around fighting an atypical war against a largely faceless adversary. Loose groups of terror cells in dangerous parts of the world made fighting the war incredibly difficult and complicated with some groups fighting each other and their listed enemies, the West being among them.

Because they were often dressed casually or “plainclothes,” picking apart friend from foe turned into a clusterf[boots stomping]k of massive proportion. The rules of engagement weren’t always applicable to the situation. Common sense isn’t common or even as widely available as we wish it were, that’s why there’ve been travesties, many of which don’t make it to screens and newsprint often until years after the fact, since empathizing with both the warfighters and the victims of oppression is a balancing act. Protesting wars is old — I don’t know how old — but I know that when a line is crossed, the aggravated public gets restless if in a democracy. It might have something to do with war correspondents having widespread freedom of information, but I think it’s safe to say that the public discourse against the military reached its zenith during the Vietnam War.

You may not know it, but this man helped put an end to a war crime… and he was essentially laughed into depressive episodes for “snitching” on his criminal comrades.

Wright’s novel and the miniseries based on it show how complicated even “black-and-white” wars can get. What becomes of the civilians involved? How do you treat non-uniformed combatants? How do you atone for devastating mishaps? Questions and dilemmas like these are what make and break people in war, whether they’re fighting it or just witnessing it. Often, it’s the sword of Damocles problem–the blade changes position with every move a leader makes, and sometimes there are hard logistical choices you have to make in modern wars. Slight spoiler: one scene in the miniseries depicts the Marines deliberating on whether to bring civilians with them, but the idea is (no pun intended) shot down to the dangers of having civilians in tow, as Wright himself could attest. But there were equally bad if not worse consequences for sending them on their way, that being the Fedayeen death squads mowing down suspected traitors of Saddam.

This article on Military.com has more to say about Evan Wright’s professional work away from Generation Kill, but adding to the praise, I like how honest and unjudgmental it is. It gives you as many of the facts as can be recalled while letting the audience see inside the mind of a young Marine ready to let ‘er rip in a combat zone.

Normally, I’d put a link to where the series can be viewed, especially for free, but for once, I won’t be sailing the high seas for this. In fact, for those who are able, I’ll leave a link to the book and if you want to watch the miniseries, it’s still available on HBO if you can afford the cable package or are able to subscribe on the app.

Results on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=generation+kill+book&crid=1OKAPP40AEAOG&sprefix=generation+kill%2Caps%2C91&ref=nb_sb_ss_pltr-data-refreshed_3_15

HBO miniseries: https://www.hbo.com/generation-kill

Evan Wright (1964-2024)

My First Blog Deserves to be Forgotten

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Granted, I’ve grown since, but still

A while ago before stepping off for my new adventures in the Army, I mentioned briefly that I had a blog on Google’s Blogger that ran continuously from February to August of 2021 until a break due to that first attempt at Army life. The summary I made in that little speedrun was that it was crap and should be forgotten at all costs, but in a show of reverse psychology, it’s got me going back to it if only for the sake of this post, and then it’ll be forgotten forever more like the Macarena from the 1990s.

Channel: LosDelRioVEVO

Feeling your age yet, gramps? Well, move aside, we’re peers now.

The origins of the blog were born from a time of both desperation and interest. I had graduated during the emotionally charged year of 2020, a.k.a. the Second Long Hot Summer (after 1967’s many race riots), a.k.a. The Pandemic/COVID-19 Era, a.k.a.; I’ll stop with the references now, I don’t wanna remember that year either.

I may have mentioned it before, but during that year right after I graduated from college and some change during the protests or riots depending on who you were talking to, I decided to phone up an Army National Guard recruiter. Here’s one of the first problems I ran into here: the waiting. Being in the Army now, I understand the concept of “Hurry Up and Wait,” but a civilian attempting to understand the concept with no other point of reference would be left watching and waiting for something amazing to happen.

For reasons that make sense only to recruiters and journalists who focus on the military, the reason for the wait time — at least for recruiting — has to deal with bureaucracy. A bunch of moving parts are considered before a candidate is moved onto the next step, and yes this does include fitness and health. Decades ago, you could be very physically fit with the body of the next super-soldier but unable to join because you had asthma at five. The standards have been reduced since at least 2004 in that specific case, but asthma and other life-altering maladies do require a waiver… which was what kept me from signing the paper and shipping out the same day.

