Generation Kill

Generation Kill Book Cover

Generation Kill is a book written by a journalist name Evan Wright in which he is embedded to the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of US Marine Corps during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A short mini series with the same name (Generation Kill) is also released by HBO based on the book. I have watched this mini series over & over again, and I like it! Darn it is good!

So how would you expect the Iraqi war starts? I am sure most of us are thinking about artillery strikes and their mighty military planes flying over the skies of Baghdad, bombing military targets. Well not exactly. This 7 episode mini series evolves around the lives of the 1st Recon Marines, which is the first batch of troops to land on Iraqi soil and leads the whole Iraqi invasion in their Humvees, with their trusty M16A4s & god forsaken humours.

Generation Kill

The main characters evolves around Evan Wright and the team he is attached to, Bravo Company's lead vehicle (callsign Hitman1, I guess). I personally like the characters of Sgt. Brad 'Iceman' Colbert, Cpl. Josh Ray Person, Lance Cpl. Harold James Trombley, Sgt. Antonio 'Poke' Espera, First Lt. Nathaniel 'Nate' Fick & of course Captain Dave 'Captain America' McGraw.
You may find other characters here. I can assure you that all the characters here is well & superbly portrayed.

Some brief facts on each characters:

• Sgt Brad 'Iceman' Colbert, is a cool guy, wise & very experienced. He is the team leader of Team 1. Good scout. His experience saved the whole platoon more than once. Doesn't like country music. Alexander Skarsgård played the character very well & he deserves an award for that!
  Famous quotes I like from him : 'Yes, we are the conquering heroes!'.
  
  
  
• Cpl. Josh Ray Person, a driver in Brad's vehicle & Brad's radio telephone operator (RTO). Not a well mannered guy, but his sense of humour goes over the top. The one character u won't be able to forget!! He enjoys singing & talk the crap out of anything.
  Famous quotes I like from him : Too much too love about this guy. I remembered he wrote USA with his piss. LOL.
  
  
• Lance Cpl. Harold James Trombley, a gunner and always yearning to kill. Doesn't feel remorseful when he gets to kill. Given the nickname 'Whooper Junior' after he shot some innocent kids feeding their camels.
  
  
• Sgt Antonio 'Poke' Espera, assistant team lead of Team 1. Always talks about the white people. His remarks on white people are darn funny. He doesn't hate anyone & he is not a racist though.
  
  
• First Lt. Nathaniel 'Nate' Fick, platoon commander. All the people mentioned above comes under him. Smart, intelligent, good common sense and a natural born leader. This guy here writes a book entitled 'One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer' after he left the Corp. He is now a CEO of Center for a New American Security.
  
  
• Captain Dave 'Captain America' McGraw, he the commander of 3rd platoon. Hate or love him, you really can't miss him out. He gets paranoia very easily and make silly decisions that make most of the people under him disrespects him. Always shoots at anything whenever there is a chance.
  

This mini series is not your typical brotherhood-I-will-die-for-you type of show. It shows how they came across other people's life, enemies & civilians alike, and what their personal thoughts on war and how this conflict changed their thoughts.

Many people, including me believes the armed forces, is well, the army. From what I have learnt, USMC is a different breed of 'animal'. They are very eager to kill.

"See, the Marine Corps is like America's little pitbull. They beat us, starve us, and once in a while they let us attack someone".

Quoted from Cpl Josh Ray Person in HBO's Generation Kill

"We're Reconnaissance Marines. Swift, silent and deadly"

Quoted from Sgt. Larry Shawn 'Pappy' Patrick from HBO's Generation Kill

In short it is worth to watch. It is hilarious and at the same time tells the reality of war. Oh, be prepared to go bonkers while you are watching this. They use alot slangs & NATO phonetics in their conversations. Words like Whiskey Tango, November Juliet, Oscar Mike, 40 Mike-Mike, Hitman Victor etc would probably make you scratch your head.

Understand the slangs and you will get the whole picture. Be warned though, there is alot of fouled language used in this show!

The miniseries ends with one video compilation of their journey, filmed by one of the marines (Cpl Jason Liley) accompanied with Johnny Cash's 'The Man Comes Around'. The clip below is the ending part for Generation Kill. The men were contented with the vid compilation initially, but after a while, emotion sets in. I believe some of them do not feel right with what they have done and begin to leave one by one, with only Trombley to finish the vid compilation.

"Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around" Generation Kill Ending

The Humble Return

I have finally manage to bring myself to write something here. It's been some time since I last wrote here. Well, maybe I am too occupied, or perhaps my creative juice had left me.

To start off a little, I had recently got myself a shooting tool. A humble macro lens. Here are some of the test shots that I had manage to take today. Not very good, I must say.


It was just pure luck to spot this tine weeny spider shading itself under a bunch flowers right outside my house. It did not turn out well as I could not get a decent focus. Worse still, the exposure is bad. Sigh.

It is taken with a Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 lens. Decent lens with decent price. I could not afford a macro from Nikon. It is waaaay too expensive for me to own anyway.