Generation Kill

[Apocal]

I don't know of anyone who has warmed up to GK in the USMC. As far as the Marines careers go, unless formal charges were ever pressed, they would not be forced out or get a bad conduct discharge or worse. GK and the book Jarhead are generally loathed and they are pretty much written off as garbage overall.

So the USMC allows admitted disgruntleds and malcontents become staff NCOs or higher? From my interaction with the USMC, I found this to be highly unlikely, but if you say it's true, I certainly have little room to argue otherwise. FWIW my experiences with them, Marines always came off the most uniformly motivated group of servicemen. But I guess war changes things.

[bboyle]

Read "One Bullet Away" by Fick. He backs up the version in Generation Kill to a great degree. I think what's lost in the conversation above that Fick explores is that the unit was profane, skeptical, et cetera but also very professional and capable.

[handihoc]

Fick? As in Lt Nate Fick, in the series???

Ah yes, I've just googled it, and it is he.

[DaveDash]

I understand all movies are going to have to be slightly different than the actual events. Blackhawk Down is a good movie that didn't take away too much from the actual events to make a movie more exciting for 2 hours'ish. Its major change was making things that happened to multiple people happen to a single person.

I watched the DVD version of GK. One of the special features was a discussion with the writer and 5 of the marines. None of the marines disputed the show. Not one of them stepped up and said that anything was mis-represented. If that had been me, I would have been screaming it was wrong and distorted. Thats why I lost respect for them, either they are lying about it happening and making themselves and other vets look like crap, or it really happened and nothing was done about it, which is actually worse, in my opinion.

I am trying to not get sucked into this kind of discussion, but things like this upset me quite a bit, since I spent the better part of my adult life wearing a uniform. The scenerio/campaign game wise would be fun to play.

You can see these intervies on youtube. One of the Marines in the interview did actually critize Evan Wrights portrayal of the officers, saying it was overly harsh, and said for the most part the officers in the USMC were very good.

After watching the series, one thing stuck out for me. They survived the entire campaign in thin skinned HUMMVEEs and suffered a handful of WIA. Try doing that in CMSF.

[JonS]

"US Defence Budget: $664 billion; Ranked 1st in the World

UK Defence Budget: $64 billion; Ranked 3rd in the World (behind US and China"

I think there are some dangers in doing a direct comparison in such terms. Firstly the UK defence budget is currently about £35bn, so the exchange rate needs to be taken into account. Then there is the issue of what is actually included in the figures (e.g. in the UK the cost of war fighting al la Afghanistan is taken from Treasury reserves and not from the defence budget).

Good point. So, let's double, or heck triple the UKs total to take such imponderables into account. Now the US only spends 3-5 times as much as the UK.

A more useful comparison is, perhaps, the percentage of national wealth that each country spends on defence. Even then one might not get a true picture. For example, India spends less than the UK in absolute terms but has much larger armed forces; whether those forces as capable is a moot point (but then quantity has a quality all of its own).

Good point. Oh, if only someone had thought to do such a thing! Oh ... wait

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Hmmm, the Netherlands is a bit odd on that list.

It's 18th on the list of total expenditure, which is higher then I expected.

So with it being a flyspeck country with only 15 mln people I expected it to be very high on the '% of GDP' list. Not so, a very modest 102nd place! Huh!

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Read "One Bullet Away" by Fick. He backs up the version in Generation Kill to a great degree. I think what's lost in the conversation above that Fick explores is that the unit was profane, skeptical, et cetera but also very professional and capable.

While I can't comment on this with great accuracy, I've talked to some Marines who say that Fick's book is also of questionable value. The main example that they gave me related to his deployment in Afghanistan. Fick apparently exaggerated the role of his own unit while downplaying that of the LAR units that actually fought the decisive engagements of that deployment.

I can't back that up, nor am I necessarily arguing one way or another, but I just thought it should be pointed out.

