Weekend Catchup #3: The Last (Whiskey) Tango In Baghdad
Those of you who've been on my f-list for some time will probably notice that I'm currently arse over teakettle for Generation Kill. This is in no small part thanks to the character of Cpl. Joshua Ray Person, the driver of Two-One Alpha, the lead victor in Bravo Two, played by the one and only James “PJ” Ransone to a pitch perfection that is in no way an attempt to mimic the real Ray Person, thus creating a character that is uniquely his own. I could go on and on about PJ and the many ways I love him and the filthy things I'd like him to do to me in the back of a Humvee but since I'm in a rambly, verbose mood, why not go into lengths about my love for GK and war fandoms as a whole?
When Band of Brothers first came out, it really was the most epic, affecting, soul-shattering experience I'd ever had watching something on the small screen. I was already a World War II enthusiast, reading books about D-Day and military aircraft, watching documentaries and playing games like Call of Duty. I loved Saving Private Ryan, which was probably how my interest in WW2 started, but BoB was really the defining moment for me. Yes, it had explosions and firefights and men in uniforms galore, but it also brought to life the brutal reality of war and the toll it took on the men who fought it. This was something I was always aware of but never really saw until episodes like “Bastogne” and “The Breaking Point” brought it to unflinching life. Archival photographs, history books and words on a page really can't compare to actually watching soldiers diving into hastily-dug foxholes as artillery shells explode overhead. It's heartbreaking, it's terrifying, it's beautiful. I was moved enough to actively participate and write in the BoB fandom up from 2004 - 2005, and BoB remains the fandom where I read stories that were above and beyond anything I'd ever encountered in any fandom before or since.
So why was I late to the Generation Kill party? Well, to put it simply, it's about Iraq. Not exactly the most welcoming of subjects, even though you know HBO would make a damn fine job out of it. I was reluctant to approach any movie, series, or other forms of entertainment that was related to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its subsequent fallout-which continues to this day. I knew HBO wouldn't shy away from portraying it as realistically as they could, the good, bad, and the ugly-but I wasn't sure if I was ready to experience the invasion of Iraq from the invaders' perspective, rich and varied though it may be. The people of Baghdad, after all, are no strangers to me. Most of them are Moslems like myself. Their world, their city, the rhythm of their daily lives, is not that much different from mine. I guess I had grown tired of how Iraq and the Middle East had been depicted in mainstream media up to that point, with even the most well-meaning efforts falling tragically short and the rest of it horribly ignorant. Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Kashmir, names that come up often on news bulletins and panel discussions on terrorism, these are places that I have emotional stake in, whether I choose to acknowledge it or not.
To this day, I still have not watched the last episode of Generation Kill in its entirety. I watched the beginning, some bits in the middle, and the ending sequence. Most of the stuff dealing with the residents of Baghdad, I've had to skip. I concentrated on just watching the character moments, or scenes where they are contained within their own world-the Humvees, the cigarette factory, the abandoned military base. What little of Baghdad I saw reminded me too much of things I see everyday here, in my own city. I watched just long enough to see Nate Fick lose any illusion he might've had that he would be able to make a difference in those people's lives from where he was standing. I couldn't stand the helplessness.
Generation Kill was a difficult watching experience from me, trying not to flinch whenever they said 'Haji' - the only epithet used in the entire series that had any effect on me. None of the sexist, homophobic and racist remarks really bothered me at all-these were Marines, after all. The hypermasculine boys' club of testosterone and automatic weapons, brawling and grappling and telling sordid tales of sexual encounters with Asian prostitutes. Been there, done that.
And then, there was Ray Person.
He's probably one of the most memorable characters HBO has ever brought to life - alongside Omar Little from 'The Wire'. The original Rolling Stone articles had Evan Wright wondering if Ray Person joined the Marine Corps just to show that he could-and to mock it, and that's a great character-defining sentence if ever there was one.
On the screen, PJ Ransone's portrayal of Ray Person may not seem to bring this across at first, but the more he talked, the pottier his mouth got and the more he sullied his MOPP suit with everything from spit to milkshake to Chef Boyardee to careless doses of Ripped Fuel, the more I realized that he probably understood the bigger picture of what was going on better than any of them, at least on the enlisted level. Alexander Skarsgard, on the other hand, provided the perfect bouncing board as the stoic “Iceman” Sgt. Brad Colbert, and I think it was the relationship between these two, more so than the UST (oh you know they TOTALLY played it as UST) between Colbert and Fick, that made Generation Kill an enjoyable experience for me. Brad came off as a classic Marine, competent and calm and observant. He bristled under the stupidity of command as much as anyone, but he knew there was a job to be done and he did it.
I read an article where PJ talked about how the experience of shooting Generation Kill changed the way he looked at the armed forces, at servicemen and the things they did for their country. In some ways, watching Generation Kill has done that for me. I don't agree with the policy behind the invasion of Iraq any more than I did in 2003, but Generation Kill wasn't about WMDs (or lack thereof) or politics or insurgencies, wasn't about Al-Jazeera and Fox News and “shock and awe”. It was about these individuals, Recon Marines, and what they saw and felt and experienced. Evan Wright talked about how his job was to “charm and betray”, to be trusted enough by these men to hear their stories in all honesty, and then to write them as they are-no gloss, no polish. And he respected these men and cared about them, even as they each grappled with the reality of what the invasion was becoming. He had his assignment. They had their orders. They drove, they fired, he wrote it down. In the end, that reality is what made Generation Kill stunning.
