1 I'll wait for the DVD, and probably rent those through Netflix.

2 Hard to meet the bar when you're trying to score political points off our Soldiers protecting us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks, Hanks and Spielberg...for nothing.

3 The pacing felt rushed, and the character development was lacking. 

The "racism" of the Company CO's speech was really more an attempt to help psych up men who have never seen combat so that they will kill their fellow human beings.  Most folks are, thankfully, not comfortable killing other humans unless they can somehow hate and/or dehumanize them.  Maybe the captain's efforts were ill-advised and/or clumsy, but they would not really be emblematic of some wider national racism.  At the end of the day, the US didn't start a war against Japan because of racism - the Japanese started it out of what they thought was expediency.

4 Cancelled HBO a couple of months ago. This doesn't cause me to want it back.

5 Thanks for the update.

6 Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's as controversial in the show as it was in Hank's stupid remarks in <i>Time</i>, see Victor Davis Hanson's refutation of that nonsense in the link below on The Pacific.

7 The thing with the heart murmur is exactly what happened to my grandfather. He wound up in the Corps of Engineers building roads on Saipan and Tinian. Lotta stories about that, mostly involving dynamite. I would've liked to get his take on this.

8

Valid points Dave, but there were also some little scenes I really liked. The poet-Marine's wordless goodbye with his father was one; his dad screwing around with the car trying to delay the inevitable, which was his son going to war. Then the look on his father's face when he shook his hand was top notch acting. Chesty Puller's speech to the Marine NCOs was also great.

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

9 Who the fuck watches TV.

10 Puller's speech did do a lot to set the stage, and help us "get" the 6 months of desperate losses following Pearl, yeah.

11 Excuse me Teabaggers. But The Pacific will go down as my greatest peice of work since Indiana Jones 4. 

12 VERY OT, but it needs to be advertised. Morons and Moronettes, I present...the bacon wallet!

http://tiny.cc/CflLM

13 Good review. The PC stuff was lame and obvious, but I'll still watch it. I guess.

14 I think the guy with the heart murmur was Eugene Sledge. The show is partly based on his memoir. He was also one of the main characters in Ken Burns whiny documentary on PBS. I don't have HBO so I appreciate the coverage Dave.

15 thanks for the update dave.


in other news, Tom Hanks is still a cocksucker.

16

The early-on discovery of the disemboweled Americans tied to a tree resonated with me. I've been told first-hand accounts of Marines in the Solomons coming upon similar scenes -- US prisoners tied to trees for bayonet and sword practice for the Japanese soldiers, who apparently weren't all that eager to stab living men to death until driven to by their own officers by such 'practice'. Some of the men from my uncle's ship, which went down in Kula Gulf in July 1943, met this fate. Others were just machine-gunned in the water by Japanese patrol boats sent out after the sinking -- I talked with one of the other sailors who was able to conceal himself in some wreckage and was overlooked.

Does Hanks really want to ignite a recapitulation of Japanese army atrocities from the war? It may be a proper response, he may deserve it, the reputation of 1941-Japan and its then-army certainly deserve it, but it'll be ugly. Maybe it should be. Forgiving and forgetting only lead to the hankish insanity of assuming Americans were the guilty ones.

No whitewash there, either. When my uncle's buddy was rescued a month later from the island where he had buried my uncle, he brought souvenirs -- ID papers he took off the bodies of Japanese corpses washing ashore after their transports were hit by night-raiding PT boats, and ears.

17 I'd agree, it wasn't as good as BoB so far, but it's early yet, and it still got the blood going.  Chesty Puller is all kinds of awesome.

I'd be more worried if they had softpedaled the Japanese atrocities or suicide tactics, so I'm guardedly optimistic for the rest of the series. *fingers crossed, though!*

18 Needed more Shia Leboeuf.

19

Puller's speech did do a lot to set the stage, and help us "get" the 6 months of desperate losses following Pearl, yeah.

And for the losses that he knew were coming, I think. The actor delivered the speech with a sort of rueful determination; like he knew a lot of his Marines weren't going to come home and it was killing him, but he also knew he had no choice but to send them into a meat grinder.

20

Dick Winters and Stephen Ambrose were around to advise and guide during BoB. Not the case on this one.

21 The first CO in Band of Brothers sucked, too.

22 NEWSFLASH... This is not going to be a good mini series.... Hanks and Co. are not comfortable with the truth, so their interpretation will go off the tracks.