My medical history was far from perfect, but then again, so were a lot of people going into support roles in the Army. Also, before this, there were loads of (now outdated, but still relevant) statistics on obesity rates in the U.S., so how different was I from the average potential recruit?

Still, I was determined to at least try for the Guard that year, but with all that was going on, including my city refusing to let anyone go outside save for emergencies, and there was no chance in hell I was gonna get into the National Guard that year. I didn’t even have faith in my pulmonary functions test until my doctor rang me up and said it was positive.

And I was ecstatic! The one malady that kept me down all my life had been defeated! But by this point I was so disappointed in the recruiting that I tried looking at getting a work in my college major: writing and literature. Impossible? Or just very difficult? Well, up until that point I was so tunnel-visioned that when it came to writing, my original goal of getting published blinded me to other possibilities, both in becoming a published author and wherever else writers could flex their skills.

The difference between traditional or even self-publishing was the barrier to entry. More experienced writers can give me different stories based on their own experience, but being a poor kid with a lot of dreams, the route of manuscript to editor to agent to publisher was more a matter of money than time. I could definitely wait on this; it took me ten years to get the damn thing published. Side note: if you’re wondering why I didn’t like waiting for the recruiter, but had more patience for the manuscript it was because I was more involved with the manuscript considering I was writing it while the National Guard recruiter was more a luck of the draw. I was dying to beat the odds on this one. Part of the reason I wanted to go NG before throwing all my chips in active was to use the cash there to fund this hobby and eventually use the benefits for a VA home loan. Biased opinion or not, I firmly believe a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment is not where a family should be raised.

That excursion with the NG recruiter lasted from August to November of 2020. Between the last correspondence with the guy and the beginning of the first blog, I contemplated learning new skills with the Job Corps, but I blew them off for a bunch of personal reasons, the biggest one being my immediate area. The nicest way I can put it is that there are swaths of the Bronx that remind me of these important lessons from The Boondocks.

Channel: BOKC headhuncho901_

Parodical or not, where I grew up, very few people turned into responsible adults. There were only three things a black or Hispanic (or in my case, both) kid could see in their future: basketball, rap, or drug dealing, a secret fourth outcome, all of these combined. And I wanted more options. The Army would mean saying goodbye to my family to potentially defend the nation from terrorists and/or near-peer adversaries, but I just saw an excuse to see more of the world that I was missing. Remember, poor kid who wants to see the world, but won’t be able to without money for bus, plane, or train tickets.

Writing, on the other hand, was a much slower process that would have me hone my skills for better results, but there’d still be pitfalls all the same. And I’d be ready for what those could look like. That said, more research and patience to know what to expect and possible steps would’ve helped me plenty. Writing is a passion of mine, as these past blogs show. The bull crap I grew up seeing was really tired and really overdone with all these new people showing up in sports and music. Allow me to be the boomer and say that the classics beat these new folks any day.

Tear me off this hill all you want, I’ll never recant this statement!

So yeah, I was concerned about potentially sharing a workspace and probably a dormitory with a bunch of kids who essentially thought the same, spoke the same, and all that. I went to school with people like that; some diversity of thought would be a huge breath of fresh air at least.

I still had my friends from before, but we were all drifting apart over time. Hell, my best friend is a father now, which essentially makes me an uncle. Writing wouldn’t net me any new friends, but it would put some money in my bank account so that I could travel and make friends the old fashioned way.

Or so I thought. Just like this blog, the old one was supposed to be primarily entertainment, but with a larger focus on anime and video games. Somewhere along the way, my time on YouTube bled into the blog posts and s[horse neighing]t went wild. Going off the rails and everything. I’ve been careful to keep my political opinions to myself, but on that other one, it was like watching someone go mad with cabin fever. And this was 2021. We had the vaccine by that point. Maybe the maturity wasn’t there yet. I was only 22 then and at least in this blog, I put some kind of research into my topics instead of just bashing my head on the keyboard like a somehow more inept Invader Zim.

