I'm not looking to sugar coat it, put it on 60 Minutes as a one hour expose or present it is a special about the problems in all the services, don't put it on PBS as if this was a look at what life in the Navy is all about, that's not fair to all the good people who don't fall into the small percentage of trouble makers.

Maybe this would have been better if it was about a smaller ship. 5000 people is like a city and cities do have more social problems than small towns.

but they DO show the good in the show...but that episode last night was titled "hidden secrets" (or something like that); and it was pretty much about the drama that goes on. but in the other episodes they show how they have fun and the professionalism that they have despite the bad things that happen.

i agree having a 2 hour show about the 'bad' maybe isn't the way to go; but it still shows people what these guys (and girls...gotta be PC lol) go through on deployment. either being the one causing trouble or dealing/working with the ones causing trouble; and putting all that aside when the s**t hits the fan and still run the ship.

I saw about 1.5 hours of this last night when I got home. Trying to decide if it is worth the $27 at amazon.com for the dvd? What I saw was interesting...maybe I can catch more of it in re-runs.

YOU CAN WATCH IT ON THE PBS SITE......SERIOUSLY.....FULL EPISODES...

So far so good. I just viewed the first episode and I think the writers and producers are doing a good job of showing the various "characters" which represent the themes of military life.

I retired last summer after 22 years in the Army and some of the themes cross branch of service boundaries; they are constants of military life and with that as a segue.....

The people they are depicting from lower to lower middle, to middle class are exactly the demographics you get in the military. Notice no representative from the upper class. Might be one or two from the upper middle, I've known one or two but they are rare. Are there "knuckleheads" here? you betcha, but they are trying to do something with their life when they in all likelihood have been dealt a bad hand by life.

You want to talk about knuckleheads, how about those on Wall Street who are likely going to cost you (the US tax payer) a good piece of change as we spin through the fall out from the easy money induced credit crisis. Whose the bigger knucklehead? That black female 18 year old whose mother was a prostitute and speculates that her father was a pimp (she never knew him) and decided at 18 after fighting off the pressures (unlike her peers not already pregnant) where she grew up that she had to do something now and decided to join the Navy?

Or pick any one of those Wall Street CEO's who got multi-million dollar year end bonuses as their firms reported record write down losses which share holders sucked up. And they have defended their actions before congress as standard industry practice.

Which one of these people is more "real"? Which one is a better representative of the best in humanity?

SB

Vince, you need to reread my post.

I don't think you understand what I am saying at all.

By the way, I wore kevlar for 22 years.

I insulted no one.

Those guys may have shady backgrounds and troubled passed - but once 'sh$t hits the fan' and 'game is on', they are hardest working people. In short 4 years, they grew up, received education and gained a life that they wouldn't had without military. I'm glad that they got my back.

Ah, i was wondering what that goofing looking helmet thing was. i noticed it on the squadron CO mostly, i think others had it too, but it makes sense that the CO would get it first.

Every organization throughout all of history has it's 10% whether that is kindergarten or the SAS (Of course the 10% is relative to the organization). The majority of cool stuff is not actually fun when you doing it (25 years experience here). It's only fun to talk about afterwards.

Los

the pilots in last nights episode reminded me of owen wilson's character is Behind Enemy Lines. I think the pilots where frustrated that they were there to help but they really weren't doing much. It showed the even the coolest job on earth (IMO) can be pretty dull. Granted, they (and I) recognize that dull is a good thing in war. If modern combat flight sims were like reality in terms of action seen in the theatre, they would never sell a single copy. (well maybe a few to the microscoft flight sim fans.).

i wish they would show some of the other squardons. They have not shown any E-2s or EA-6s. it would cool to see their role in the flight ops as well. they are sort of the forgotten aviators.