Generation Kill

I would like to see this but we don't have HBO! Oh well.

The seven-part program aims to depict Marines, in all their human complexity, during the 2003 invasion.

Evan Wright had no idea what he was getting into when he was assigned to travel with the Marine’s 1st Reconnaissance Battalion in the first weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. When Wright, then a correspondent for Rolling Stone, was picked to ride with the special forces unit, the other reporters gathered at the Kuwait Hilton to find out where they would be embedded "looked at me with sheer hatred and envy," he said. "I didn't know what 1st Recon was, but if all of these reporters look so jealous, it must be a good spot," Wright recalled thinking.

As it turned out, he had an upfront view of some of the most perilous fighting in the early days of the war as 1st Recon traversed Iraq's Fertile Crescent and reached Baghdad, usually the northernmost American military unit in the country. Along the way, Wright documented the mixture of excitement, self-doubt and disillusionment that buffeted the group of young Marines as they confronted hidden enemy fighters and inflicted civilian causalities, a story he told first in Rolling Stone and then in his 2004 book "Generation Kill."

In "Generation Kill," a seven-part miniseries that premieres Sunday on HBO, the camera remains trained on the young Marines of 1st Recon's Bravo Company, elite fighters who specialize in sneaking behind enemy lines. But 1st Recon was assigned a role for which the battalion had little preparation: leading the charge through the most dangerous terrain in Iraq to divert attention from the main invasion. They drove lightly armored Humvees that many of the Marines didn't even have a license to operate. They lacked basic supplies such as batteries for their night vision goggles and lubricant for heavy guns. The result was a chaotic and treacherous push through Iraqi towns brimming with enemy fighters cloaked in civilian clothes.

"Generation Kill" puts viewers at eye level with the battles fought by Bravo Company's 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 the dark humor they use to cope with war. Much of the narrative is driven by the conflict between the enlisted men and their commanding officers, whose frequently dubious calls put both the Marines and civilians in danger.

"The growing awareness these Marines had for what they were responsible for and how little they could control is heartbreaking," Simon said.

Video Excerpt from the Show

Camp Pendleton Marines laud drama's authenticity: “I think the majority of the guys are very happy with the series,” said former Staff Sgt. Eric Kocher, 28, who helped lead the reconnaissance unit and is a veteran of five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Just watching it makes you feel like you're there because of the detailed accuracy put into the filming,” said Kocher, who served as a technical adviser for the project. Cpl. Josh Ray Person, another Marine portrayed in the miniseries, said the Marine Corps might not be happy with the show because it expects perfection from its troops. “But every family has its problems. I hope audiences will see that the war is being fought by real people...”

In the kill zone...New HBO show aims to tell the rough, raw realities of war: Former Staff Sgt. Eric Kocher has lived war. He has watched friends die in combat, endured surgeries after an RPG attack, received a Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq. Now, he’s helping a major television network tell it the way he saw it. Hired as a technical adviser for the new seven-part miniseries “Generation Kill,” Kocher’s job was to stop the hatin’ before it began — to make sure HBO and its hotshot producers got life in the Corps right.

“I’m trying to train these guys to carry themselves like recon Marines, and that’s very hard to do,” Kocher said. “I tried to speak like I would as a Marine, which is to say ‘f---’ about every third word.”