I think their next project should be the war in Vietnam. I really like TP, because it focusses on PTSD, and if there is one war who was mentally insane, it's the Vietnamese war. There are also people needed to be remembered from that war for their heroism, amazing stories are out there, but unknown to most. Those people are so underrated, just becasue the war wasn't "won".
What do you think?
I suggest the Korean War come first. It's the real forgotten war in America's history regarding 20th century events.
It was likely the very first major proxy war the US engaged in - and among the most deadliest. In fact, US troops faced a much higher chance of getting killed in the Korean War than Vietnam (36,000 in just 3 years as opposed to 58,000 in a span of 8 years at the least - adding that, the total number of Korean War victims isn't too far off from the number that died in Vietnam).
Facing hordes of suicidal Chinese soldiers rushing at your position at night time is bound to drive you in a frenzied rage and scare the hell out of you.
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There are also people needed to be remembered from that war for their heroism, amazing stories are out there, but unknown to most. Those people are so underrated, just becasue the war wasn't "won".
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I believe soldiers that fought in Khe Sanh, Hamburger Hill etc. are among them. It'd be good to see US troops in a TV series also operating alongside their allies a bit more.
Unfortunately, a Vietnam series would likely gain more public criticism - I do agree that many of the more better sides of the US military in 'Nam are quite ignored. In my opinion, the media should be fully blamed for it - apparently they treated the victory against the Tet Offensive something more like a defeat. That's what happens when you have people with absolutely zero-knowledge of anything about the military reporting such things to the public - it creates mass ignorance.
Let the world change the punishment for sexual-related crimes to execution
Storm Thunder Infantry,
so you think the US should have stuck around in Vietnam after the Tet-offensive? For how long?
@DariusStrain:
Until Hanoi accepted their defeat and the sovereignty and independence of South Vietnam and given guarantees that they will not try to invade South Vietnam again. And to avoid any other communist aggression against Saigon the US would've kept a number of troops there for deterrence.
If it wasn't for the lack of support at the US homefront this would have been achieved. But those damn hippies and ignorant protesters proved to Hanoi that America would have to pull out from Vietnam sooner or later so they kept fighting instead of negotiating a surrender.
Yea well there are plenty of veterans of the Vietnam war that agree with what you call "damn hippies and ignorant protesters". As long as you're not the one getting shot in the front line it's always easy to force others to go.
As for the OP, there's plenty of WW 2 to go around as well. Many different battles, huge battles, both in Europe and Pacific and also in Africa and also in Far-East Asia that could be covered. I don't think I've ever seen much anything about the African and Italian campaigns.
But personally I have to say, if the new series is only as good as Pacific and not as good as Band of Brothers, don't bother making it. I'd much rather read a good historical book about WW 2 or any war then watch a bad, melodramatic, badly made tv-series.
what about fact special forces where emptying prisons of murderers/rapists/bandits then arming them to the teeth an setting them loose as part of force multiplication? or that the south vietnamese government was so corrupt and out of touch with the people that the us government found out about plans for a coup and assassination of the leader and let it happen to their own ally because they knew the south vietnamese government was so totally foul. if your in a war to prop up an atrocity you shouldnt be there. towns that were majority budhist that didnt covert to catholicism were often left without aid, and as the farmers couldnt go in the fields at times due to mines and fighting, people were being starved into forced conversion. the only way to rise in the military or civil service was become catholic. no regard for civil rights or freedom of religion, it was despicable and against everything the united states stands for, it was just ignored and swept under the rug to exagerate the threat of communism. after 30 years of warfare it was the vietnamese left to go into cambodia and push out the khymer rouge butchers while the west stood idle rather than admit in that conflict vietnam was doing the right thing. we stood by as the media tried to ignore that the asian hitler had nearly starved whole groups into extinction, because cambodia was an ally of china, and the us wanted to be friends with china to weaken the u.s.s.r which had been monstrous under stalin but by then was practically liberal compared with what the chinese were up to. in the first 9 months after vietname liberated cambodia from kymer rouge, while vietnam itself was experiencing famine, they provided 25 thousand tons of food aid, by having their own people give up some of their food, while the whole of the west with all its surplus, gave 250 tons. people continued dying of treatable illness for a lack of rice and penicillin for months, when oxfam started making donations there was no interference, the food reached the people it should, so that wasnt part of it, the west just refused to recognise the new cambodian government officially because they were close to vietnam who the west was paranoid was going to become a soviet base which it never did and never was going to be. watch john pilgers year zero, hes walking around watching hundreds of children an just human beings dying of starvation while the west was giving nothing to help, all out of this absurd paranoia of vietnam.