23 If Hanks wants to earn any credit for historical facts, I hope one of the episodes in the future cover the Bataan Death March, and what the Japanese did in the Phillippines and to their people.  If Hanks wants to start the racism talk, let him read about the inhuman cruelty the Japanese inflicted upon Filipinos civilians.  I hate to say this, but the Nazis were far more compassionate to the Jews compared to what the Japanese did, and that's no fucking joke.

24 So did they do a montage of Bataan,Wake Island,Midway, etc.or did they skip right over the battles completely?

25 Why the heck does anyone need to watch this crap? Go ahead and up their ratings. If you want to know more about the war, read a book......let Hanks and STEVIE fall flat .......remember when we used to read BOOKS?

26 oops...weekend socks still on.

27 Read the book instead.

28

Dave

Great review, my thoughts exactly. I added hbo just to watch this series but will be cancelling after it is over. So far, it is nowhere near as good as BoB but thats just my feeling on it.

29 Weak sauce. Nowhere near the depth of BOB in characters or story. Superficial  PC emotional claptrap dominated the characters. Allmost no explanantion what was going on with the landings or after, I had to explain to the wife what was going on from history.

I certainly hope it gets better but after what Tom Hanks has said in his now famous interview, I have my doubts if this will actually tell the real story of the Pacific war or the revisionist version.

30 This was all about First Marine Division.  The Bataan Death March was an Army thing and was long over before Guadalcanal.  The might have them run into some Death March survivors when the series closes out, but I wouldn't bet on it.

31

I was disappointed ..... then again comparing it to BOB isn't fair. "How To Make It " was better. I'll give it another 2 episodes....if it starts getting too PC or too over-nonPC ...I'll ditch it.

And Tom Hanks is still a cockmunch

32 F Tom Hanks, profiteer off of people he despises. Oh, that's right, the air head likes old conservatives, just not new one. Fool.

33 I was very disappointed. Not only was it disjointed but the PC crap drove me crazy, especially since Hanks made it perfectly clear how he feels, we saw it clear as day.

34

I watched, I can't say I was offended.  And  my grandfather fought in the Phillipines and Okinawa with the 27th Infantry Division.  Thank God he's still with us.

First, it's more a sign of our own times and their problems that we think "racism" agains the Japanese somehow sullies the US War Effort. The War in the Pacific did involve a lot of major league US hate and racism.  So what?  The Japanese started the war, committed numerous atrocities, and their soldiers deserved everything they got.  They fought dirty, and we fought dirty in response.  This shouldn't be whitewashed, as it did mess a lot of Americans up in the head, was incredibly brutal and nasty, deviated at times from the law of war, but was totally necessary or at the very least forgivable. I'd be more embarassed if they didn't show how awful it all was, how tenacious the enemy was, and how much our forces suffered under but still trimpuhed.

Second, I'm not sure why they showed the captain flipping out in combat, but it happened, numerous times, in both the Pacific and European Theater, and it was often unpredictable who would crack.  Liddel Hart's and others' studies have repeatedly confirmed that these things happened often and somewhat predictably.

Three, I thought Band of Brothers was responsible, accurate, and thoughtful and I hope this proves to be as well.  I'm not necessarily proud that some Americans shot prisoners, cut off ears, removed gold teeth, and the like--and these things did happen in spades--but that's war, and that's what happens when America confronted a brutal, alien enemy that has no respect for the law of war.

35

By "old conservatives" is he thinking of Reagan?  Nixon?  Ford?  I kinda doubt it.....

Or does it mean he likes old DEAD conservatives?

I'll get the the DVD when it comes out, just to watch it.  But I fear I'm gonna be very disappointed.  May be a waste of money, but I'll give it a try.

36

I did review Hanks' comments.  They were asinine.  But there was some truth to it.  The Japanese, like the Muslims, were totally different, did not follow the law of war, looked starnge and alien, and we fought them like hell not to bring them democracy--though we eventually did--but because they attacked us illegally and with surprise and brutality.  While we didn't fight because of racism, we did use more racist propaganda against the Japanese not least because they were an alien race with alien values, strange habits, and a brutal, non-western way of war.  We should look at that as a proud episode, not an embarassing example of racism, and fight the Muslims with the same tenacity and purposefulness. 

