Posted on 08/03/2005 7:03:00 PM PDT by tgslTakoma
FX's new drama OVER THERE about an Army unit in Iraq is well produced and visually arresting but takes a sharp left turn from reality.
After watching the Pilot episode of 'Over There,' I conclude that the only thing they got right were the uniforms which, right down to the black socks used to cover goggles, were spot on.
Unfortunately, the costume designer is the only person who seems to have actually studied the war, pictures of the war or video of the war.
As someone who has been over there it was easy to see that if Steven Bochco hired a military consultant, he didn't pay attention to him or, if they did listen to him, that consultant should be fired.
In Bochco's depiction of the war, the tactics are wrong, the dialogue is wrong, the set-ups are wrong and the scenarios are ridiculous.
THE SCENARIO
In the pilot episode of 'Over There,' the heroes of the show, an Army squad/fire team is holding the cordon around a mosque while the brass negotiates with the terrorists inside. The reason for the negotiation is because an Al Jazeera reporter is inside the mosque with the terrorists and is broadcasting live over an Inmarsat system.
The grizzled leader of our heroes, Sgt. 'Scream', complains that they are stuck there holding the cordon so some stupid general 75 miles away can look good on TV. And so the soldiers hunker down for a 36 hour siege while the brass in Baghdad cow-tow to the Mainstream Media and negotiate with the terrorists.
In the real war, the commanders on the ground would have returned fire and shot the building full of holes before anyone watching Al Jazeera on the satellite in Baghdad could figure out what was going on.
In the real war, as evidenced by Fallujah and other cities, the mosque would have been shot up and probably destroyed. The following day, the media would be grilling the generals about how they killed an Al Jazeera reporter and destroyed a mosque. The media would complain loudly, the Arab media would scream bloody murder and the anti-war left would demand that Sgt. 'Scream' and the fire team be investigated for war crimes because they killed terrorists who were offering to surrender.
That is what would happen in the real war.
But 'Over There' is a Hollywood production being filmed in the Mojave Desert and in drama, and the heroes have to be right and vindicated. But showing the reality war and how the media operates in war is not what Hollywood wants.
To show that the soldiers and commanders on the ground made the right decision would make the MSM and the anti-war left look bad and Hollywood will not allow the press to look bad. But the writers don't seem that interested in reality, so they create an internal double standard. The heroes, the troops who everyone supports, are being put at risk by some fictitious general who is worried about how the media will portray the fire fight.
The picture being presented to the viewers is of a bumbling self absorbed general who has no idea what it is really like outside the wire. But in reality, the media and Hollywood would have blistered the general for attacking the mosque while the reporter and terrorist leader were offering to surrender.
This double standard can only be achieved by ignoring reality. The writers and producers of 'Over There' set a pattern of ignoring reality so they can have it both ways, and thus the whole production takes a sharp left turn from the real world and slips into fantasy, turning it into a Catch-22 for the military--the real news media will condemn you for taking swift military action in Iraq, while Hollywood will condemn you in fiction for not taking swift and decisive action.
The only part of the scenario they did get right was near the end of the mosque scene. The firefight is over, the bodies being bagged up, the detainees are being flex cuffed and the Al Jazeera reporter is yelling, "But the agreement was I could go to Abu Ghraib with him."
The Company Commander coolly replies, "The agreement was that he would surrender. He didn't surrender, he attacked."
We all know what would happen in the real war. Despite the facts, the Al Jazeera reporter and the media would portray it as the Soldiers violating the surrender agreement. Any statement from the Military would be treated as suspect by the media and the anti-war left.
[Note: Al Jazeera has been kicked out of Iraq indefinitely by the Iraqi government.]
THE TACTICS OF HOLLYWOOD
The scenario above could and does happen, but after that, the script takes the aforementioned sharp left turn from reality.
In the real war, if a group of Soldiers or Marines take fire from a building, that building may not be standing for very long, no matter if the building is a mosque or has an Al Jazeera reporter in it.
As the residents of Fallujah will attest to, when the Jihadists desecrate a Mosque by using it for military purposes, the military will hit that mosque like any other building with as much fire power as it takes.
If the stand off firefight lasted more than a few minutes, there would be artillery raining down on the buildings, a tank would blast it with its main gun, other armored vehicles would punch holes in it with .50 caliber machine guns, grunts would launch AT-4 rounds, SMAWs would crack the walls and foundation, M-203 grenades would rain down on the exposed areas and, if my good friends from Silver Platoon were near by, some TOW Missiles would knock the walls down with explosions so loud everyone inside the building would be deaf.
If there is a short round of fire, then it ceases, the buildings will be assaulted by the grunts. [If you want to see what it really looks like, watch this video I filmed in Iraq.]
Despite the complete unreality of not obliterating the building, in the fake war on FX, there is only one fire team of grunts and two female Motor Transport soldiers as the base of fire to hold the cordon around the mosque.