and what about the fact that macv sog had been infiltrated and special forces groups kept getting ambushed from the moment of insertion? what about the illegal spread of the war to countrys without a declaration of war or public consent and bomber crews being told they couldnt even tell their superiors where theyd been? what about the fact thousands are still born with health issues from the ammount of chemical crap dumped as defoliant and incendiary, decades later. if the us had kept going that way there would be no vietnam. they already killed millions.
you think that war was gonna be won just because it was the usa and you could just keep spilling blood til there was no one left? the fact is the vietnamese have always fought to be independant, it was a lost cause that achieved nothing. i sympathise with the troops, but the idea that putting them through more was a good idea is foolish. it was a tragedy for the troops being asked to make a sacrifice for a meaningless cause, vietnam was never going to attack the us, there were no terrorist training camps, it was just a total non threat, but led to massacring of a population. apart from wounded pride there would of been no benefit to further involvement. the imbeciles in suits and the inteligence community had to lie about the bay of tonkin just to try and make up a justification for even going there, a us warship fired on vietnamese vessels while under no threat and no declaration of war to attempt to seduce a response then ended up just lying about the whole thing. it was cold war paranoia that has all been proven totally false since the curtain fell and the other sides records have become public, an a crooked cadre playing up a threat in a very dishonest way, to keep up paranoia and war industry and using the situation to intimidate other soverign nations, it was just not in the spirit or interest of america as a whole, just those in the business of keeping 3rd world nations under the thumb an keeping wages down for american owned companies, and those in the arms trade, just like haliburton milked the public teat recently with inflated charges, turning tragedy to personal profit.
So uh....They cross the border to fight the North Viets & their logistical supply line & SOG is 'spreading the war'...OK; see ya;
And nobody quote him either...the thought of seeing another two-thousand-sevenhundred-and-twentyfour line single-spaced double sided unibomber worthy screed of cliches again just makes my gorge rise...
lol yes but the issue was more that any village near the border was considered fair game and massacred, and that it was an invasion of soverign territory, without a declaration of war, without public consent to possibly escalate the entire thing, with efforts made to hide and deny it to the global community. were not talking about ground attack aircraft targetting certain supply trucks, were talking blind fire mass area bombardment killing anyone in a huge area. the fact is it was another very ethically questionable act, or it would not have been hidden. its the sort of thing that if another nation had done in fighting their war, the united states would have condemned. in the soviet occupation of afghanistan, the cia was pouring weapons and anti air craft missiles etc across the border from pakistan. now imagine the soviet union had bombed pakistan? they would have been as justified in the same way as the us, if theyd cut off those supplies, theyd have stopped losing so many troops. but can you imagine the western worlds reaction to the soviet union bombing a country on a large scale with no declaration of war? its an identical situation. its an if they do it they are evil, if we do it its a perfectly logical necessity. that just dont cut mustard. nearly all those tactics are now illegal war crimes, area bombardments of civilian populated areas, using napalm on civilian inhabited areas, leaving unmarked land minefields, these would all have you brought before the hague now, the actions in nam by the leadership was not just oh well, they were immoral acts. the idea of the poster here that the world would have been better served by continuing it is just wrong. vietnam never posed a threat, it was never going to become a soviet missile base or be of any strategic value, that whole area of the world was in range of china already, it was already in a superpowers shadow, so even if the ussr had been trying to turn it into a satelite, which they never actually made any attempt to do, it was still a waste of time. my sympathy is with the soldiers, i mean more veterans who served in vietnam commited suicide on returning home than died in combat, thats without even going into others who were disabled, became homeless, became or remained junkies, suffered from ptsd amongst other things, that gives you an idea of the human suffering inflicted in that war, both on a population that didnt deserve it, and on the people who were risking their lives for their country. it was a war with no justification filled with atrocities war rapes and massacres. the fact is invading soverign territory to attack people without a declaration of war, because a LOT of civilians died in those bombings, that would not be tolerated by the world if it was done by any other nation, the usa just abused its position as a super power, knowing no one would pull them up on it but the soviet union and china who werent going to start a nuclear war over it, so they just abused the situation and committed acts which were immoral and which no other nation would have gotten away with. whats the point fighting a war thats supposed to be about spreading freedom and democracy if its fought with lies and immorality. it was a totally insane hypocriticial situation brought about by people with a very cynical and treachorous outlook.
