Hacksaw Ridge: Movie Trailer

An excellent point .

A single continuous story and showing one company vs showing the war thru the eyes of 3 different people, different islands, different units.


Just an aside

in the book With the Old Breed one of the 3 books used for the pacific, eb sledge describes being in battle, no water great heat, no water, marines losing their minds with no water and the heat and the enemy fire

and sledge sees this really old guy , old but only a captain , crawling around under fire and checking on the front line guys

the old man was future senator from IL Paul Douglas

. Douglas turned down a political commission that would mean serving in DC (he was friends with sec of the navy) and he instead enlisted as a pvt in the USMC after getting an age exemption

when Douglas graduated USMC boot camp in 1942 he was 50 years old.

He would get commissioned and combat wounded and decorated later.

But he started as a 50 yo boot pvt
 
Generation Kill is a pretty good series - for a little more modern look at things - from a Marine perspective.
It's a good two decades after my time in, but I feel like it's a good look at the stupidity of War and the brotherhood that it creates in its wake.
 
Humey said:
They cant be compared because they are two very different types of movies. One is about one man (Hacksaw) and the other is about Tom Hanks and his men. I think i have only seen Private Ryan once because it is so emotionally taxing and honestly it bothers me that so many men died to save one guy. On the other hand, i have watched Hacksaw at least 10 times, not necessarily from start to finish but whenever its on TV I watch it from wherever I started it. The movie is so uplifting with his story of being the butt of jokes and considered a coward to later almost being magic is a wonderful movie to watch. What he had to endure to save all those lives. The movie is amazing. Private Ryan is a masterpiece of moving making and was a marvel to watch. Honestly, in the scheme of things, Band of Brothers is actually the best of the three but i can watch Hacksaw a hundred times and i won't get tired of watching it. As much as Mel Gibon is an ***, he knows how to make movies
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So many men died to save one guy makes no sense ?

I was going to make light and remind that SPR was only fiction. But the fact is the military does this sort of thing all the time.

The math itself never makes sense

Losing 7 men to save 1 man should never make sense In a rational world. But what if Ryan were a pow? The math does not change.

Losing healthy alive productive people to recover a dead body should also make no sense in a rational world.

But these are done all the time in combat. The math makes no sense the effort does.

My best friend from Lejuene a doc died while trying to help recover a Marine that had been dead well
over a full 24 hours. They could not get to the body the day before.

One 19 yo with his entire life in front of him died trying to retrieve a rotting corpse.

The fact is I talked to people on that recovery some years ago. They said they darn near lost the majority of a USMC Recon company that day trying to get that dead Marines body out.
 
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Small Team Bacsi said:
So many men died to save one guy makes no sense ?

I was going to make light and remind that SPR was only fiction. But the fact is the military does this sort of thing all the time.

The math itself never makes sense

Losing 7 men to save 1 man should never make sense In a rational world. But what if Ryan were a pow? The math does not change.

Losing healthy alive productive people to recover a dead body should also make no sense in a rational world.

But these are done all the time in combat. The math makes no sense the effort does.

My best friend from Lejuene a doc died while trying to help recover a Marine that had been dead well
over a full 24 hours. They could not get to the body the day before.

One 19 yo with his entire life in front of him died trying to retrieve a rotting corpse.

The fact is I talked to people on that recovery some years ago. They said they darn near lost the majority of a USMC Recon company that day trying to get that dead Marines body out.
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Actually, that wasn't the part that pissed me off the most. I can understand the rationale as the parents had lost so many of their children . The story line that pissed me of the worst was about the clerk who they picked up because he knew German. At some point later in the movie, the Jewish guy is having a physical fight with a German in a room or something (apologize as I haven't seen it in years) and the clerk is there and would have been able to save the American. Instead, he stands there in fear and allows the American to be stabbed. If i remember correctly, the German stands up and just passes the clerk as he makes his way out of the room. That scene really pisses me off. Later the clerk redeems himself when he captures a bunch of unarmed Germans.
 
Small Team Bacsi said:
An excellent point .

A single continuous story and showing one company vs showing the war thru the eyes of 3 different people, different islands, different units.


Just an aside

in the book With the Old Breed one of the 3 books used for the pacific, eb sledge describes being in battle, no water great heat, no water, marines losing their minds with no water and the heat and the enemy fire

and sledge sees this really old guy , old but only a captain , crawling around under fire and checking on the front line guys

the old man was future senator from IL Paul Douglas

. Douglas turned down a political commission that would mean serving in DC (he was friends with sec of the navy) and he instead enlisted as a pvt in the USMC after getting an age exemption

when Douglas graduated USMC boot camp in 1942 he was 50 years old.

He would get commissioned and combat wounded and decorated later.

But he started as a 50 yo boot pvt
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whats funny is the guys from BoB were envious of those who were fighting in the Pacific because it was hot. AFter freezing your butt at Bastogne, it would be easy to think fighting in the heat was better. At the very least, Easy Compnay never had a problem getting water in the winter
 
Humey said:
Actually, that wasn't the part that pissed me off the most. I can understand the rationale as the parents had lost so many of their children . The story line that pissed me of the worst was about the clerk who they picked up because he knew German. At some point later in the movie, the Jewish guy is having a physical fight with a German in a room or something (apologize as I haven't seen it in years) and the clerk is there and would have been able to save the American. Instead, he stands there in fear and allows the American to be stabbed. If i remember correctly, the German stands up and just passes the clerk as he makes his way out of the room. That scene really pisses me off. Later the clerk redeems himself when he captures a bunch of unarmed Germans.
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So the part of the movie you liked the least was the least authentic most typical Hollywood type of set up in the entire movie. We agree.

