What’s everyone’s opinion on Generation Kill?

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I always thought Skarsgaard would blow up back then between this and True Blood but he never really did.

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I mean he’s pretty damn successful

I liked it. Of course it's not Band of Brothers or Pacific, but it was still good. I give it about a 6.5/10

I have watched the series twice in my lifetime.

It was a solid enough series to kill time with, but nothing I would recommend as must watch TV.

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This is how you know it's a shitty hack job of an effort. This worn out trope should have died with the Vietnam War. But no, Hollywood just won't let it die.

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Err... I hate to tell you this but its based on a book by a reporter embedded in the unit and the actual Marines have gone on record agreeing with him about how poor some of their commanders were.

Some people, officers and enlisted, are perfectly fine during peace time but completely fall apart in a combat zone. Conversely some are jokes during peace time but turn out to be wonderful in combat.

As for the Marines enlisted being not very bright, Marine Recon units are considered the best of the best in the Marine Corps.

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So it was acceptable to you for Band of Brothers to show officer incompetence?

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That was ok because everyone knows Ross Geller is an a-hole.

From personal experience, I find the series to be fairly accurate. Admittedly I haven’t seen it since it first came out.

I know in this country we typically have a high reverence for our military, but the population mimics the general population. Sometimes you’ll see virtuosos in the lower enlisted ranks. And you’ll see super incompetency in the officer ranks. As a former enlisted, I’ve seen my fair share. In fact, we had a “Captain America” on our second deployment, so named because of this series.

I’ll rewatch soon and come back with some insight on the accuracy. However, Marine Recon was usually at the tip of the spear of Marine forces moving north and as a unit were exemplary at least from my seat. But as within even the most elite units, there are frick ups.

My quick anecdote. I was an AAV driver in the invasion force. The initial push into Irag was like a 48 hour start and stop road/desert march. Anyway, when we finally stopped for six hours or so to regroup around this highway interchange all our vehicles facing outboard. I took an empty ammo box a couple hundred feet behind my vehicle to take a shite. Around the corner comes a group of officers shuffling behind an older officer. As he got closer, I realized it was Gen. Mattis, made eye contact. Had a shitty decision to make, ignore him or stand up as he and the butter bars passed. I decided to stand up, Maxim in my hand, pants around my ankles, dick hanging out. Good morning gentlemen. Mattis looked at me then down at my wang back at me smiled and said, “It ain’t that cold out here” as he walked by. The first sgt from the grunts that we were lifting who saw the interaction waited until Mattis was out of earshot. He proceeded to ream me a new one of all things about not shaving. After he was done, I just sat back down and finished my shite in Iraq. Such simpler days really.

I felt really guilty about how hard I laughed at the first few episodes. The gallows humor had the ring of authenticity though. At least to my civilian ear.

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IMO started out like a house a fire and ended up dragging like a snail.

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So like the war in Iraq?

I didn't enjoy it all that much when it came out, but I watched it about 10 years later and really enjoyed it. I guess I was expecting an action-packed series the first go-around. Knowing what I was getting in to the second time around I enjoyed it a lot more.

The majority of officers in Band of Brothers was completely incompetent? You watched a vastly different series than I did.