Generation Kill and MREs

Discussions about US MREs and other US rations
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Generation Kill and MREs

Post by kman » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:03 pm

Did you guy catch the first episode of HBO's new miniseries "Generation Kill" last night? Here's a description of it if you haven't heard about it yet:

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"Generation Kill" follows the highly trained Marines of Recon Battalion through the first 40 days of the Iraq war. Based on Evan Wright's acclaimed 2004 non-fiction book of the same name, Generation Kill is a seven-part miniseries that focuses on the first 40 days of the Iraq war, a.k.a. "Operation Iraqi Freedom," through the eyes and actions of a group of elite U.S. First Recon Marines.

While offering vivid and unvarnished portraits of the actual Marines who rode alongside Wright (an embedded journalist working for Rolling Stone magazine) for two months starting in March 2003, Generation Kill provides a gritty, uncompromising account of the collective forces that guided these highly-trained Marines across a barren landscape, and against an unknowable enemy, in a military initiative designed to liberate the Iraqi populace from Saddam Hussein.
With these military shows, I'm always on the lookout for MREs and this episode was chock full of them. They're all over the place - in tents, vehicles, being loaded on trucks, being eaten, etc.

But a couple of things stuck out for me:

First, here are a couple of the standard scenes with cases of MREs all over:
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But then there was a quick close-up of the cases in one scene:
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Notice the white sticker/barcode on that one case? That's an RFID tag. The funny thing is, they didn't start using the RFID tags until around 2006...and this series is supposed to be happening in 2003. I know I'm being super-nitpicky but it just stuck out for me.

I didn't notice it at the time, but take another look at the other cases in that picture above. Notice how that one case with white tag looks different than the other cases around it. While I was watching the series, I originally thought maybe the producers worked out a deal with the DoD to get some cases of MREs for the show. But now that I see this picture, it looks to me like they have one legitimate case of MREs (from 2006+) and then a whole bunch of other cases their prop department probably made up...and they didn't do a good job of matching up the fonts on the fake cases.

That would explain this next pic:
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When I first saw this, I couldn't figure out what was beside the guy. It was obviously supposed to be an MRE box but the fonts looked all wrong. Now it looks like it was just one of the fake MRE cases.

Nitpicking aside, I thought it was a pretty good first episode - can't wait to see the rest.

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Post by Bypah » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:14 pm

I thought this series was about the first gulf war in the 90's..... :shock:
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Post by kman » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:21 pm

Nope...the second Gulf War in the 2000s:

http://www.hbo.com/generationkill/

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Post by bl00k » Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:43 am

Hehe thats funny. I also noticed that most of those MRE cases look weird.

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Skittles

Post by jfko6 » Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:54 pm

I like the opening sequence with the skittles in the HUMVEE on the dash.
Episode I

I got rid of Tivo (it sucks) and no longer have video capturing.
Be nice if someone can screen capture that scene.

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Post by Mkim340518 » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:38 am

Did you guys see that episode last night!!!! It just keeps getting better and better and we actually got to see a fire fight!

I love this show!

The awesome banter between all the characters is hilarious, especially the guys in Culbert humvee. I also love the rants that Cpl. Person goes on about how "the war wouldn't happen if Saddam spent his money on building the pussy infrastructure of Iraq and not on his gay ass Republican Guard, yeah you should quote me on that, you should DEFINITELY QUOTE ME ON THAT!"

Culbert: "How much Ripped Fuel did you take Ray"

Cpl. Ray Person: "I'm on it like a mother fu*ker, HAHA"

LOVE THIS SHOW!!!!!!

And yes Ripped Fuel will have you running and lifting like crazy and it's also good for your special lady in your life... :wink: :twisted:


I love it how Trombly keeps bringing the Charms into the humvee and almost gets pimp slapped for it LOL.


And how about Espearas rant to Trombley when they were eating chow!
Espeara: ....we're cold blooded motherfu*kers in here and we got to carry ourselves like that! Everyone looks at us like carnivorous mother fu*kers and that's what we are....here I got your back boy....this mother fu*ker"\

GREAT GREAT GREAT writing on this show, it really does show some similarity to the cynical nature of our soldiers and their humor!


Ray Person: See we're like America's pit-bull, feed us, treat us like shit and everyone once in a while they let us out to fight....

One of the best lines in the series so far

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Post by German_EPA » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:49 am

is the dvd available yet? amazon says no?!
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Post by Mkim340518 » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:46 am

German_EPA wrote:is the dvd available yet? amazon says no?!
I don't think the DVD is available yet. The series just began on HBO about two weeks ago. It's a seven part series and we just got the second part of it yesterday.

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Post by German_EPA » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:49 am

i hope it wont end like "third watch" - 1 of 7 seasons only came out on dvd... :roll:
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Post by Mkim340518 » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:56 am

German_EPA wrote:i hope it wont end like "third watch" - 1 of 7 seasons only came out on dvd... :roll:
I hope not too :shock:
Cpl Ray Person: If Saddam spent his money on the p*ssy infrastructure of Iraq, instead of his g@y @ss Republican Guard we wouldn't have this war!

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