[DaveDash]

Also, If you have read Dan Griego's (Casey Kasem) rebuttle of Generation Kill it's quite convincing. Apparently he's been putting a few videos up on youtube that pretty much go against what was written in the book.

[Squatdog]

Apocal's hysterical rant typifies the very worst of US military's reactionary nature and why they consistently refused to learn from their mistakes over the decades.

"NO...NO...how DARE you question the US military, we are the very bestest in teh hole world!11 Can't hear you....LALALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!1"

The British troops kept Basra effectively pacified while the US forces were lurching from one disaster to the next. They were doing just fine until the British government announced their withdrawal and an opportunistic Mahdi Army renta-mob migrated south from American-occupied Sadr City and Najaf to take advantage of their guarenteed exit.

[DaveDash]

The British troops kept Basra effectively pacified while the US forces were lurching from one disaster to the next. They were doing just fine until the British government announced their withdrawal and an opportunistic Mahdi Army renta-mob migrated south from American-occupied Sadr City and Najaf to take advantage of their guarenteed exit.

I have seen things posted on this very site (A British CO doing a presentation on Basra for example) that indicate the British were NOT 'just fine' in Basra. In fact, they taking an unsustainable rate of casualties. However given the resources they were given by the government they did extremely well considering.

Anyway, this has little to do with this discussion on Generation Kill.

[Vark]

Would it be too much to ask that people did the most basic research before 'spouting off'. The, we are much better than you arguments is juvenile and self-defeating. Both sides soldiers fought professionally, both sides forces made mistakes and broke ROE's, which differed in their detail not their intent. Why try to illicit some illusionary national superiority with their sacrifice?

[daisy]

Would it be too much to ask that people did the most basic research before 'spouting off'. The, we are much better than you arguments is juvenile and self-defeating. Both sides soldiers fought professionally, both sides forces made mistakes and broke ROE's, which differed in their detail not their intent. Why try to illicit some illusionary national superiority with their sacrifice?

Sums it up quite nicely.

[Imperial Grunt]

It wasn't a comment I made with ill will, those that have read it that way may want to control their kneejerk reaction a bit.

All I'm saying is that amidst the compliments for the US military, the pricetag deserves a mention. In the comment that lead to ***** speculation I even gave it the credit of being the best there is. But anyone not concerned at the cost of it in regards to what the US is getting in return, is a damn fool.

The USMC, whom I hold in VERY high regard, are sort of making my point. Being last in line for new equipment (heck, last in line for old equipment) they are probably the finest large fighting force in the world. And that's my point.

US military is awesome. Their funding is awesome², so why are only the Marines awesome²?

I am the first to brag about the Marines, but the Marines are not the end-all-be-all of the US military. The Marines wins battles, the US Army wins wars. The Navy rules the ocean where it goes, the Airforce, the US's truly first responder, dominates the skies. The Navy and the Airforce really soak up that defense budget.

It has been said that the Army is working on being like the Marines and the Marines are working on being more like Special Forces (US Army Special Forces). After OIF, the Army really started to work on that by training all soldiers as basic infantrymen first, just the Marines have done all the time. Setting in an "grunt-first, specialist-second" attitude will help the US Army alot over time and has already in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it will take time for the Army's culture to change across the board, it is a huge institution.

Oh, and that mostest modern nuclear force costs lots too.

[Imperial Grunt]

So the USMC allows admitted disgruntleds and malcontents become staff NCOs or higher? From my interaction with the USMC, I found this to be highly unlikely, but if you say it's true, I certainly have little room to argue otherwise. FWIW my experiences with them, Marines always came off the most uniformly motivated group of servicemen. But I guess war changes things.

To sum it up, yes. Marines and any enlisted service member have to fulfill a contract and the services do not like kicking them out, unless they have too. The Marines has one of the highest rates of kicking out unqualified personnel or those who are charged with breaking regulations/laws. And a commander cannot simply discharge a Marine because he does not like him, as an employer pretty much can in the civilian world.

