Generation Kill

[bourbon]

For what it's worth, I found Fick's book much better than Wright's, I didn't even finish the latter because I thought the writing was so bad, only other book I can ever remember doing that with was DaVinci Code. I'd say if you want to read one after watching the series go with Fick's.

I agree that One Bullet Away is the better book, they do however compliment each other well. Generation Kill covering the nitty-gritty grunts eye perspective, and One Bullet Away on a another level.
Heh, I've heard Salman Rushdie in a speech once say something along the lines of: "You know normally I am against assassinating writers because of their novels, but after reading the DaVinci Code...."

During the initial training range sequence, the radio traffic between the FAC and aircraft was pretty damn realistic. The terminology all seems to be spot on as well.

My understanding is that they tried to incorporate as much of the battalions recorded radio traffic as possible into the series. Also several members of the platoon served as technical advisers in the making of it, and did their best to make sure the terminology was nailed down.

As far as the racism, the book featured a Latino Marine who believed he was fighting for the evil white government, and yet good-naturedly traded "spic" and "nigger" epithets with other troops in the platoon.

This is the guy who was a repo man in south central LA right? And he kept getting shot at in his job repossessing cars that he figured he might as well join the Corps. Isn't he also part Native American? I know one of the guys is, they have one of the more memorable quotes in the book about the shame of watching Pocahontas with his daughter.

My pacifist lefty German mother started watching the series though, I'd have to think if you can get someone like that to watch a relatively sympathetic portrayal of the military, it makes up for some of the negligence of the media in covering the wars now (way more Britney on the news than Afghanistan, etc.).

I was in the book store yesterday, the book has been re-released with a new afterward, I read it. Wright says that when the book first came out, there was a quote in it from a Marine, that said combat was like playing Grand Theft Auto. This particular quote was cited often as an example of how today's youth cannot distinguish between reality and video games.
In the time since the book was published, Wright realized that this was more indicative of the nationsinability to distinguish between the realities of war, and the fantasies of media and video games. Rather than this particular Marines inability to do so. I thought this was particularly sharp.

[Noble Industries]

I was in the book store yesterday, the book has been re-released with a new afterward, I read it. Wright says that when the book first came out, there was a quote in it from a Marine, that said combat was like playing Grand Theft Auto. This particular quote was cited often as an example of how today's youth cannot distinguish between reality and video games.
In the time since the book was published, Wright realized that this was more indicative of the nationsinability to distinguish between the realities of war, and the fantasies of media and video games. Rather than this particular Marines inability to do so. I thought this was particularly sharp.[/QUOTE]


As someone who is just trailing out of being classed as youth this is something I can identify with. Will not military myself I remain close to some who serve in Australia’s defence force. The comparison between video games an actual combat seems to be valid. Perhaps it is the desensitisation of the current crop of young adults populating the armed services or something larger. Once you have become accustomed to eyeballing a target through a scope and putting rounds into him, then to transfer that experience to combat may not be to far fetched. Video games as training methods are becoming more main stream.