A few months later, I went all in on active duty. I’d spent the last year of high school till that point convincing my mom that the military was a smart decision for me personally, but she had her reasons for imploring me to explore different options, not all of them related to my health. I graduated high school in 2016 at the age of 17. In the U.S. at least, if you’re out of school by 17 and you want to join the military, you need parental consent and my mom was in zero rush to see me in a military uniform at that point. We were also still seeing active combat deployments to Afghanistan and potentially becoming a statistic was completely off the table for her. So it was off to community college for me.

Fast-forward to 2021, and we’re set to leave Afghanistan and transition into a peace-time Army and my mother finally tells me that if I want to I can go active duty Army, so I did. The time between talking with the recruiter literally down the street from me and shipping out was about 3.5 months, enough time for me to scramble my incoherent thoughts in a piss poor blog. I’ve linked to that blog right before I shipped out in January for basic training, but to save you all the trouble, it’s right here again.

Once again, I’d like y’all to be nice. The first attempt is almost always the worst attempt. It’s not like Einstein was born with a brain that big and heavy. Then I started this blog in 2023 after being told by another recruiter that based on my previous performance at Fort Jackson, I wouldn’t have another chance in the Army. But again, my tunnel vision, or rather my determination, kept me from quitting just yet. I’d keep looking for ways to beat the odds.

It still took some doing and a year of mostly sitting at the computer and occasionally jogging wasn’t worth anything. Literally. My folks were wondering why I wouldn’t get even a retail job and my excuse was that even though experience is different from anecdotes, too many retail worker horror stories kept me from taking that plunge. I was desperate for work too, but not that desperate.

A third recruiter bailed on me, leading me to find a remote one on Reddit (beating the odds once again), and in between then and now 2023 was just me filling up this blog with better though still imperfect content. I know I said that I’d like that first blog to be forgotten for good, but as an archive of how I used to think and feel about XYZ, it’s good to have something to remind me of how not to do something. Yay!

I know it’s a month divisible by 2, but this time I wanna try something different. No recommendation this time, but next time I want to see if I can make biweekly recommendations at least until June to get everything back on track. My notes from before still have old dates written on them and they’re pretty much invalid. Once that’s cleared up, then I’m good to give you another YouTuber to eye. Gonna step out into the wider world next time.

Military Novels: A Recent Discovery of Mine

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Practically just started

Before we start, concerning last week’s surprise destruction of The Escapist’s video team, the YouTube channel Clownfish TV (which I’ve recommended before) uploaded a video a few days later that I contemplated dedicating a post to, but ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth it. The minds behind the channel are staunchly independent of any corporate oversight and maintain this position above all else for a better deal in the long-run. The Escapist was bought by a conglomerate which complicated things, and while the team of Kneon and Geeky Sparkles have zero love for dishonest games journalism, part of what motivated a possible post would’ve been to correct the record and clarify what actually went on… or at least I would have.

After sitting back and analyzing what the video concerned, I realized that most of the criticism was elsewhere on The Escapist site and that one’s opinions seldom influence business rules especially from the outside looking in. For me, it didn’t feel like that because the comments section was what got to me.

It’s worth noting that this tends to be the nature of YouTube communities; channels do have their dedicated base and this often leads to biased echo chambers with again very little influence on what goes on in the afflicted realm. Also worth keeping in mind was that reporting on pop culture in any capacity is merely another day in the office for Clownfish TV. Malice can’t be assumed all things considered. As for the community, the one piece of advice that works for me is to get the entire story before judgment is passed. Get all the context and then give your final thoughts.

Now for the real topic I want to write about: military novels. Personally, I’ve never been all that interested in them, and since I’ve been around on r/Army, reading the occasional news stories of controversies surrounding the special forces community in particular, I’ve held a dash of skepticism to go along with what describe as a Heroic Tit-wank in Print form. If you don’t know, special forces like Army Green Berets or Rangers, Navy SEALs, Recon Marines, Air Force Combat Controllers and all of them tend to get the Hollywood treatment more often than not. I’m not saying they don’t deserve the recognition for their sacrifices, their missions, their stories, but they’re not exactly a monolith.