The standoff appears to last almost 36 hours, complete with negotiations with the terrorists inside the mosque. If something dragged on that long, the two female Motor Transport soldiers would be relieved and resume their normal duties with their logistics unit, and a whole company of grunts would be called in to form an 'L' cordon around the building where every perimeter side could be covered with direct fire.
The L cordon would consist of flat foot grunts, Humvees with heavy guns and probably some armor.
In a high profile situation, as depicted in 'Over There,' Apache gun ships would be on station and jets on station as well.
In the fake war on FX, a high-tech communications unit is brought in to transmit the negotiations. In the real war, this would result in a secure coil/compound being set up. With the addition of another Platoon sized element and possibly an outer cordon.
In the real war, one, five-man fire team would not be the only grunts on the scene. A fire team may be in an area off on their own for a while, but once the bullets started flying, every swinging soldier in the area would be converging on the action.(1)
In the FX war, the soldiers are given orders to advance towards the building. So, in keeping with the 'reality' of this 'gripping' drama, they all stand up on-line and walk towards the building. Wrong.
A fire team advancing over open terrain towards a building they took fire from would be in 10 yards sprints, one team member at a time.
Finally, there is the shoot-out. The terrorists rush out of the buildings in a mob and the Hollywood tacticians have members of the fire-team rush at them as if recreating a scene from Braveheart.
In real life, the grunts would just sit back and pick the terrorists off. But, evidently that isn't dramatic enough for FX.
THE DIALOGUE
While nicknames may be more common among grunts in Iraq than in the normal population, they are not ubiquitous.
Soldiers and Marines, when in the shit, call each other by their last names.
Out of the 40 Marines in Silver Platoon, the unit I spent three months with in Iraq, only a handful had nick names and they were only used when the Marines were joking around.
Occasionally last names would be shortened, i.e. Nawrocki became 'Rocky,' but Lance Corporal Bobby 'Steak' Christopher, was usually called 'Chris.' I never once heard Sgt. Huber tell 'ABM' to cover the back while 'The Jorn-Star' and 'Hot Schlau' went up the stairs.
Beyond the inanity of omni-present nick names, I have never heard grunts talk the way the actors do. If the real grunts I spent time with in Fallujah spoke like that, I would only need 40 hours of tape to make a four hour documentary instead of 120.
THE SET UP
In FX's version of the war, everyone 'winds up' in the military because of a hard luck situation and just seems to have been thrown together in Iraq.
Wrong.
Pvt. Bo Rider is a football hero who got a partial scholarship to Texas A&M, but couldn't afford the rest of the costs, so joined the Army for the G.I. Bill. If he was good enough to even get a partial scholarship to an NCAA Division I powerhouse like A&M, he could have gotten a full scholarship and probably started at the University of North Texas or Blinn College.
Pvt. Frank 'Dim' Dumphy, a graduate of Cornell, who for some reason that isn't explained, wound up as an enlisted grunt. If a soldier has the brain power to get into Cornell, he would have an ASVAB score that would put him in the Defense Language Institute, the Defense Information School or anywhere but flat footing around Iraq--unless he specifically volunteered for infantry as background to write the great American novel.
Pvt. Avery 'Angel' King, an intelligent and handsome African American from Arkansas, joined the Army after failing to get a spot on an international choir. He couldn't handle going back home after being a failure, so he runs off and joins the Army. Though this is plausible, there aren't that many African Americans in the infantry. Most young black men that join the military avoid the infantry and take jobs that require technical training.
Pvt. Maurice 'Smoke' Williams is from the mean streets of Compton. I'll forgive the cliché, but here again, most of the African Americans in the military are not in the infantry. Smoke, so nicknamed for his frequent use of cannabis while in uniform and on base, doesn't care much for the Army. If someone smoked that much weed, his main talent would be avoiding detection on urinalysis.
Pfc. Esmerlda 'Doublewide' Del Rio is one of the females who is in a Motor Transport unit, but somehow always seems to find herself in the thick of the action. Although there are female soldiers who do get outside the wire as truck drivers, or in civil affairs units, they are very rare in Iraq.
Pvt. Brenda "Mrs. B" Mitchell is the flaky one. She is also in a Motor Transport unit, but is always there when the shit goes down. Her back story isn't given, but she is from a small town in Kansas. I'm positive the back story will be that she got suckered into the Army because there were no other alternatives.
In reality, most grunts, especially in the Marine Corps, are white and come from middle to upper-middle class homes. About half went to college for a year, but were bored and restless and wanted to do something real. About half the grunts I lived with joined up specifically to go fight the war.
But the Privates 'Over There,' who would only have been in the military less than two years, joined up without realized there was a war going on.
The rest of the errors in the set up are forgivable.
In FX's version, the members of the fire team really don't know each other that well. In reality, the fire team would have gone through their pre-deployment training together, would have spent time partying, goofing off and just plain hanging around for several weeks. They would know each other well, and would have shared a few bonding adventures of mischief before deploying to Iraq.
