Day late and dollar short

Well man, the story was from 2003, so you kind of know what to expect anyway. Same thing with the Band of Brothers, you know we won the war, but you can still watch it.

For me, what never gets old is the dialogue, the camaraderie, the grunt point of view and the authenticity of it. I was a Navy man, separated in 07, so its been awhile for me. But I do remember an E1 and questioning and talking sh!t about everyone else who was above me, and thinking they were all retards :)

Some things never change though, you know, the banter, the hurry up and waits, the officers trying to make a name for themselves and so on. You might watch this again after you get out of the military and realize how much you miss it.

The events from the miniseries and the book happened almost 10 years ago, and at the time there was no "good vs evil" story to tell in any good way.

I found this series very easy to watch (multiple times). True there are slower episodes than others, but all in all I found new things on different veiwings.

Maybe your perspective is skewed by your branch where your enemy is dry pixels on a distant screen vs enemy you can see and touch that more traditional ground force branches of Army and Marine experience.

As a line medic in the army, I laughed at the SGM rallying the troops via minutia, related to the bull *beep* of long road trips on convoy, and the various combat acheivements (combat squat, jacks etc...)

I really loved this series (and the book) because it was such a close and "real" look at the life and work of these marines (and by extension, the entire military). In the interest of full disclosure, I am female and outside the viewer demographic for this series. Nevertheless, it effected me greatly. It helped me to see what war is really like--mostly waiting around followed by horrible, adrenaline-spiking terror and confusion. Talking sh!t about other people and messing around because you're bored and/or stressed out. Depending on your fellow marine/soldier/airman/sailor and him depending on you. All of you having each others' backs and understanding each other in a way no one else can. Honestly, and this may sound odd, it gave me hope and often it touched me profoundly--in a way no other military film/series ever has. It was real. Or at least as real as it can get. It was Wright's intention to bring that reality to the American public and to be as scrupulously honest and unbiased as a human can be. Of course no human can be, but Wright has a special talent for searching out the truth, even when it is personally painful. He is a very honest writer--and one who calls himself on his own mistakes. I think this is part of how he came to be respected by 1st recon. Another big part of this series is that is fleshes out what is the nature of war--and that is wanton destruction that tragically includes the destruction of more and more civilians with each war. right and wrong are grappled with heavily in the book--and by some of the marines.

I have to disagree about WWII. WWII was modern warfare, one of the hallmarks being gigantic casualty rates for civilians. It wasn't as black and white as we think, or at least as it has been presented to us in film, etc. There was some truly wicked crap going on in WWII on both sides. Why? It's the nature of war. This is what GK helped me understand--that all generations of soldiers are, in essence, the same people. They'd all understand each other--they're the same guys in different wars. Sure, WWII was much more a "freedom vs. tyranny" war (and as such the only war of the 20th century, IMHO, that needed to be fought by the US) and that was much more black and white. But when the question of war is NOT freedom being threatened that direly by a true foe on the same footing as you, the war is not justifiable. Why? the loss of civilian life will never be reconcilable with the gain. Of what? Regime change? Oil fields? Strategic position? Sheer greed? All of it is folly. That we have lost such great men and women to such folly is unbelievable to me--but I would never call their sacrifices a waste. because those men and women would've fought the same as the WWII generation. they fought for their country because they believed in it--even as it betrayed them. this makes them truly great people and I feel lucky to have them as defenders. I am honored by that. But I feel nothing but shame at my government for its disgusting exploitation of a great military force which consists of my fellow citizens. Nor do I forgive the American people of 2002/3, who lay down and accepted war as an answer largely without even questioning the reason or the cost. As Wright said, correctly, "we misuse [the military] at our own peril." And we misuse our military whenever we send them into war with no exit strategy, no real planning and no way to have as much a stake as the inhabitants of the country they invade (see Vietnam). We send them in expecting them to win when they have been set up to fail. The government will not stop doing this--it's up to us, the American people, to care enough about these men and women to tell the President (whichever one) and Congress, "Absolutely not--it's not worth the life of one American soldier."

Chairforce knew the ending in advance because he watched CNN? Shocker.

Everything about this show speaks to Marines and Soldiers that served in a combat MOS. I watched this series AFTER I got out of the service and it was a very emotional experience for me. This is hands down the most realistic you can get without just showing unedited war footage. All the supply problems, morale issues, incompetent officers and crazy retard privates. All of it is 100% accurate. I swear I've had some of those exact same conversation while spending endless hours rolling around the desert in, you guessed it, a soft top HMMWV.

You mentioned ROE's and good vs evil....I believe you have totally missed the point of this series. It is an insight on the culture and the struggle of the common Soldier in the chaos of war. There is no right/wrong, good/evil just a series of challenges, choices and hard decisions that must be made by men under extreme physical and emotional stress.

...the funny thing is while I watched the series about 5 years after it was shown on television, and maybe around a decade or so after the start of the second Iraq invasion, I still found the series engrossing. Much of it has to do with the story being told, but I also found it fascinating looking back at the start of the invasion with the knowledge of what occurs, at least broadly, after the series ended. Some of the dialogue between Fick and Colbert foresee the sectarian violence that would occur, and the moment when they discover the passport of a Syrian amongst the dead in the firefight at the bridge portends to the influx of foreign fighters, such as Al Qaeda, that would make up the insurgency. A couple of moments near the end, when Fick comes out with a list of needs from the Iraqis, hints at the counter-insurgency strategy that would be adopted later.

Like many have mentioned, David Simon and Ed Burns don't really do "good over evil" stories. Similar to "The Wire", the conflict and tension can come from those within the Marine Corps (such as "Captain America"), and their own internal struggles regarding civilian deaths, as well as the external Baathist loyalists / insurgents.