Big War Hits Small Screen

His reporting resonated with writers David Simon and Ed Burns, who produced The Wire, HBO’s urban street crime drama. So when HBO decided to make a miniseries out of Wright’s book, Simon and Burns produced it. “It was some of the best war reporting I’d read,” Simon said.

Generation Kill is a seven-part miniseries now on HBO, about the young Marines of 1st Recon’s Bravo Company, elite fighters who specialise in sneaking behind enemy lines. It puts viewers at eye level with the battles fought by the 2nd Platoon, framing the story as a long, dusty road trip punctuated by moments of terrible violence. The series spotlights the Marines’ “Get some!” battle cry, as well as their dark humour. Witnessing it all is Scribe, a journalist based on Wright, who rides in the back of the lead Humvee jeep, ducking fire.

Wright, who wrote the screenplay with Burns and Simon, said he probably wouldn’t have accompanied the unit if he had known how dangerous it would be. “After we got to Baghdad, we went over the Humvee, looking at all the bullet holes, and it was the first time I felt kind of sick,” he said.

HBO sought to preserve the authenticity Wright captured in the book, shooting in the deserts of southern Africa. The ensemble cast went through a boot camp run by Staff Sgt Eric Kocher, one of the Marines profiled in the book.

Those unfamiliar with military jargon might be initially put off by the lack of exposition in Generation Kill. Terms fly without explanation: “Assassin Actual” (the radio call sign for Alpha Company’s commander), “Oscar Mike” (which means “on the move”).

Much of Generation Kill is devoted to showing the individual Marines in their environment. Cpl Josh Ray Person belts out Avril Lavigne songs as he drives the Humvee; Sgt Brad “Iceman” Colbert fusses over his younger charges like a mother hen. “In media depictions of the military, we’re either seeing troops as dupes—they signed up for college money, and now they’re in Iraq getting bombed—or we see them as bloodthirsty psychos, or we see them as the all-American heroes weaving our blanket of freedom,” Wright said. “None is accurate. A success of the show would just be to introduce the public to troops that defy easy labels.”
-Matea Gold (LATWP)