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Good reads on Wikipedia


Adam Easy Wishes

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Every time I watch a western I end up spending hours clicking through wikipedia.

The best bit about this one is that you can click through and end up going from Tombstone to Young Guns.

From the OK Corral you go to Earp Vendetta Ride - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia then to the leader of the cowboys William Brocius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia who, before travelling to Tombstone, was a member of Jessie Evans Gang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia who fought against the regulators (Young Guns) in Lincoln County War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Guest idol_wild
His autobiography is fantastic. Picked it up at a Barnes and Noble in Chicago and finished it in a day. Great stuff, great guy.

I've yet to read it, but I intend to scout the internet for related books on Winters and some of the veterans from his Company tonight. There are a number of published personal accounts from Normandy, Carentan, Eindhoven, and Bastogne, featuring some of the vets' personal experiences.

Autobiographies are the fucking bomb (excuse the pun).

Have you per chance read The Last Battle or A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan? Nobody I know seems to have read them, and before I put the effort in to attain them, I'd like to know if it's worth it.

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Nope, haven't read them. With war-related biographies I normally pick up whatever my Dad's been reading which is how I got into Band of Brothers and related reading in the first place. I really want to check out more though.

If you're interested in stuff that's more contemporary, Lt. Nathaniel Fick who was featured in Generation Kill has a really well written autobiography. His wikipedia page ain't all that and a bag of potato chips though: Nathaniel Fick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Guest idol_wild

I've been educating myself about the Pacific theatre over the past wee while, due to The Pacific (which, for the record, doesn't even come close to being as good as Band of Brothers). Pretty engaging stuff, on the whole. Although it failed to remove the small level of umbrage I still hold towards the marines.

The Japanese combat tactics were pretty fatuous and demented.

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The Pacific was a good series but did fall short of Band Of Brothers. I think mainly because there wasn't as much of a straight narrative through the whole season, there was no Dick Winters. Guess it's the nature of that particular campaign though and the levels of attrition it involved.

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Guest idol_wild
The Pacific was a good series but did fall short of Band Of Brothers. I think mainly because there wasn't as much of a straight narrative through the whole season, there was no Dick Winters. Guess it's the nature of that particular campaign though and the levels of attrition it involved.

I think there was also a concentration upon the psychological effects on the few marines they focused on. The combat/battle scenes are considerably more engaging and intense in The Pacific, but there's too much concentration on the characters themselves and their lives outwith the war; love stories. Fucking love stories. In a brutal war adaptation.

Fuck off, love.

Plus, it's hard to feel compassion for a group of savage marines who are teetering on the edge of madness and beginning to argue with, brawl, and kill eachother. I'm all about the unity and teamwork evident in Band of Brothers (and it's evident in the memoirs and interviews with the vets, too).

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They had to concentrate on the psychological affects though as they were massive, the guys were spending months in almost constant battle in a muddy hole in the pacific. Were the marines savage or did the war make them savage? The battle of Okinawa and Sledge's descent into madness and then his redemption were important parts of that campaign that had to be told. I guess it was a very different war to the one depicted in Band of Brothers and that's why it was such a different series.

I bought it on bluray, there's loads of extras about the pacific campaign that I need to sit down and watch sometime.

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Guest idol_wild
They had to concentrate on the psychological affects though as they were massive, the guys were spending months in almost constant battle in a muddy hole in the pacific. Were the marines savage or did the war make them savage? The battle of Okinawa and Sledge's descent into madness and then his redemption were important parts of that campaign that had to be told. I guess it was a very different war to the one depicted in Band of Brothers and that's why it was such a different series.

I bought it on bluray, there's loads of extras about the pacific campaign that I need to sit down and watch sometime.

The psychological effects of Bastogne/Ardennes and D-Day, I'm sure, were as bitter as those from the Pacific, and Band of Brothers dealt with that just perfectly - they alluded to the psychology, but instead kept the pace high, and the drama dramatic.

The marines were already a savage bunch before they set off for the Pacific, but the more education one gets about it, the more one understands that the nature of what was happening to them absolutely exacerbated their savagery whilst out there. That said, I still feel the marines were just as savage as the Japanese when they set off.

"Why do you want to join the Marine Corps?"

"Because I want to kill Japs, sir"

No matter how you look at it, that is savage.

All the love shit that is in The Pacific is completely and utterly pointless. Of course, I expect the counter argument that it was required to give us a background of the individual marine and how it affects his experience of the war, but it fucking doesn't. At all. It's purely there to give the miniseries a Hollywood feel and to lure in a larger female audience, in the hope that the rise in female viewers would subsequently increase the amount of overall viewers, as market research probably told HBO that if females were willing to watch a show like that, then the chances of couples and families sitting down to watch the miniseries were increased, thus maximising viewers.

Though I am glad that the death of John Basilone wasn't over-dramaticised too much. I was anticipating (and dreading) some really cheesy slow motion shots akin to all those shit war films we've seen over and over again when the hero dies. Luckily it was over in less than five minutes, and not the half-episode I expected. I actually didn't connect with Basilone's portrayal at all, and he was one of my least favourite individuals depicted.

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