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I watched all of it (it's only 7 1-hour episodes). It was rather good, even if the hindsight of 8 years on makes the various assumptions of the military painful. It's essentially narrative non-fiction (with dramatic license, of course), based on a book by an embedded reporter.
The reporter serves two functions in the story. Primarily, he's the guy writing the book and tagging along with the 1st Recon Battalion's Bravo Company to take notes on what he sees. Secondarily, he's there to ask the stupid questions the non-military viewer is asking. Like "What does November Juliet mean?" (in reference to coffee, which doesn't have a particularly polite derivation, and they leave it to the black Marine to say it.) Or "What do you need to buy adult diapers for?" (Duh, if they have to piss and can't leave their positions...)
You really get to see that Rumsfeld sent them to war with the army they had, not the army they wanted. They're driving around in open Humvees, without adequate oil for the guns, so they keep jamming up, without enough batteries for their night vision goggles, etc etc etc. It was stupid and wasteful of human resources.
It's really bizarre, and a major source of cognitive dissonance, to be an essentially pacifist leftist and also fascinated by military (non)fiction. Also a source of frustration when looking for books to read, because the majority of military SF writers espouse their very hard-right views in their texts. So I won't read John Ringo, Michael Williamson, or, really, half of Baen's catalog. I don't particularly enjoy smacking into their basic assumptions while I'm trying to read a book.
If I get something more profound to say about it, maybe I'll write a post for my real blog.
The reporter serves two functions in the story. Primarily, he's the guy writing the book and tagging along with the 1st Recon Battalion's Bravo Company to take notes on what he sees. Secondarily, he's there to ask the stupid questions the non-military viewer is asking. Like "What does November Juliet mean?" (in reference to coffee, which doesn't have a particularly polite derivation, and they leave it to the black Marine to say it.) Or "What do you need to buy adult diapers for?" (Duh, if they have to piss and can't leave their positions...)
You really get to see that Rumsfeld sent them to war with the army they had, not the army they wanted. They're driving around in open Humvees, without adequate oil for the guns, so they keep jamming up, without enough batteries for their night vision goggles, etc etc etc. It was stupid and wasteful of human resources.
It's really bizarre, and a major source of cognitive dissonance, to be an essentially pacifist leftist and also fascinated by military (non)fiction. Also a source of frustration when looking for books to read, because the majority of military SF writers espouse their very hard-right views in their texts. So I won't read John Ringo, Michael Williamson, or, really, half of Baen's catalog. I don't particularly enjoy smacking into their basic assumptions while I'm trying to read a book.
If I get something more profound to say about it, maybe I'll write a post for my real blog.
