Author Topic: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan  (Read 6776 times)

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BT

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #15 on: October 27, 2011, 12:15:58 AM »
Perhaps the "Hurt Locker" would provide a clue.

Michael Tee

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #16 on: October 27, 2011, 12:24:17 AM »
Perhaps you could be a little more explicit.  I haven't seen The Hurt Locker and don't intend to.  It is clearly a film that glamorizes war.

BT

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #17 on: October 27, 2011, 12:29:54 AM »
My post was in reply to XO.

You know what you know, and that's what you know.

XO expressed curiosity.


Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #18 on: October 27, 2011, 01:17:02 AM »
I have seen the Hurt Locker, and it did not seem to me to glamorize war. It was a pretty good film. Not as great as claimed: Avatar was much more memorable, at least for me.

The film was a character study of a soldier who seemed to enjoy disarming bombs,as I recall. It would no more turn a person into a war lover than Yenta would turn them into a Jew.

And I really doubt that any film would turn you into a war lover, MT.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #19 on: October 27, 2011, 01:34:17 AM »
Didn't claim it glamorized war. You were curious why a soldier would go with that many redeployment. I think the answer might lay in the ending scenes where he is home and then goes back.




Michael Tee

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #20 on: October 27, 2011, 03:21:20 AM »
Thanks, XO, for the explanation.  BT, if I wasn't curious, why would I have asked you for a further explanation that went beyond the title of a film I'd never see?

All war films glamorize war.  It's inevitable.  The heroes are good-looking guys, who despite their lowly working-class status, seem to enjoy the attention of babes that look just like Hollywood actresses, their dialogue is snappy and interesting, they look good in uniform and they lead exciting lives which are safe to enjoy vicariously from the seats of the theatre. 

BT

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #21 on: October 27, 2011, 03:28:29 AM »
Really? Full Metal Jacket glorified war?

Michael Tee

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #22 on: October 27, 2011, 03:56:38 AM »
<<Really? Full Metal Jacket glorified war?>>

Honestly I don't remember enough of it to discuss in detail  From what I recall, there were no babes in it but otherwise, yeah, I think it glamorized war in some ways.  Ir showed Americans, who for the most part are wage slaves or debt slaves, leading shit lives in jobs that they can be fired from virtually at will, an alternative self-image where instead of being ciphers or schleppers, they can walk around with weapons in their hands and terrorize others, with the power over life and death that normally only the gods can possess.  It showed them facing physical danger with courage and resignation.  Nobody shits in their pants, nobody's wounds ever show messy body parts hanging out of their cavities . . .   at least, not in the little that I recall of the film.

Of course there are films that glorify war much more than Full Metal Jacket.  But it's inevitable in the telling of any war story that the narrator comes out as heroic, simply because (in mythic terms) he was there - - he went into the lair of the beast and he returned to his life in the world.

J.D. Salinger landed in Normandy on D-Day and fought his way across Europe with a unit that saw more casualties than any other US unit in the European Theatre of Operations, through some of the bloodiest battles of the war, and holds three Presidential unit citations, but never wrote one word that directly described his or his unit's combat experiences, true or fictionalized.   (For Esme With Love and Squalor is the closest he ever came, but it describes only the life of the troops in England and the mental traumatization or "battle fatigue" of a soldier after he's come out of combat.)  In one of his short stories whose title I have forgotten, he describes the thoughts of a young man invited to dinner by an older man and listening to the old guy's war stories; the young man thinks at one point "If I ever have to go to war, and survive, I'll never tell anyone about it because simply telling the story of the battle glorifies it."  That one short story provides the only clue as to the reason for Salinger's silence.

BSB

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #23 on: October 27, 2011, 11:49:09 AM »
Only Blower is allowed to talk of war, which he does non-stop, in every post, ad nauseum.

BSB

Michael Tee

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #24 on: October 27, 2011, 04:20:11 PM »
You can talk of war too, BSB, but maybe you'd be better off taking the Fifth Amendment instead.  Your choice.

Plane

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #25 on: October 27, 2011, 06:53:06 PM »
   When I saw Apacalipse now I was in Canada.

    Man , that was wierd.

Michael Tee

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #26 on: October 27, 2011, 07:03:52 PM »
Weird how?  Difference audience reactions?

I saw The Deer Hunter once in Toronto and a second time in Dallas.  Toronto audiences sit silently through every movie, but they laugh in all the right places if it's a comedy.  Actually that's not totally correct, they screamed when I saw Psycho.

When the Dallas audience got to the part where the GI's escape from the hell-hole where their captors are forcing them to play Russian roulette and they kill their guards, the whole audience erupted in cheers, rebel yells, shouting  and whistling.  Never heard anything like it in my life.  Don't mess with Texas.

Plane

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Re: Army Ranger on 14th deployment killed in action in Afghanistan
« Reply #27 on: October 27, 2011, 07:21:58 PM »
  Apacalipse now was a deeply affecting movie , I was pretty young and I was in Halifax.

    I can't blame the audience , I wasn't actually watching them. But they were in my thoughts as if I were there to be observed.  I doubt they noticed me.