My Favourite TV: Generation Kill

Generation Kill was a 7 part 2008 serialisation of the book of the same name by Evan Wright who was an embedded reporter with 1^st Recon Marines as they entered Iraq during Gulf War Mk 2. Told from the point of view of the grunts on the ground this was a visceral experience of long periods of deep boredom peppered by short periods of terror as both enemy and friendly bullets and bombs came their way. The squad, held together by Brad ‘Iceman’ Colbert (played amazingly by Alexander Skarsgard), fight their way through IED’s, enemy snipers and their own commanders often glory fuelled incompetence. Their main preoccupation, apart from some seriously off-key singing and off-colour humour, is simply to stay alive long enough to get sent home once their tour is over. This proves easier said than done in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

I liked this so much when they showed it on late night cable TV that I bought the DVD box-set when it came out. Although probably toned down from reality it was gritty enough and seemingly realistic enough to feel incredibly fresh. The chaos of war was portrayed beautifully again and again as random events, sometimes resulting in equally random death, happened wherever the camera pointed. American troops, never really know for their fire control, seemed ready to gun down people just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – sometimes for ‘something to do’ or just to have a ‘kill’ against their name. The deep cynicism about their commanders, who seemed to have little or do appreciation of what they were asking their troops to do, pervaded the whole series. This was only counteracted by the even deeper loyalty to each other – even the fuck-ups in their own Humvee’s. You don’t have to read between the lines to realise that this was a severe and telling criticism of the whole Iraq adventure while at the same time showing an admiration and an understanding of the grunts tasked to implement highly questionable policy decisions made thousands of miles away. This series is very much not for the faint of heart. As the warning clearly says on the back of the DVD box: Contains strong language, violence, sex references and real corpses. If you haven’t seen it before and haven’t been put off by that I can highly recommend this to you. I can’t promise that you’ll enjoy it – it’s not that kind of TV – but I don’t think that you’ll forget it anytime soon. Oh, and definitely watch the interview with the real 1^st Recon Marines (some of whom played themselves in the series). It’s an eye-opener.