But a malcontent that does his job competently will continue on. Depending on his reporting senior, the bad attitude may not be even put on paper. But bad seeds usually are the kind of people who are disgruntled no matter what they do in life, so they eventually move on for a greener pasture on the other side of the fence, only to find the grass the same, or worse.

I have plenty of cop partners at work with a "bad attitude" towards their department, even a few that I work with on the SWAT team. But they are all competent and when the call comes, they handle it. They get mediocre to decent ratings, and their careers continue.

During the war, the Marines in my company and battalion became more motivated, if anything. They were doing what they joined the Marine Corps to do. No barracks to clean, no uniform inspections, just field operations.

[Imperial Grunt]

Sums it up quite nicely.

Absolutely concur!

I highly recommend the books "Making the Corps", "Fiasco", and "The Gamble". He is a civilian journalist with a distinguished career and he has covered military operations as a Pentagon reporter for decades.

"Making the Corps" is about his experience with the Marines in Somalia and his following a recruit platoon through bootcamp and their first year. Great book on the USMC, good and bad.

"Fiasco" is about Iraq. An absolutely must read and he details the conflicts between the Pentagon/White House and the senior military leadership. Details the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps as to how the war, and especially the occupation should be run. Details how the occupation plan was "wished away" for the most part. Details how some commanders "got it" when it came to counter-insurgency, and how many did not.

"The Gamble" is also about Iraq. It details the change in strategy under Petraus and how the "awakening". How commander's how didn't "get it" were removed or re-educated. Gen Odierno, the current commander in Iraq is a case in point. During the beginning, as the commander of 4th ID, he did not "get it". But later he had an ephinay and ran a great counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq, under Petraus.

[Imperial Grunt]

Apocal's hysterical rant typifies the very worst of US military's reactionary nature and why they consistently refused to learn from their mistakes over the decades.

"NO...NO...how DARE you question the US military, we are the very bestest in teh hole world!11 Can't hear you....LALALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!1"

The British troops kept Basra effectively pacified while the US forces were lurching from one disaster to the next. They were doing just fine until the British government announced their withdrawal and an opportunistic Mahdi Army renta-mob migrated south from American-occupied Sadr City and Najaf to take advantage of their guarenteed exit.

Lets stop this stuff.

The US military makes mistakes all the time. If you read books about WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Beirut, the Gulf war, Somalia, and Iraq and Afghanistan, there are plenty of examples of how US forces learned from mistakes and admitted they made them. Iraq is a great example. Plenty of mistakes made, but they were learned from and corrections were made. The books "Fiasco" and "The Gamble" detail all of that extremely well.

I read the British officers AAR on Basra. The Brits ran into very similar problems that the Americans did, even without making a lot of the counter-insurgency mistakes that many American units initially did. The Mahdi Army did not leave Baghdad and move down into Basra though. They were already there, but they chose not to resist in mass, until they saw the politics. That was a terrible announcement by the British government. Basra is very close to Iran, so the Brits had to deal with a significant amount of direct Iranian involvement.

Again it is tiring to bicker on "who did better" and what not. There are so many factors that make each battle, every area of operation different.

If you want to believe that GK is an accurate portrayal of US Marines at war, then go ahead. No one on a forum is going to change your mind. But at least compare GK to books like "No True Glory" and "Making the Corps". Compare the author's credentials and the audience to which he services.

A reporter's motto is ‘charm and betray.’

- Evan Wright

[tyrspawn]

I haven't been deployed or served in the military, but I do find a correlation between Generation Kill, the soldier's behavior, and the raw footage coming in from sites like Live Leak. I would not be so bold as to say the American soldiers in Iraq tend to be sociopaths and incompetents as depicted in GK, because i haven't done any heavy research, but it's a little disconcerting when you watch real raw footage of American tankers screaming **** YOU HAJI and running over peoples cars for "fun," or marines shooting people's dogs with M203s and laughing about it or shooting defenseless dudes which have surrendered and are laying on the ground. Seeing that stuff, it's not hard to believe the same guys are capable of hosing entire hamlets off camera (as depicted in GK).