sharei know its a source of wounded pride etc, and its not attack on the nation itself but well if governments and nations never did anything wrong and were infallible thered be no need for democracy, you could just leave the leadership to do as it pleased then say anyone who disagreed is a traitor. the country got into something with dishonest motives, actually began its involvement with false flag operations, then no leader wanted to be the guy who lost a war and also once bogged down with commitments no one wanted to pull out and have spent so many lives for nothing, so they just fought more brutally and underhanded on and on and on and on making no difference to anything but the death toll and the scale of retaliations.
shareDarius, the Tet Offensive happened every year that American troops were there, but to varying degrees. I know you mean Tet 68, but for serious historians, they might be confused.
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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Believe me I would love to see the Vietnam mini series... but I think if they will continue it make sense to go with the Korean War first. Maybe I'm biased because I'm from South Korea and that war literally tore my family as well as majority of the people there apart. The Korean War was where over one million tons of napalm were dropped and towns were completely obliterated within seconds. Many pictures you see in PTSD segments mostly come from WWII and the Korean War. In fact, some pictures they used to describe Okinawa and Vietnam were actually from the Korean War as well.
Korean War would also be a good miniseries that shows how it affected soldiers as there was a constant backstabbing in the Korean War. No one knows exactly which side started but the occupying infantry killed all the civilians before pulling back. This started in a constant "kill those from the north/south." Maybe you should watch Tae Guk Gi. It is about two Korean brothers that are both drafted into the Korean War and the story unfolds as they participate in the brutal battles in Korea. It can also contrast how people in WWI felt with the trench warfare and close combat fighting with bayonets and rocks and molotovs.
They should make the Korean War first in a large network segment of the Cold War. Not only including our part of the Cold War but also the Soviet side when they enter Afghanistan and try to overthrow the "never conquered land." But if anything, they still haven't covered the African part of WWII. We all can take a guess just how brutal and gruesome the war was in Africa.
If it is about PTSD, however, Korean War and the Vietnam War would be the best used examples to portray it. In both wars, every soldier either carried out or witnesses of extremely gory and terrible things. People burning alive from napalm, towns and villages in ruins, children with missing limbs crying for their dead family, etc. Vietnam specifically was a horrible event as they had a brand new vehicle to allow them quick entrance and exit from combat; helicopters. However, this also proved that these infantry would have no cover or no advantages in terms of already possessing solid territory to wage an offensive. In terms of holding the line, most of the times there was no line of defense except for key bases like Khe Sahn. Take a look at Tae Guk Gi and don't be close minded because it's in Korean. There are plenty with subtitles and while they aren't perfect in translations, they do a great job... also it is the only movie where no one will shame you or think less of you for crying. It's sadder than Armageddon or Titanic... not that those movies were sad... nor that I cried in those movies lol
I've seen Tae Guk Gi, it is good. It's refreshing to see a non-American war film about a war that the Americans took part in. Although you don't see the American troops that many times in Tae Guk Gi.
Yea, there's plenty of wars and battles out there that should get the BoB/Pacific-treatment. Hopefully South Korea would make more stuff about the Korean War.
Yea, there's plenty of wars and battles out there that should get the BoB/Pacific-treatment. Hopefully South Korea would make more stuff about the Korean War.
I've seen several threads discussing making a Trilogy of Miniseries out of BoB,TP and a third future miniseries. Every time the subject of Vietnam is brought up.
I think people are missing the point.
The connection between BoB and TP is that they both show different aspects of the same war. Army in the ETO and Marines in the PTO. A third series would HAVE TO BE set in WW2 as well otherwise it would not be a part of a trilogy... just another miniseries.
It would need to show a third aspect of WW2. And probably the most IGNORED aspect of the war, at least in terms of modern hollywood filmmaking, was the naval war in the Pacific.
