As a marine infantry platoon sergeant in Vietnam in 1968 - 69, what struck me most about Generation Kill is how little warfare has changed. I don't mean in the technological ways - there has been massive changes there - but in the ways people have remained the same. The same screw ups that resulted in needless killings of civilians and our own troops are still present. The same supply shortages, batteries in Generation Kill; .45 rounds and 40mm flares in Vietnam, are also present. The cowardly and clueless commanders - with paranoia resulting in the undermining of troop morale and the unnecessary killing of noncombatants, or with bravado resulting in military deployments without any objective which caused friendly and noncombatant casualties - are in both. I spent a career in the military, serving also in DESERT STORM, and am both patriotic and pro military (but somewhat anti-war) and have tremendous respect for our troops. But for anyone thinking of going in a combat arm of the military, I strongly encourage watching Generation Kill and Platoon (in my opinion, the most realistic movie of the Vietnam War), to have a context for what to expect.

I did two tours (Army) in Vietnam (67-68 and late 69-70), one as a rifle squad leader and one as a mortar platoon section chief and then 81 mm platoon sergeant. I retired in '96 from the Guard tho my unit was not deployed for Desert Storm (as far as I know, there were no Guard line units deployed). I have not watched Generation Kill and don't know if I will. To some degree, Platoon has some parallels to my own experience tho nothing on the big screen can really be "like" war. I am, like you both patriotic and pro-military but anti-war as well, at least the one in Iraq. Having said that, the things that bother me most about the public's eye view of war is that it is clinical, goes off without a hitch, everybody always has everything they need, civilians only get killed if they're stupid or in cahoots with the enemy (it's never our fault), there are no idiot officers (REMF or otherwise), FUBAR and SNAFU do not exist, everyone is a hero, and no says any four letter words, especially "fuck". It is as if they think a flag goes up, the fully choreographed action starts, all objectives are met quickly, no muss, no fuss, a flag goes down, and everyone goes home to white sheets, A/C, and porcelein. We are in total control of everything, all the time. Just like they see on "24" or "The Unit" or a video game.

Year ago, I lived by the old infantry saw that says "no plan ever survives first contact". Nothing about war is really predictable and no matter how well you plan, how well your guys are trained and equipped, how well they know the "plan", something WILL go wrong.

Maybe this is part of the point of Generation Kill, the attempt to dispel what the public thinks war is "like". Yet, I cannot say what war is "like". I know what it is, or was, for me. And nothing in Generation Kill or Platoon or any other war movie can ever give anyone who has not experienced it a notion of what it was "like". You cannot convey the smells (which stick with me to this day) or the noise or the dirt or the terror or the boredom and loneliness in any meaningful way to anything in civilian life.