From what I have seen in raw footage from the field.. there appears to be a correlation to what was depicted in GK. Namely, there appears to be a sizable minority of American soldiers who have brutalized and taken advantage of the people they have been tasked with occupying, to say nothing of their crudeness and incompetence in counterinsurgency. This is just what I gleam from watching raw footage taken by the soldiers themselves.

[Squatdog]

I have seen things posted on this very site (A British CO doing a presentation on Basra for example) that indicate the British were NOT 'just fine' in Basra. In fact, they taking an unsustainable rate of casualties. However given the resources they were given by the government they did extremely well considering.

Anyway, this has little to do with this discussion on Generation Kill.

The British forces were taking something like 25 combat fatalities a year from 2004-2006.

This doubled to around 50 in 2007. What happened in 2007? Oh THAT'S RIGHT...

The US military makes mistakes all the time. If you read books about WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Beirut, the Gulf war, Somalia, and Iraq and Afghanistan, there are plenty of examples of how US forces learned from mistakes and admitted they made them. Iraq is a great example. Plenty of mistakes made, but they were learned from and corrections were made. The books "Fiasco" and "The Gamble" detail all of that extremely well.

I have Fiasco in the bookcase next to me and it is fairly scathing regarding how the US military failed to learn from it's mistakes.

Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut, Grenada, Somalia...Iraq.

[GSX]

From what I have seen in raw footage from the field.. there appears to be a correlation to what was depicted in GK. Namely, there appears to be a sizable minority of American soldiers who have brutalized and taken advantage of the people they have been tasked with occupying, to say nothing of their crudeness and incompetence in counterinsurgency. This is just what I gleam from watching raw footage taken by the soldiers themselves.

In defence of the US here, this has happened to all nations forces over the years, from US to Canadians to Dutch and Brits. The nature of infantry means that it often attracts some very disturbed people. We are not all like that though, but admitedly there are always going to be bad elements.

[GSX]

Id like to add here that although I feel I have the right to criticise what US forces do and have experienced some amazingly stupid stuff around them, I feel very comfortable with them and including any Commonwealth force theres no other nations forces I'd rather serve with.

[cabal23]

All this talk of books and movies made me remember my favorite war film in years. It kind of slipped under the radar. Hurt Locker was one of the most realistic and engaging films I have seen in years. Most likely the definitive movie about the Iraq war. I think the IED symbolizes the insurgency well and a movie about a bomb disposal unit was very appropriate. Read Eight Lives Down about British EOD(I swear Hurt Lockers characters were pulled from this book and turned into US soldiers for the movie). Also I really enjoyed Night Stalkers (Michael Durant of BHD fame), and also Roughneck Nine-One. I could go on being a huge modern military historian, but those three are my favorites that I read this year.

[handihoc]

It's interesting that I opened a thread a couple of months ago about The Hurt Locker and Generation Kill, but Moon moved it instantly to the General Discussion forum. It garnered quite a few interesting comments and contributions (many pointing out how unrealistic The Hurt Locker actually is, despite being a hell of a good movie), and how comparatively more real GK is.

This current thread has opened that conversation up much further (even to the point of very strong disagreement between contributors), but it has survived and thrived in this Shock Force forum and not been moved anywhere. I can't help but wonder why.

[Imperial Grunt]

I haven't been deployed or served in the military, but I do find a correlation between Generation Kill, the soldier's behavior, and the raw footage coming in from sites like Live Leak. I would not be so bold as to say the American soldiers in Iraq tend to be sociopaths and incompetents as depicted in GK, because i haven't done any heavy research, but it's a little disconcerting when you watch real raw footage of American tankers screaming **** YOU HAJI and running over peoples cars for "fun," or marines shooting people's dogs with M203s and laughing about it or shooting defenseless dudes which have surrendered and are laying on the ground. Seeing that stuff, it's not hard to believe the same guys are capable of hosing entire hamlets off camera (as depicted in GK).