Other than the much panned U-571(2000) and the earlier classic Das Boot(1981) and both of those in the Atlantic, there has NOT BEEN any movie depicting the Naval Battles that took place in the Pacific. You have to go all the way back to Otto Preminger's "In Harms Way", starring John Wayne and in Black and White to find another. I'm not counting setpiece films depicting one specific moment/battle, like the excellent Tora Tora Tora depicting Pearl Harbor, or the modern Michael Bay abomination called Pearl Harbor.
Vietnam has it's films. Even modern films that shows a more realistic portrayal and not so hollywoodized. Films like We Were Soldiers and Rescue Dawn.
I think it was in some of the extra behind the scenes "Making of" documentaries in the DVDs but the whole reason TP exists is because after BoB, Hanks or Spielberg was approached by Marine Veterans asking "But what about us? we fought too"
Well, as a Navy Vet I am asking, But what about us as well.
Don't get me wrong, I think a good Miniseries about Vietnam done with the quality and care as both BoB and TP would be great. But as a follow-on to them... No. Vietnam HAS it's films. The Next BoB/TP project needs also to be WW2 and The Navy needs to be it's subject.
And the perfect source material/subject would be the Battle Off Samar and the fight of Task Force Taffy 3.
Quite literally the US Navy's Finest Hour!
I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!
I like the vets and support them, especially ones returned from Vietnam. However, I think when it comes to "heroes" I'd rather watch the Korean War. 1 million tons of napalm dropped, entire cities completely in ruins, constant civilian killing from both sides due to "traitorous acts." And although it was a proxy war, it was a war to liberate the captured South Korea and help them push further north. Until 100,000 Chinese infantry charged south.
shareDude, ther have been so many Vietnam films made, its a totally spent genre. Sorry.
shareWW2 and Vietnam have been very well documented in film over the years. I think if they do another series, it should be Korea or WW1. Both are not as exposed as the other two are.
shareI totally agree about Korea, often dubbed "the Forgotten War". I heard rumor that there is a film about the Chosin Reservoir Battle in production. I would love to see that, I also agree about WW1, although US involvement there was short. I can't think of many great WW1 films other than "All Quiet on the Western Front". But that is datted.
shareI would prefer to see a WW2 Mini series about a German unit fighting against Russia. It would be far more compelling. I'm not suggesting a glorification of the Nazis but a story about a poor German teen who is drafted into a losing war with Russia while his home is being bombarded by the allies.
I have a cigar!
I have always felt Guy Sajer's 'Forgotten Soldier' would make a fantastic miniseries.
shareHBO, IIRC, did a very good WW1 movie called "The Lost Batallion" several years ago, based on a true incident during the Ardennes Offensive of 1918. It stars Rick Schroeder, who I'm not real big on, but he was excellent as the CO. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth watching.
I haven't seen "Paschendale" but I've heard it suffers from the usual '00s war movie syndrome of too much side story, not enough action. I do like the fact that it shows the war from the British/Canadian POV.
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I grieved I had no shirt until I met a woman who had no pants.
I've seen "The Lost Battalion" a few times, and loved it. I wish they would show that more often.
Another HBO creation, "Generation Kill" was a series about a Marine Recon Company in the Second Gulf War. I think it was superb depiction of military beaucracy, but it came out at the worst possible time (the height of unpopularity of the Iraq War). Its a great series, despite of the political correctness blow back against it. Definitely worth a watch.
Who's High Pitch?
Korean War would be the logical choice, it follows WW2 and America had a significant involvement with it.
I found this story online about a German soldier who fought in WW2 for the Nazis, but immigrated to America after the war and enlisted in the US Marines, the fought for America in the Korean War.
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/09/131186773/veteran-served-as-soldier-for- hitler-and-u-s-army
If he has a good enough story to adapt it would be a good way to link the 3 mini series together.
Either that, or scrap the 10 part mini series and do a 22 part series about the whole Cold War (Korean War, Vietnam War etc etc)
How can a train be lost? It's on rails.- Darjeeling Limited (2007) share
I too would see Korea as a good progression in this series as (I believe) some units saw action throughout the complete Korean campaign. Maybe even have it based on the african-american units involved.
Without delving into the politics of Vietnam, not sure there were any units who were stationed in Vietnam for most of the conflict.
Yeah, i reckon that would be a good idea
shareTV-show in the same class as band of Brothers and The Pacific, but takes place during the Vietnam war: Tour of Duty
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092468/
I have not watched it in years, but remember it being pretty darn good.