If Band of Brothers showed me the human side of an epic global conflict, how soldiers bonded and became brothers in the face of unimaginable conditions, Generation Kill showed me how that same humanity copes in conditions that sometimes demand that it be sacrificed.
It showed me how well-trained, intelligent, highly-skilled people tried to deal with with situations where no amount of combat training, dive training, SERE, parachute training and reconnaissance skill could have prepared them.
It introduced me to people like Rudy Reyes, who to this day loves his Recon brothers with all of his blessed, gentle heart, even if he openly disagrees with the decisions made by America's military command in Iraq from the invasion onwards.
It introduced me to Nate Fick, who became a Marine to experience a world outside books and lecture halls, who (as Stark Sands played him) came to realize that as much as much as he respected and cared for his Marines, ultimately there were other places he needed to be to affect change the way he wanted to.
HBO's impressive track record of top-quality miniseries resumed this year with The Pacific, the counterpart to Band of Brothers and featuring many of the same names behind the scenes. While the nature of how the war unfolded in the PTO meant that there was no way they could make it into the cohesive, unit-focused storyline that BoB was, they still managed a damn fine job of giving us characters we would care, love, loathe, and ultimately weep for. It was a slow start, as I didn't really care about anyone that much when they started fighting in Guadalcanal, but Five and Six have really hammered it home in true Spanks-style, and I believe Seven and Eight will slay me in my seat. We've often heard about how World War II was “the war that had to be fought”. Inevitably, we hear about how the nature of armed conflict today has become increasingly technological and also, strangely enough, intensely territorial, mired in the intricacies of culture, ideology, religion, economy, and media bias.
Gunny Colbert (the real one) spoke about how Iraq was “the most publicised war that nobody really cared about”. I think it's a rather apt description. Bombarded with imagery, newstickers and live satellite reports, we saw everything. I, for one, understood nothing. Did I bother to find out? Hell no. Seeing was already too much. But gradually, and in no small thanks to Generation Kill, I grew to realize that I didn't need to understand the war to respect the courage and camaraderie of warriors.
Wars are fought for all kinds of reasons, Captain “Ack-Ack” Haldane said to Eugene Sledge. Sometimes the cause is clear and just, sometimes it's....not so clear. But the Marines landing on Peleliu and the Recon Marines shooting through the darkness of Muwaffaqiyah have one thing in common. Semper fucking fi. Always faithful. You don't let your brothers down. You don't leave a man behind.
That? That I can always believe in.
ETA: Unlocked because I was told that people might actually want to read this? IDK.
When Band of Brothers first came out, it really was the most epic, affecting, soul-shattering experience I'd ever had watching something on the small screen. I was already a World War II enthusiast, reading books about D-Day and military aircraft, watching documentaries and playing games like Call of Duty. I loved Saving Private Ryan, which was probably how my interest in WW2 started, but BoB was really the defining moment for me. Yes, it had explosions and firefights and men in uniforms galore, but it also brought to life the brutal reality of war and the toll it took on the men who fought it. This was something I was always aware of but never really saw until episodes like “Bastogne” and “The Breaking Point” brought it to unflinching life. Archival photographs, history books and words on a page really can't compare to actually watching soldiers diving into hastily-dug foxholes as artillery shells explode overhead. It's heartbreaking, it's terrifying, it's beautiful. I was moved enough to actively participate and write in the BoB fandom up from 2004 - 2005, and BoB remains the fandom where I read stories that were above and beyond anything I'd ever encountered in any fandom before or since.
So why was I late to the Generation Kill party? Well, to put it simply, it's about Iraq. Not exactly the most welcoming of subjects, even though you know HBO would make a damn fine job out of it. I was reluctant to approach any movie, series, or other forms of entertainment that was related to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its subsequent fallout-which continues to this day. I knew HBO wouldn't shy away from portraying it as realistically as they could, the good, bad, and the ugly-but I wasn't sure if I was ready to experience the invasion of Iraq from the invaders' perspective, rich and varied though it may be. The people of Baghdad, after all, are no strangers to me. Most of them are Moslems like myself. Their world, their city, the rhythm of their daily lives, is not that much different from mine. I guess I had grown tired of how Iraq and the Middle East had been depicted in mainstream media up to that point, with even the most well-meaning efforts falling tragically short and the rest of it horribly ignorant. Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Kashmir, names that come up often on news bulletins and panel discussions on terrorism, these are places that I have emotional stake in, whether I choose to acknowledge it or not.
To this day, I still have not watched the last episode of Generation Kill in its entirety. I watched the beginning, some bits in the middle, and the ending sequence. Most of the stuff dealing with the residents of Baghdad, I've had to skip. I concentrated on just watching the character moments, or scenes where they are contained within their own world-the Humvees, the cigarette factory, the abandoned military base. What little of Baghdad I saw reminded me too much of things I see everyday here, in my own city. I watched just long enough to see Nate Fick lose any illusion he might've had that he would be able to make a difference in those people's lives from where he was standing. I couldn't stand the helplessness.
