Burn Pit: Hollywood’s veterans are back
I guess I watched the same shows they watch in the TSO household (“TSO household” sounds so weird after years of “TSO basement” – my little guy is growing up), because I noticed the same thing he did the other night. Crazy veterans are back on our airwaves. I swear, it’s getting harder to watch anything on TV. But anyway, some guy by the name of Mothax at the Burn Pit wrote;
Anyway, so last night, in the after-glow of my aforementioned Patriots win, I settled in with the wife and my mildly retarded Puggle to watch Criminal Minds. This is sort of our favorite on-call TV show, because it can generally found on between one and three channels 24 hours a day, seven days a week on our ATT U-Verse. Criminal Minds follows the FBI’s “Behavioral Analysis Unit” (BAU) as they track down serial killers. Last night I made it through two episodes before chewing some Excedrin PM to knock myself out.
The first one was an Episode called “Distress” wherein a veteran of B 3/75th Rangers from Somalia one day just completely loses his mind and starts killing folks in Houston, Texas, thinking he is back on the streets of Mogadishu.
Yeah, you should read the whole thing. I enjoyed it more because it included a link to one of my old posts and reminded me of the glory of my youth (last year before I bought a house which has become my third or fourth job). It was probably one of my best posts ever and I enjoyed reading it for the first time again.
But Mothax, whoever he is, is right. We’re being subjected to the John Rambo version of veterans again…the fact is that it began subtly as soon as the war began. A blood thirsty, homicidal maniac veteran, who undoubtedly was a Ranger/SEAL/Green Beret/Force Recon/Sniper, is a much more exciting stereotype than a guy who comes back from the war, goes to college raises a family and becomes the best darned employee that ever existed. Unfortunately, for Hollywood, that’s how most veterans turn out, though. Ask us.
Category: Military issues
You should’ve seen last night’s A&E’s “Intervention.” It was about the crazy Marine 0311 who went to Iraq, guarded the General, and is now an alcoholic with PTSD (drinking often, daily) who “won’t talk about it.” “It” is whatever he saw that “took away the Adam his family knows.”
That Mothax guy is an assclown, trying to steal all my thunder.
Ahh, one of the biggest hollywood cliches around, the damaged vet who turns to criminal acts.
Who can forget the ‘classic’ “Hard Times” with Christian Bale. He plays a former Ranger whose combat experiences wreak havoc in his personal life.
And why is it that every movie character who is/was military, always has to be some super duper high speed Delta Force/Ranger/SEAL/Force Recon kind of guy? What’s wrong with the ‘hero’ or main character being a cook or a truck mechanic?
1. Not too many general’s security details see “the shit.”
2. Of those who do spend any time as an actual door kicker, I believe that as long as they weren’t talking to the dog (and getting responses) they would likely keep the police steppin and fetchin for months. See Malvo, et al.
3. The park is mine.
4. Haven’t you heard? All veterans are potential terrorists.
In a way, I was always kinda envious of the A-gangers on our boats. It was pretty much a given that if anything bad ever happened and we ended up being questioned by the bad guys, there was something soothing about the reply of being asked what they did, they could simply say, “I pump shit.”
I used to be an avid watcher of JAG reruns. Some episodes focused on (usually Vietnam) vets that had gone off their rocker. At least in that show most of the time they were successfully defended by Commander Rabb and company. The spin-off of JAG, NCIS, doesn’t seem quite so fixated on crazy vets. All the stuff Commander Rabb did and saw through JAG’s run, though, should come back to haunt him in a future NCIS (or NCIS: Los Angeles) episode. 🙂
They have made a mint off the crazed vet theme. But its not limited to that, there is their favorite, the misfit, the mal content, the semi criminal saves the day. And don’t forget the “sir, yes sir” like perpetual basic training.
I can only think of two groups that are treated that way by Hollywood in their shows, the military and Christians. Who can forget George C. Scott in the Hanging Tree as the crazed Christian. And the list is just as long. Hollywood is the only business where they profit very well from insulting their customers values.
Well, they’re certainly not going to flap THEIR dirty linen in the breeze, are they? Who does that leave for bad guys?
Us. Of course.