And I think we are at war with Islam, or at least a good swath of it, and it should be their job to convince us they're not aligned with the terrorists, not ours to tiptoe around their obfuscations.  Like our dealing with the Japanese, we should not be afraid to imprison preventitively hostile fifth columnists, as we have a moral right to exist and a moral right to defend our people.  It's the suicidal liberalism that asks us to pull our punches lest we be called "racist."  I'd rather not have any more of my countrymen killed by Muslims, thank you very much. For starters, we can quit letting new ones into our country.   No one in his rights mind thought the War on Japan required us to allow Japanese immigration *during the war* lest we betray our supposed open border values. But that apparently is the conslusion of both Democrats and Republicans in dealing with Muslims.

37

Thanks, Hanks and Spielberg...for nothing.

The Jews weren't being singled out for persecution by the Japanese.

Ergo the Japanese were good and the Americans were evil.

 

38 Didn't see it so won't comment on the show but would like to point out it was actually the Japanese that were the racist.The the imperial Japanese soldier felt he was the superior being in every way possible over not only the Americans but the Chinese,Koreans and everybody else.And on the bright side "The Green Zone" really tanked this weekend

39 It's academic since I still haven't even bothered to convert my TV to digital yet and my landlord won't let cable into the building since he's trying to squeeze the tenants out, but so far, is it worth watching against the knowledge Hanks is an asshole? I mean, I can still get "Guadalcanal Diary" on disc anytime I want it...

40

I was pretty disappointed, too, but remember, you've probably watched BoB 18 times, so you are more familiar with those characters.  They feel like old friends, while it all was pretty overwhelming keeping track of who is who the first time through.  There's a lot of subtle stuff you pick up on rewatching, and I hope that'll be the case here, too.

Spot on with the CO.  "Assume the Japanese are watching us."  "Assume?!  They are watching us!"  What's the big deal?

I thought the part with the Jap in the stream was hillarious.  Such melodrama!

We'll see...

41

The Japanese solider in the stream incident I recall reading about, possibly in Sledge.  Something like that happened.  It was weird but totally OK in my book. He's an enemy soldier in uniform . . . Kill Him. 

Good point Polynikes. But will that be lost on viewers?  It may not compute for Hanks and others, but the film as film needs to be judged by what it shows. And it must not assume too muhc background knowledge. Will that context be lost on viewers who see Americans gutted with their dicks cut off and all the other horrible things the Japanese did? They showed some of that in first episode. 

42

By not showing Marine Corps training they are really handicapping the character developement in this story.  The "Kill 'em all" mentality is a training tool to help Marines keep their senses in the worst conditions, and has nothing to do with racism.  However, if you disregard the context then the characters are just going to look like heartless monsters.

43 Once I heard that idiot Hanks with his claims of racist bullshit it was over for me. Then I started watching and found the Japs, slant eyes, and other pejorisms strained. I turned it off while the marines were still looking for anyone on Guadacanal. I presume they eventually stumbled across the slantly eyed yellow peril.

44 I won't watch. I shut off HBO because of Bill Mahr. I refuse to fund that piece of twist.

45 Eh, I might pick it up on blue-ray once it comes out for rent.  It's too bad the series sounds like it won't be up to par with Band of Brothers.  It seems like the war in the Pacific as always got short shrift compared to the war in Europe. It is always a secondary thought, always after Europe...

My grandfather was an Army paratrooper (yes, fyi, there was Army serving in the Pacific) and fought at the Battle Corregidor.

BTW, fuck Tom Hanks.

46 http://www.zshare.net/

 I think some of ya are reading too much into this in view of Hanks' recent statements.

 The beginning of this episode was kinda choppy, but what we see near the end is the unity of the Marines.  'We're all in this together so we gotta watch each others backs.' It's told more or less from the unit and individual level where it's NCO's and enlisted men. Privates and junior NCO's don't get a lot of background info on operations, often not until the last minute. In one scene at Alligator Creek, when the captain freezes up, we see the Marine Corps at it's best...the NCO's and LT's can run the tactical operation w/o the assistance of captains or staff level officers. We also see them at their worst, when they were taunting that lone Japanese soldier. We also see why others think so highly of Marine's fighting ability. As another commenter said, when death is on the line, don't bet against the Marines.

 I can see the problems some would have with the character development, thus far, but I also see another pov, here. Jumping straight to Guadalcanal will spin your noggin for ya, unless you have some familiarity with the history of the war in the Pacific. The narration early on, with historical footage, was probably meant to lay the groundwork for what was to follow.

