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Anyone else notice how accurate this show gets this relationship?
I served for seven years and was an NCO for three of those years. I really think this show did a great job of portraying the officer vs enlisted dynamic. Especially when dishing out orders and or addressing those who are lower ranking individuals. This is of course a small detail that I really think only a veteran can pick up but I thought I'd bring it up since it doesn't get much credit and or attention. I'm sure it was probably different back then but when compared to today's military (or as of 2018 for me), it's pretty damn close.
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One of my favorite lines was when the medic yelled at Winters and other officers about not attaching the used morphine syrettes to the wounded guy’s jacket so the medics would know how much he’s been given. “You’re officers! You ought to know!”. Officers need to know the same basic soldier skills as the enlisted. I saw too many lieutenants and captains who never really did.
Absolutely! Humble check for Winters because the doc was 100% right.
Humility is such an important skill set to learn and maintain as a commissioned officer. Especially as an NCO.
Basic soldiers skills. Officers, especially the loggies, are often deficient in them.
Most of us fuckin' hate that it's true, by the way. It's just real hard to get people to send you to training that you don't "need". It's a systemic problem that needs fixing.
I feel the opposite honestly. I think it’s rediculous that we treat s1, intel, commo or supply people like an infantry soldier. You come up to the HHC TOC being guarded by the S1 clerk and the supply NCO and they are so fucked up it’s like what’s the point? I would rather my gunners be gunners and my supply get them what they need when they need it. Instead we have this weird mashup where supply doesn’t really train on their job function but aren’t really good infantrymen either.
Let the functionaries function and let the killers kill. I’d rather S1 not lose my paperwork than have them accidentally end up in combat. Right now they are being pulled in too many directions to be effective.
Band of Brothers went through legendary lengths to try to get as much correct as they could. Only a few movies/shows sit up there with them.
Well, it paid off because these are the small details that we veterans can sniff out miles away. I wish Masters of the Sky got the same love and attention to detail. I'm not sure if civilians can notice the difference but as a veteran, I can absolutely can. So many small details that just annoy the hell out of me with this show.
I wanted to like Masters of the Air so much but it just didn't hit the same as Band of Brothers or The Pacific.
My favourite is the one where they send an officer back to the states on some PR mission because he can't read a map and they don't want him fucking things up.
Poor Peacock. No one tries harder, but he's seen too many war movies. Thinks he has to yell all the time.
Apparently he died in a car accident shortly after the war. If he had lived to see an actor portray him in the show, i wonder what he would have thought.
Probably not so different from Sobel (blinded by an attempted suicide), or Albert Blithe (who didn't die of his wounds).
I recently read that Norman Dike got a bad wrap, too.
My grandfather never mentioned him because of the car accident. I found out my relation to him via the show and searching online.
My uncle was named after him due in part to his premature death. I am sure my great uncle would have been pleased as punch to know he was portrayed in a mini series in such a way. My uncle and I both are very proud of my great uncle's legacy we only wish he had been around to see it.
Shames is the yeller. He was an NCO before getting a battlefield promotion during Normandy, hence the yelling which is a tough habbit to break for NCOs who go Officer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85AnXSlbt0Y&ab_channel=BPGProductions
That dude was the absolute worst. Well no I take that back, Sobel was competent but such a dick. I hated working for guys like that, enlisted or commissioned.
Sobel wasn't competent at land nav which is kind of important for an infantry zero.
Hi yo silver.
Sounds about right.
“Never take from these men”
Never put yourself in a position where you can take from these men.
In the 40s officers were in charge of training. They are now too, but the expectation is that the NCO's will conduct all practical aspects - leaving only planning and administration to the O's.
It's a subtle difference, but it sure stands out in BoB - especially since the paratroopers were all volunteers too, just like us now (same goes for Marines in the pacific, and Air Corps Pilots in Masters of the Air). It's probably a lot more relatable than a similar well-researched show about say the 99th division in France maybe would've been (primarily because it was comprised of mostly draftees, and would've had a much more old-fashioned approach to officer-enlisted relationships).
There is a reason lots of officer accession programs use BoB as training material.
Oh no way, that's awesome. I had no idea that was even a thing.
Even in the accelerated COT program (what USAF used to do for medical/chaplain/JAG) we still probably watched at least a cumulative hour of BoB throughout the classroom instruction portion.
Is this really a thing?
Army OCS uses scenes for discussion
The guard uses it for theirs.
Yes. I had to read the entire book.
no
I definitely had a couple of lessons that involved watching BoB and discussing.
Band of Brothers isn't part of any formal military leadership curriculum.
I had a professor teach racism through American History X, but that doesn't mean the state of NY board of education endorsed it.
The Marine Corps definitely uses Band of Brothers at OCS
American media tends to glamorize NCOs and disparage officers (aside from when one is a main character, who then gets put on a pedestal).
Every officer in Band of Brothers other than Winters is a bumbling idiot or insane, and this is supplemented with interviews from the veterans before / after the episodes that said we only won because of our NCOs.
I don't think they necessarily did that to Nixon though. Sure, he was a heavy drinker, but I don't think they portrayed him really anyway negative outside the bottle. It is kind of crazy though with as much time on the front lines as he had that he never fired a shot in combat.
I'd file him under "incompetent" insofar as he was just there as an intel O and never made any meaningful contributions during some of the most pivotal battles of the war.
His character in the show serves as a foil for Winters, and as a mechanism so Winters has a reason to speak his internal thoughts so we get to see his "human" side.
“Just there as an intel O” lol wut.
Proper intelligence and the distribution of that intelligence can literally make or break battles and save lives.
What a weird take.
In the series, CPT Nixon makes no meaningful contributions on screen. This isn't an indictment of the role of intel officers in the Army, simply a statement of fact on how the director of the series chose to portray his character.