re: Generation Kill - Late to the Party

quote:

---

That may be one of the most worn-out tropes in all of Hollywood: Officers are always clueless and the average enlisted man has the military genius

---

You would be surprised how many completely useless officers and staff NCOs that are clueless, especially magnified on the battlefield.

I was in the Marine RCT traveling with this recon unit and the commander was relived of his command in Nasariyah, which is a pretty big fricking deal.

My second tour, we had a CO sent back to the Air Force Base one month into deployment to push paper. Same with a section commander SSgt after the first day of the first op. It happens so much more than you think. And I can’t imagine how that looks in today’s military in some.

What that said Generation Kill is one of my favorite accounts of war, probably because I experienced it. The hurry up and wait and definitely the first sergeant making sure your facial hair and uniforms were within regs. At one point they started clamping down on length of mustache past the outside of the lips so I slowly started bringing mine in. Eventually I had a pretty incredible Hitler mustache that didn’t go over well when it was seen by higher ups.