 The speeches by the actor playing Chesty are just about right on the money, too. For those who aren't familiar with him, think of Chesty Puller as the Marine Corps infantry version of Patton. During Puller's career, he earned five Navy Crosses along with a butt-load of combat medals. His story on Guadalcanal is worth the time. Basilone played a very important part, as well. During one battle, he held the flank against several Japanese battalions - most of a Japanese division - ...by himself.

47 Personally I didn't need to see any training scenes since there's so much to cover as it is.  And the characters will presumably be fleshed out as time goes on.  There were so many characters in BoB that it took me a few episodes to even keep them straight, much less get to know them.

Frankly, I think you guys are blowing Hanks' remarks out of proportion and I see no evidence they are going to make the Americans the bad guys or whitewash Japanese atrocities.  I think you'll see not only the brutal ugliness of the Pacific war but also the incredible courage and heroism of American soldiers.

48 If you guys MUST watch this shit, at least steal it off the internet.  Don't give any of these hollywood child fuckers one goddamn penny.

49 I read the whole Time Article.  The overall tone is not one of political correctness.  The one remark was hard to put in context, but Hanks clearly, later in life, recognized the debt we all owe to the WWII generation, has tried to make intelligent movies on the same since movies are great teaching tools, has made similar movies on astronauts and the like, and according to article wanted to put this Lee Harvey Oswald conspiracy theory shit to rest in a movie on JFK down the road.  I think some people think we can't say, "wow we had some racist views of Japanese" without also making America a monster.  Well, racism is a minor sin in my eyes, so long as it's not put to some evil goal like slavery or the HOlocaust.  It also includes lesser offenses like calling Japanese Japs or not wanting a bunch of noisy blacks to move into your neighborhood.  Those views, widespread in my grandparents generation, don't make you a monster and don't make America not the good guys when fighting the Japanese. 

50 So far it sucks and they're intentionally painting our grandfathers as boorish Americans prone to back slapping while torturing.  And of course....Raaacisssss!

51 52 "So far it sucks and they're intentionally painting our grandfathers as boorish Americans prone to back slapping while torturing.  And of course....Raaacisssss!"

 Well, ccruise, just avoid WWII movies. Well, come to that, avoid war movies altogether. Reality doesn't seem to match your expectations....even when that reality is depicted in the make-believe worlds of Hollywood.

 Never turn the dogs of war loose unless you need to kill people,  break thing and render the landscape desolate. War, by definition, is atrocity. ...of course, the winners are seldom, if ever, prosecuted for war crimes.

 Remember, Morons: It's just a freakin' movie.

52

I guess there is plenty of room for character development, but it just seemed strange that one minute we have mild mannered kids hanging out with friends and family, and then the next minute they are enjoying french toast in the middle of a cannon barrage before they hop on a boat and go take a beach.  It seems like the idea is if you've seen one basic training story, you have seen them all.  But as an Air Force vet I was watching that part of the story in awe, wondering how the hell you convince a bunch of young kids to go do that.

53 "And that awkward moment where they are toying with a Japanese soldier, who gets caught in crossfire until he can't escape, throws his rifle down and starts screaming at the Marines defiantly until one of them (who's a pretty freaking awesome shot with a .45) puts a round in his chest and ends it." I do not think that the Japanese soldier was trapped. He was looking to get killed. His squad was probably ordered to charge and his warrior ethos required that he either take the US position or die trying. After all of his buddies got killed and it was evident that he could not succeed, he could either retreat or get killed. The humiliation of failure was unacceptable and he would rather die. Nice touch.

54 ah, had not considered that. good point.

55

...but Hanks clearly, later in life, recognized the debt we all owe to the WWII generation, has tried to make intelligent movies on the same since movies are great teaching tools, has made similar movies on astronauts and the like...

This is all about the $$$s.

They make these faux-war and faux-religious movies [like The DaVinci Code] because they are know that red-staters are so starved for anything even remotely patriotic or religious that they will go to see these movies in the desperate hope that they might have some redeeming quality about them.

But that dawg won't hunt much longer - Matt Damon's new anti-USA screed was a complete flop at the box office [and Damon was coming off of the success of the Bourne franchise].

I think that Red-Staters are finally wising up to this crap [thank God].

 

56

So far it sucks and they're intentionally painting our grandfathers as boorish Americans prone to back slapping while torturing.

If they had been torturing Germans, then they could have used any epithet in the book.

Everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - in modern Hollyweird is about the Jews.

The Jews were the intellectual and financial power behind Bolshevism, ergo Stalin was good [despite the Holomodor, which murdered orders of magnitude more people than Hitler ever dreamed of murdering].