In Iraq, individual replacements are pretty rare. Whole units replace each other.
The fire team featured in "Over There' would have traveled to Iraq with their entire battalion. Their Platoon Commander and Company Commander would not be a mystery to them and I sincerely doubt they would pick up their fire team leader/squad leader in Iraq. There would be another NCO in the battalion that would have been assigned to them.
The set-up is as wrong as the scenarios, tactics and dialogue.
NOT EVEN CLOSE TO OVER THERE
The writers and producers of 'Over There' would have been well served by actually setting foot in Iraq for a few weeks to live and travel with real grunts. It is obvious they didn't and obvious the former grunt they hired as a consultant was only allowed input on the uniforms.
By ignoring reality, they discredit their attempt to create a gripping drama. The reality of the war in Iraq is more compelling and more dramatic than any hollow Hollywood fiction.
Watching the show only reinforced that my decision to go to Iraq to film real grunts in real scenarios was necessary--Hollywood and the left will never tell the true story.
If you want to see what it is really like 'Over There' and see and hear real infantrymen, go the to the video clips section of this site or take a look at the documentary we are producing that was actually filmed 'Over There.'
The writer, JD Johannes had been out of the Marines for almost 6 years, working in television, radio and politics -- jobs owed to the training received at the Defense Information School, and to the experience as a combat cameraman for the Marine Corps.
JD would go to Iraq as an embedded reporter with a Platoon from his old unit—the 24th Marine Reserve Regiment--shoot video of the Marines in action, interview them, and observe first hand to provide a view of what it is like for Marine Infantry Platoon in Iraq, instead of the daily car bombing or weekly kidnapping seen on the Network News. JD's reports were syndicated to local television stations in Kansas and Missouri.
Staff Sergeant Pollock, Staff Sergeant Rider and Gunnery Sergeant Tomileri were interviewed and video was taken of them leaving Kansas City for Camp Lejeune North Carolina for a Demo-Reel and as part of the process of becoming an embedded reporter.
In March, JD flew out to Camp Lejeune, met up with the Platoon and began the project in ernest. He was with them until the beginning of June and will return to them in the beginning of July.
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The blog is pretty good, and there are some short videos of some of the Marines in the platoon that Johannes was embedded with. He's also working on putting his footage together into a documentary to be aired on (hold onto your hats, folks) a Kansas public television station.
Anyway, I liked Johannes' writing style and thought I'd share it with folks at FR. Check out the website for more video, photos and trailers for the documentary.
Last night, Over There, pushed my new favorite show- Rescue Me back an hour. Had to stay up until midnight. I didn't bother to watch Over There.
Who knows...maybe I'll make a parody of it.
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Just for the LOVE of it:
Hit: 'posted by ALOHA RONNIE' -Here
Hit: 'Links' -There
I only lasted 5 minues on the first night .. can't figure out how a person can produce a series on the war when he's never been "over there" to see what the real war is like.
The title of the series says it all: Over There, meaning he's never been there so it wouldn't be called "Over Here in Iraq".
Same old stereotypes and tired cliches, different war.
He's a bit harsh, but I mostly agree. Still, it's very watchable. (But A&M don't give partials -- jeez!)
While it's partly based in fact, the reality exists that any car could be a bomb, any road could hold an IED. It's a nasty world 'over there'.
I don't know how realistic tonight's portrayal was, but I now have a better idea of the risks our soldiers take when they do the checkpoints. I found that whole situation done very sympathetically...all the people who were killed had been sent to test the security.
Heck, I'm even starting to like the Sarge! Some of the soap opera aspects of the home life are cliche', but I suppose Bochco has to get some sex in there! Is it possible for the storyteller to tell his tale without a political spin?
For example, "MASH" was Vietnam transplanted to Korea.
"Over There" is Vietnam transplanted to Iraq.
Another great example is the movie "Kelly's Heroes" which is pretty obviously Vietnam transplanted to a WWII-era France. Maybe "Catch-22" as well.
Another great example is the movie "Kelly's Heroes" which is pretty obviously Vietnam transplanted to a WWII-era France. Maybe "Catch-22" as well.
Hey guys! It's E N T E R T A I N M E N T !
Far as I'm concerned if the show has them blowing up some Syrian college boy terrorists and then showing that they DID have a car bomb in the trunk (and thereby justifying the shooting)it can't be ALL bad!
Heck, from The Longest Day to Saving Private Ryan, it's a lot of fantasy mixed with fact (every GI's war experience was unique - my uncle was 82nd airborne 1942, Sicily and Italian campaigns), but can still be good entertainment IMHO...
bump for later
Agreed!
Just means Hollyweird is fighting the Vietnam war, their version of course, all over again. Individual replacements were SOP, but not universal either, during that "conflict".
By Jove, I think you've got it!
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