Generation Kill was a difficult watching experience from me, trying not to flinch whenever they said 'Haji' - the only epithet used in the entire series that had any effect on me. None of the sexist, homophobic and racist remarks really bothered me at all-these were Marines, after all. The hypermasculine boys' club of testosterone and automatic weapons, brawling and grappling and telling sordid tales of sexual encounters with Asian prostitutes. Been there, done that.
And then, there was Ray Person.
He's probably one of the most memorable characters HBO has ever brought to life - alongside Omar Little from 'The Wire'. The original Rolling Stone articles had Evan Wright wondering if Ray Person joined the Marine Corps just to show that he could-and to mock it, and that's a great character-defining sentence if ever there was one.
On the screen, PJ Ransone's portrayal of Ray Person may not seem to bring this across at first, but the more he talked, the pottier his mouth got and the more he sullied his MOPP suit with everything from spit to milkshake to Chef Boyardee to careless doses of Ripped Fuel, the more I realized that he probably understood the bigger picture of what was going on better than any of them, at least on the enlisted level. Alexander Skarsgard, on the other hand, provided the perfect bouncing board as the stoic “Iceman” Sgt. Brad Colbert, and I think it was the relationship between these two, more so than the UST (oh you know they TOTALLY played it as UST) between Colbert and Fick, that made Generation Kill an enjoyable experience for me. Brad came off as a classic Marine, competent and calm and observant. He bristled under the stupidity of command as much as anyone, but he knew there was a job to be done and he did it.
I read an article where PJ talked about how the experience of shooting Generation Kill changed the way he looked at the armed forces, at servicemen and the things they did for their country. In some ways, watching Generation Kill has done that for me. I don't agree with the policy behind the invasion of Iraq any more than I did in 2003, but Generation Kill wasn't about WMDs (or lack thereof) or politics or insurgencies, wasn't about Al-Jazeera and Fox News and “shock and awe”. It was about these individuals, Recon Marines, and what they saw and felt and experienced. Evan Wright talked about how his job was to “charm and betray”, to be trusted enough by these men to hear their stories in all honesty, and then to write them as they are-no gloss, no polish. And he respected these men and cared about them, even as they each grappled with the reality of what the invasion was becoming. He had his assignment. They had their orders. They drove, they fired, he wrote it down. In the end, that reality is what made Generation Kill stunning.
If Band of Brothers showed me the human side of an epic global conflict, how soldiers bonded and became brothers in the face of unimaginable conditions, Generation Kill showed me how that same humanity copes in conditions that sometimes demand that it be sacrificed.
It showed me how well-trained, intelligent, highly-skilled people tried to deal with with situations where no amount of combat training, dive training, SERE, parachute training and reconnaissance skill could have prepared them.
It introduced me to people like Rudy Reyes, who to this day loves his Recon brothers with all of his blessed, gentle heart, even if he openly disagrees with the decisions made by America's military command in Iraq from the invasion onwards.
It introduced me to Nate Fick, who became a Marine to experience a world outside books and lecture halls, who (as Stark Sands played him) came to realize that as much as much as he respected and cared for his Marines, ultimately there were other places he needed to be to affect change the way he wanted to.
HBO's impressive track record of top-quality miniseries resumed this year with The Pacific, the counterpart to Band of Brothers and featuring many of the same names behind the scenes. While the nature of how the war unfolded in the PTO meant that there was no way they could make it into the cohesive, unit-focused storyline that BoB was, they still managed a damn fine job of giving us characters we would care, love, loathe, and ultimately weep for. It was a slow start, as I didn't really care about anyone that much when they started fighting in Guadalcanal, but Five and Six have really hammered it home in true Spanks-style, and I believe Seven and Eight will slay me in my seat. We've often heard about how World War II was “the war that had to be fought”. Inevitably, we hear about how the nature of armed conflict today has become increasingly technological and also, strangely enough, intensely territorial, mired in the intricacies of culture, ideology, religion, economy, and media bias.
Gunny Colbert (the real one) spoke about how Iraq was “the most publicised war that nobody really cared about”. I think it's a rather apt description. Bombarded with imagery, newstickers and live satellite reports, we saw everything. I, for one, understood nothing. Did I bother to find out? Hell no. Seeing was already too much. But gradually, and in no small thanks to Generation Kill, I grew to realize that I didn't need to understand the war to respect the courage and camaraderie of warriors.
Wars are fought for all kinds of reasons, Captain “Ack-Ack” Haldane said to Eugene Sledge. Sometimes the cause is clear and just, sometimes it's....not so clear. But the Marines landing on Peleliu and the Recon Marines shooting through the darkness of Muwaffaqiyah have one thing in common. Semper fucking fi. Always faithful. You don't let your brothers down. You don't leave a man behind.
That? That I can always believe in.
ETA: Unlocked because I was told that people might actually want to read this? IDK.