The Japanese didn't have any particular special vendetta against the Jews, ergo the Americans are evil.

 

57

I'm sorry, did I miss the dysentery and jungle rot somehow? Those survivors at the end looked better than Scouts returning from Philmont. They even had a boyish jaunt through the natural beauty of the jungle! With no infection!

Anybody who spent three weeks in that climate, even after supply lines were established, was more dead than alive. They don't show that. An open wound and standing water were a death sentence. My uncle died of it -- sixty years later.

Also: senior officers did not explicate the island-hopping strategy to buck privates while still in barracks. When Guadalcanal was undertaken that strategy had not even been firmed up. Troops were often deliberately issued the wrong climate uniforms and rations to offset intelligence leaks; if you were lucky, you might find out the name of your island just before embarking to landing craft. So that part was H'wd bullshit, hugely.

And okay, we'll ignore Corregidor because this isn't an Army movie. So, what about Wake? What about the Old Breed. Could you, like, mention them?

John Wayne movies are looking more scholarly all the time. If Mitchum and Lee Marvin were alive, there'd be some asses getting kicked this morning, boo ya.

58 If any of you are interested, you can watch the first episode here on Zshare via CastTV.

And I'm wondering what some of you guys watched. I'm gonna align myself with Warren Bonesteel.

Also, I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by the first episode of BoB and the cartoonish portrayal by David Schwimmer.

59 I grew up near Raritan, NJ, where John Basilone spent his youth. He was a patriot and a Marine Corp legend. I hope that they tell his story well.   

60 Hanks dribbling during an interview is one thing. But he used the same rhetoric at the WWII memorial on March 11th.

61

I reposted this from the earlier thread...seemed more relevant here........

What a TURD that first episode was. seemed like they had 45 min to "check the boxes"

Guy tells girl "Ill write"....check

American troops come across atrocity....check

Jap blows himself up with grenade....check

Sensitive soldier puts enemy soldier out of his misery....check

Rousing "why we fight speech"....check

Soldier finds picture of wife in dead enemy's effects......check

And so on. Among other things the timeline was severely compresed, and there were some other inaccuracies as well. First of all, It would be unlikely that the patrol would run across tortured POWs on their first jaunt into the jungle. The first day of the invasion saw almost no fighting, and the few Japanese troops there were laborers and such. A few weeks later that shit happened with regularity, but they had to show something I guess. As for the battle of Savo island, its not like it happened right off the beach, it was well over the horizon for the troops on the ground. First hand accounts talk of seeing flashes and hearing booms, but it was nowhere near the spectacle they presented it as. Again, they needed something to show off someones FX skills. And finally the Battle of Alligator Creek.....I was so pumped to see this battle brought to the big screen.  Did we get waves of Japanese lit up by the light of starshells, fixed bayonets, swords drawn, charging screaming across the samdbar? The rattle of Marine machine guns cutting them down? The hand to hand combat?.......No. Instead we got some confused shooting, officer who loses it.....check....and then a beach littered with bodies. Did they even research this shit? Next morning they counterattacked with tanks into the coconut grove where the Japanese were regrouping. That shit lasted almost the entire next day, and it was a massacre. But no. Sun comes up, dead bodies, thousand yard stare.....check....and bang, thanks for watching assholes, see you next week.  

And like I said. they compressed the story to where one would think the invasion, Savo Island and Alligator Creek were days apart.whn in fact it was more like weeks. How could they leave out the Goettge patrol? Great job Hanks, you really took a shit with this one....now go fuck yourself.

 

62 Last night on World at War on The History Channel they showed U.S. Marines fighting in Okinawa. There was an amazing set of clips of Americans accepting the surrender of Japanese soldiers, including one of a wounded Japanese officer who could barely stand being helped by marines.

First the marines held one of his hands as he made his way down a pile of rubble. They were treating him with the same care you'd treat your grandmother when you help her down stairs. Then the Japanese paused and slipped his arm around the shoulder of the marine on his right, who moved in closer and put his own arm around the Japanese's shoulders, and then two of them slowly made their way down the rubble, looking like two pals who'd had too much to drink and were trying to get home safely.

I almost puked at that racist marine trying to annihilate that Japanese because he was different!

63 "I was pretty disappointed, too, but remember, you've probably watched BoB 18 times, so you are more familiar with those characters."