I am disappointed movie makers as gifted as these are, would have taken this approach that would have been more at home in a quickly movie made in 1944

On rewatching the whole cowardly clerk and the spared nazi who returned to kill darn near ruined the movie for me.

The most authentic line in the movie

”Let them burn…Don’t shoot…..Let them burn”
 
Small Team Bacsi said:
So the part of the movie you liked the least was the least authentic most typical Hollywood type of set up in the entire movie. We agree.

I am disappointed movie makers as gifted as these are, would have taken this approach that would have been more at home in a quickly movie made in 1944

On rewatching the whole cowardly clerk and the spared nazi who returned to kill darn near ruined the movie for me.

The most authentic line in the movie

”Let them burn…Don’t shoot…..Let them burn”
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Supposedly and I have no idea if it's true or not but there was the point to that scene. They say Spielberg doesn't do anything randomly, but that scene is supposed to represent the US standing still while Hitler was massacring Jews throughout Euopre even know FDR knew perfectly well what was going on. I am not going to argue this point because I don't know this was Spielberg's intention or just something people come up with. Just curious, why do you consider this scene to be the least authentic? Not arguing with the point, just curious why you think so

As for your most authentic line, I always find it funny when people watch war movies and get upset about these type of lines or actions that are connected to them. There is a scene in BoB where one of the US LTs kills a group of captured Germans. The story goes out that he offered them all a cigarette and then shot them. No one saw him do it but everyone heard the story. In one of the interviews with real guys from Easy Company, someone said that when they dropped into Normany, they were ordered not to take prisoners as they had no practical way of holding them or sending them behind the lines. So it wasn't like they just let the Germans go. Neither agree or disagree with what they may have done. It just a function of war
 
Humey, I thought the whole thing with the cowardly clerk and the nazi who returns to kill after being spared was the kind of cheap and easy thing Hollywood does in a Hollywood movie to make an obvious point,

I thought what they did cheapened the movie. It was a heavy hand not a deft touch.

IMO the most honest combat movies focus on what combat does to the participants. Like prying teeth out of the mouths of still barely alive Japanese troops. Or letting enemy troops burn.


Honest is not nearly the same thing as uplifting, patriotic, inspiring, or has a major point to prove.

If Spielberg was trying to make a larger point at least I understand why they did that.

Sort of like Oliver Stone using those two Sgts to,prove a larger point about the battle between good and evil in combat I guess.

I did not like Stones approach either.
 
kinnem said:
There is,actually one part of Saving Private Ryan where I close my eyes whenever I rewatch it. A very intimate scene of death. Gave me nightmares the first time I saw it.
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That scene gave me nightmares too 😰
 
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PFC Doss’ Medal of Honor citation is worth posting in its entirety. A medic’s medic and a true hero.

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION​

“He was a company aidman when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high. As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Pfc. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one by one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands. On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and two days later he treated four men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within eight yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making four separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small-arms fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small-arms fire, and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire.​

On 21 May, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Rather than call another aidman from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited five hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of one arm. With magnificent fortitude he bound a rifle stock to his shattered arm as a splint and then crawled 300 yards over rough terrain to the aid station. Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions Pfc. Doss saved the lives of many soldiers. His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty.”​

 
Capt MJ said:
PFC Doss’ Medal of Honor citation is worth posting in its entirety. A medic’s medic and a true hero.

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION​

“He was a company aidman when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high. As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Pfc. Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one by one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands. On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and two days later he treated four men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within eight yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making four separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small-arms fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small-arms fire, and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire.​

On 21 May, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Rather than call another aidman from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited five hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of one arm. With magnificent fortitude he bound a rifle stock to his shattered arm as a splint and then crawled 300 yards over rough terrain to the aid station. Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions Pfc. Doss saved the lives of many soldiers. His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty.”​

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Never been to battle so honestly, i have no idea what i am talking about. All I know is what i see in the movies. I always thought it was funny that they made such a big deal that Doss wouldn't handle a weapon. If you take BoB as an example, they had a medic they focused on. Not sure if i even saw him even carry a rifle. Most of the scenes they focused on were usually in Bastogne so he wasn't marching anywhere. Usually he is going between foxhole and foxhole and doing his stuff. I would imagine that when he is charging up somewhere he was using his rifle. I have to imagine that in a practical sense, medics focused on saving lives and not shooting at the enemy. I would say that in one sense Doss was a liability. In the movie, when he was looking for the wounded early on, his enemy turned best friend protected Doss while they scouted for wounded. Can't go by what happened in real life, but what Doss did in the movie was incredible so his use or not sure of a firearm made no difference to what he achieved. If anything, it made it even more spectacular.
 
The main Doc in BoB did not carry a rifle. He would have had a 45. He would have needed two hands free a lot.

As a Doc I was often the most heavily armed when we went out . I was needed more as a shooter since we went out with so few of us.

And I was often the most heavily armed of the group for one reason——-the Marines generally only carried one weapon a rifle , while I always had two , a rifle and a pistol.

Several times I did serve as the M79 man on patrols. Once when we made contact.

As we went to ground and waited , the team leader looked at me, crawled over, and asked——“Doc have you ever fired one of these before?”

I had not. And,lucky for us I never had to use it that day.

If I had been in the infantry I doubt I’d have ever carried a rifle.
 
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