Posted on 05/01/2008 10:01:28 PM PDT by Pylon
Maybe I’m naive but I was riveted to this show. I thought it was very interesting, and I did not think there was a particularly anti-American slant.
I loved the guy doing his ballroom thing with his wife, although I really didn’t get it. It made me laugh. It seemed to be out of character for him. What was up with that?
The most discouraging thing I saw was the coven, of all God-forsaken things, meeting around their little table. Yes, I know it’s their right, yada yada.
Second most discouraging was the women talking about all their little kids they left behind. I thought they deported themselves well on the ship and so forth, but you know their child has only one mother. I found it depressing that they’d chosen a navy life with deployments.
Most inspiring: Gunner and Little Gunner. The chaplains and the fervent Pentecostals. The pilots and the friendships.
I did not see any fooling around on the ship. Did I miss something? I was impressed about how all the guys were missing their wives at home and it did not seem to be cool to cheat on them. The dads were obviously missing their kids and trying to be good dads through the internet and phone.
And the honor routinely paid to the USS Arizona. Very moving.
Yep. I can’t imagine anyone here at FR would have any illusions as to PBS’ agenda, and what sort of editing PBS would use to further that agenda.
USAF 1964 Flight 07...jock strap measured 1/8 inch in a slanted position, caused me to wear the damn thing all day...on my head, which is on the top of my shoulders, BTW....Do you remember being served fatty rabbit all the time in the chow halls? Old barracks, opened bay and many wood foot lockers thrown out by the T.I. from the second floor onto the ground....and we all volunteered for the money right? $78.00 bucks a month....
When did our military people turn into baby machines looking for a reason out because of a child they should not have had? They teach new parent classes on a ship, how about a class on how not to be a parent when you can't be one?
WOW! Female sailors are baby machines? Male sailors are inseminators? Parenting classes have been mandated for a long time - for both men and women. Our military is composed of people, not machines - and I hope they do become unthinking machines.
US Navy Nimitz Class Carrier - Crew: Ship's Company: 3,200 - Air Wing: 2,480. I'm sure the film crew found someone to complain about deployment among 5,680 young people. I haven't seen the series - but if the film crew wanted I'll bet they could even find someone to complain about the food. Complaining has a long tradition in the military. Even your vaunted dad's generation complained - my uncles complained for years about walking from Normandy nearly to Berlin, while Airborne soldiers were flown to work and Armored troops rode. My father complained about the heat in the Pacific - as well as the ruthlessness of the Japanese.
In my war we complained about the worms in the bread. We complained about the heat and cramped crew's quarters - but we were all happy to be on a boat with fresh potable water for showers and laundry.
Soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen will complain. It's tradition. It's human nature.
Must suck to be you who think people who want a competent military are bad.
I don't believe our military is incompetent.
There were when I came in back in '81. I actually see less of it now...27 years later.
Its ‘bout time somebody came out with a denuncisation of that sort of forcr.
Thsat WAS a denunciation, right?
You redeemed yourself. By the title you were about to be flamed.
Having read the post, I wholeheartedly agree with you especially the part about the ones that sign up for college. They want to take, but not give.
Sure when my husband went to Iraq, he wasn’t thrilled about going because of the danger. He never said anything mind you, I could just tell. He was, however willing and ready to go when the time came. You will never catch him whining about how hard it is or how much he missed his family. He will tell me in private though.
I have seen young women in the military get pregnant just so they won’t have to pull gate duty as an MP. (Noxious fumes and all harming their unborn babies). That is a pretty sad reason to bring an innocent life into this world.
I spent 4 months as an augmentee on the USS Eisenhower and Stennis. Carriers are the toughest ships to be on. The CG’s and DDG’s are a MUCH different atmosphere. Too much drama on the big decks.
For those of you whom this series is a snapshot of the Navy for you, just take into account the immaturity based on age of most of those they’ve chose to caricature. All sailors are sad to leave their family. They all miss their wives, husbands and children. Most of us do have a death in the family while deployed. It is the immature sailor/airman/marine/soldier who thinks that everyone older and of higher rank just doesn’t get it or understand. That E7 misses his family just as much as that E2. The E7 chooses to express it in a different way, usually personally or with a select group of friends, AS TO NOT AFFECT THE MORALE OF THOSE IN HIS CHARGE AND TO SET AN EXAMPLE. It is the myopic self-aggrandizing sailor that believes he’s in a predicament unique unto himself.
-There are always a few farts in a car load but that doesn’t mean all are bad.
I don’t appreciate people who rip the military.-
Amen. I watched some of it and what came across was the same thing I saw during Vietnam. If a sailor is not bitching then something is wrong.
What you look for is performance. If it suffers then something is definitely wrong.
Also, I noticed that some sailors were having a good time leading on the film producers who filmed it as the gospel truth. Anything to get on camera.
Carriers are small towns, in fact they are larger than many small towns in the US. You have the standard mix of personalities. Just think if PBS came to one of those towns and filmed the inhabitants.
I was on 2 carriers, pal.....shove it where the sun don’t shine, moron....when you get off your a$$ and do time on one, then you can call names and sling insults...until then, bite me doughboy
EXACTLY!
I think part of the problem is people having to mentally convert the entire military to living saints, the same thing that happened to the New York Fire Department after 9/11. They can’t possibly live up to that.
Well said. Thanks.
Napoleon’s elite Imperial Guard (his older, best troops) were known as “Grognards” (Grumblers.)
Well put. A lot of these posters just want heroic John Wayne pronouncements for 3 hours.
And right now, these people are at work, bitching about their jobs!
Give the kid a break, he thinks moths on ships are a problem.
Save your disgust for the show’s director and film editor. Sailors, like soldiers, airmen and marines have the universal right to bitch, whine and snivel. That doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t do what they signed up to do- and there are always exceptions to the norm anyway- the 1% who are shirkers/troublemakers/rebels without a clue, etc.... I suspect that the director focused on the 1% and the really good stuff you were expecting to see was swept up off the cutting room floor and tossed, considering this was a PBS venture.
Are you a veteran?
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