Exactly. I was much less impressed with Band of Brothers the first time I saw it than I was the third or fourth time. It was chaotic with all of the characters coming in and out. It took a while to appreciate how awesome it was.

I thought the episode last night was actually pretty good but I think it will take watching the whole series and then watching the whole thing again in the future to fairly put it up against Band of Brothers.

64 I wasn't enormously impressed, and unlike Band of Brothers there weren't any clear, easy to identify and likable characters. You got to know Winters, Nixon and Sobel really well in that first episode and all three were critical characters later on. This one? Buncha guys in green. It was pretty good but the first episode at least was weaker.

65

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66 Didn't hold a candle to Band of Brothers, and who is this troll "shape ups shoes" I keep finding in every thread?

67 There were two somethings that I saw that many may have missed.

First was the "personal initiative" aspect of being a Marine. The Corps pushes hard at the concept of personal initiative. Always has. If you see something going sideways, don't wait to be told to do something, do something. Doing something wrong, or less that perfect is far preferable to doing no thing.

This was shown, imo, by the machine gunner self motivating and redeploying his gun crew to counter the enemy's efforts to flank the Marines at the battle on the river. The general attitude of such behavior, imo, was well covered by the officer calling the Marine out after the battle and letting him know he'd gotten promoted for it.

Is such a push at personal initiative limited only to The Corps? Nope. But The Corps hammers on that constantly. Initiative and 5th General Order are probably the two most often used lesson formats in The Corps. Self motivation, personal initiative and you do NOT quit until properly relieved, regardless of the task or the time.

The other thing was in a short blurb about the next epi. The HMIC of whatever unit is giving the word. If the Japs succeed in pushing through the line and manage to retake the airfield, the island is lost but the fight goes on. Fall into the jungle and carry on as guerrillas.

The Marines had long knowledge of the brutality and general issue horror show of being captured by the Japs from the China Hands who'd been in China during the 20's and 30's. The Japs were much better understood as an enemy by the USMC than most realize.

Surrender wasn't an acceptable option. Not just because of the general disgust Marines have of such a thing, but because of the sure knowledge and understanding of just how unsurvivable surrender to the Japs was.

Once the fleet was driven off, the Marines were fighting for their lives with no option of surrender and they knew it.

68

Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen but his country's cause. Homer explaining to Marines what the war is really all about.

In screenwriting that's called, "on the nose." Translated, it means no one buys it, but here it is anyway.

69 Some thoughts about "character development." I understand we get to see the defense of the airfield on Guadalcanal, the Pelileu (sp?), Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns. If so, then 10 episodes isn't much time to do it justice. Since the three central characters are actual heroes, their character and notoriety stem from their heroics. Hopefully, the writers will have used the simple device of "flashback" to give us their non-heroic side, in between scenes of horrific violence and bravery not seen since the Pacific theater of WWII. Now that's entertainment.

70 Hey #64, Ouch! You're pretty demanding critic. I agree with about 98% of what you said, especially the "check" stuff. But I'm big on letting the younger skulls full of mush getting some exposure to WWII. Nothing says more about our sorry ass state of affairs than when Leno goes "jaywalking." Gotta scratch your head about Speilberg and Hanks being the messengers. Life just aint fair sometimes. Someone here made the point that Band of Brothers got better (character development) with each broadcast. That's my observation as well. I thought it was too fast-paced the first time. Can't recall for sure, but think I saw a little "boot camp" (in rushes) for young Slade's character.

71 #63 says, "

Never turn the dogs of war loose unless you need to kill people,  break thing and render the landscape desolate. War, by definition, is atrocity. ...of course, the winners are seldom, if ever, prosecuted for war crimes.

"Tell that to a rather significant group at Leavenworth," says #63.

Just hoping that sticks to the wall, are ya. What significant fuc*ing group would that be? - bullwhacker

 

72 #41 says, "I thought the part with the Jap in the stream was hillarious.  Such melodrama!

"We'll see..."

Actually, I though that scene was the best of the evening because it contained everything that was the war against the Japanese Empire, the Japanese warrior code. But I also think it was melodramatic simply because it came too early in the series. Trust me, by later episodes you'll see what that Jap did as just another day at the office.

However, regarding the crackerjack shot/philosopher dispatching him at 75 meters with the 1912' colt .45, I couldn't hit Michael Moore at 3 meters with it.

73

Gotta scratch your head about Speilberg and Hanks being the messengers.

In the end, though, we have only ourselves to blame for ceding our culture to the Jews [and their nihilistic agenda].