For every Medal of Honor recipient of any capacity like Dan Daly or Ralph Puckett or Alwyn Cashe, there’s also these guys making fools of themselves:

Credit: Getty Images

Credit: Getty Images

Clearly, the worst or more embarrassing stories of the military’s finest aren’t reflective of everyone including the HR folks or the intelligence or signal branches or anyone else who sees it as just another job, but sometimes it gives me pause for thought. As a history buff, I do like military history as well. The Elusive Samurai motivated me to research the Kenmu Restoration and the Ashikaga Shogunate in medieval Japan, for instance, and more than once I’ve done some light research on Civil War battle orders or even the Roman Empire, among numerous other things.

Channel: Metatron

Before even entertaining the idea of the military as a whole, the movies and whatnot all seemed so cool. Call of Duty and Battlefield led the way in cinematic experiences and memorable characters. After watching some more movies, and going to basic training myself, it’s safe to say that if you’ve been in the military — any military — you’re preconceptions are going to be challenged and your newfound knowledge on how things go in the real military will ruin a lot of movies for you.

Prior to shipping, I thought the boot camp portion of Full Metal Jacket was the highlight of that movie, primarily because of the characters: Joker, Pyle, Cowboy, and Gunny Hartman all make that movie, but stepping back from that, it’s divided first into how Marines are trained (sort of), followed by an active combat deployment to South Vietnam. The greatest irony of that movie is that for an anti-war film, so many incoming recruits watch and quote it ad infinitum, and expectedly so. The actors are the highlights of the movie and if it wasn’t for R. Lee Ermey and the jelly doughnut scene, then it probably wouldn’t have the same influence as it does almost 40 years post-release.

In the veteran community, lots and lots of media is heavily scanned and scrutinized based on what we’re all taught in boot camp and when we go off to train for the occupation we chose or have chosen for us based on test scores. This explains why movies like Generation Kill and the Hollywood misfit In The Army Now are more beloved amongst veterans and servicemembers compared to something like Zero Dark Thirty, American Sniper, or The Hurt Locker. Even vets who’ve never deployed to a combat zone (yes, this happens, ask around) will tell you that an overwhelming majority of the time is spent waiting to do something and that something goes by exceptionally fast. Such urgency…

Also, fair warning: the military has a frat house mentality. Keep in mind the ages of the people signing up.

So I’ve been rattling on over about military/war media and the reception based on the community viewing it, but I haven’t mentioned what I’ve been reading. As I said, I hardly ever had an interest, even in passing about these kinds of things, and even over time, now that I’ve been in a military training environment, I trend quite lightly these days. You’re drilled day and night about how to properly wear a uniform and even mishaps in film can get a vet’s dander up more so than stolen valor incidents.

I try my best not to overanalyze this stuff or make a monolith or standard-bearer of military/war media since a lot of it is for the public and like a lot of their real-life units, the special forces movies tend to play by their own rules. My rule for whether I should give something a watch or a read is wide reception. Even if the community hates it, it’s not good to let those opinions overtake or form future opinions on XYZ. But so far I have been enjoying Generation Kill, and I do like Saving Private Ryan and Dunkirk. Some of these I’m introduced to by proxy and they wind up being pretty good.

For Generation Kill, I went for the book first for comparison to the HBO miniseries. Nearly done with the book and the show so I might come back with some final thoughts. And getting back to controversies in the special forces community, there was one book that caught my eye. I don’t remember how I found it, but it’s called Code over Country by Matthew Cole. It’s based on the wide range of corruption and lax oversight within Navy SEAL Team Six. Once I get my hands on the book and get through reading it, I’ll try to make an effort to give my thoughts. Bear in mind, most vets and servicemembers won’t run into anything close to a special forces unit and for security reasons, most of what they do isn’t revealed until after the fact, so corroborating what I hear will have to be done by way of news reports like those featured on Military Times or its branch specific variants.

This post was kind of a misnomer all around, but before I close off, I want to make a case for the manga series Golden Kamuy.

I say this is a military series for a lot of the obvious reasons: veterans of a major war (Russo-Japanese War), active duty soldiers in uniform, commanders doling out orders by their judgment, and more. But it also takes the tropes of traditional westerns like those of the Clint Eastwood or Dances with Wolves variety.

I have a post in the pipeline regarding Golden Kamuy itself so look forward to it in the next few weeks. I’ll elaborate further on my case then.