From what I have seen in raw footage from the field.. there appears to be a correlation to what was depicted in GK. Namely, there appears to be a sizable minority of American soldiers who have brutalized and taken advantage of the people they have been tasked with occupying, to say nothing of their crudeness and incompetence in counterinsurgency. This is just what I gleam from watching raw footage taken by the soldiers themselves.

Most of what you see in a camera film is one perspective from one person, and you are not getting the "whole story". As far as the yelling and the outlet of emotion, they are young soldiers at war, fighting a deadly game. That bravado, "twisted" sense of humor, etc, helps you deal with the stress. Just hang out with some cops or firemen and listen to them talk about stuff. That is, listen to them when there are no civilians around. I have heard Royal Marines talk "trash". Its the same stuff, just different.

As far a "shooting defenseless dudes which have surrendered and are laying on the ground", if you are talking about the video in which the Marine points out a downed insurgent and says that he is playing possum and then he shoots him, you should know the entire circumstances. That downed insurgent was defending a mosque that had been used as a stronghold. That unit has attempted to capture some wounded insurgents the day before and one of them tried to kill all of them with a grenade after playing dead. That Marine was investigated and cleared of all charges. The camera man who filmed the scene knew all of the background, but being someone naive and new to war, he thought it was a criminal act and it had to be released in the name of journalism. In reality he just wanted the popularity and controversy and money at the expense of a 20 year old Marine who had been fighting house to house against a fanatic enemy 24/7 for several days.

I agree that videos of tanks squishing cars are damaging for counter-insurgency purposes. But you should know that they are crushing those cars because they have been ordered too do so for some reason. They shouldn't be crushing cars for no reason and a video like that would get them charged and investigated. The Marine that threw the dead dog over the cliff was also investigated although I do not know the outcome. He probably got some paper and a counseling. If the dog was alive he would have been kicked out.

[Imperial Grunt]

The British forces were taking something like 25 combat fatalities a year from 2004-2006.

This doubled to around 50 in 2007. What happened in 2007? Oh THAT'S RIGHT...

I have Fiasco in the bookcase next to me and it is fairly scathing regarding how the US military failed to learn from it's mistakes.

Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut, Grenada, Somalia...Iraq.

Yes, it fully explains why all the COIN experience gained in Vietnam was lost and how the US military focused on "the big one", which worked great and was vindicated during the Gulf War. But only having the Marine Corps focused on "small wars" is not enough. Especially for an occupation of a country as big as Iraq, while you are also trying to hold Afghanistan.

But if you read "The Gamble" then you would see that lessons were learned and mistakes corrected.

I can list plenty of British "disasters" if you wish.

[tyrspawn]

As far a "shooting defenseless dudes which have surrendered and are laying on the ground", if you are talking about the video in which the Marine points out a downed insurgent and says that he is playing possum and then he shoots him, you should know the entire circumstances. That downed insurgent was defending a mosque that had been used as a stronghold. That unit has attempted to capture some wounded insurgents the day before and one of them tried to kill all of them with a grenade after playing dead. That Marine was investigated and cleared of all charges. The camera man who filmed the scene knew all of the background, but being someone naive and new to war, he thought it was a criminal act and it had to be released in the name of journalism. In reality he just wanted the popularity and controversy and money at the expense of a 20 year old Marine who had been fighting house to house against a fanatic enemy 24/7 for several days.

I am aware that there are often circumstances behind scenes such as that which justify the brutality - but this sort of behavior is endemic. Most of the videos show some degree of war crime or incompetence (the main issues of GK). I have watched hundreds of videos posted by soldiers in an attempt to keep myself educated as to the situation on the ground. Yes, there is probably a majority of servicemen who are honorable, but the minority is so sizable that it defeats everything we are doing over there. Again, I can't say any of this with true solid conviction, because I was never deployed, but it's just what I gleam from the best anecdotal sources available. I'm not watching some "liberal" propaganda reel, but footage from actual soldiers who post it online.