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Is there something wrong with cooks or vehicle mechanics as an example?
Of course not, but there are a lot of cooks and vehicle mechanics. It's a low barrier to entry job that people can do outside of the military. Boring.
Special Forces super high speed GG12 level killing machines are more exciting.
We watch shows and read books about cops on the street. Not the old people at the front desk telling you where traffic court is.
We watch shows about trained killers, training and killing. Nobody is interested in watching a movie about the supply guy having the grunts count sleeping bags over and over again.
Saving Private Ryan was not about a spec ops team, and nor was Band of Brothers. Fury with Brad Pitt was also not spec ops. The Last Ship on TNT is not a spec ops team. Mash was not a spec ops team. Jarhead was not a spec ops team. Hurt Locker was not a spec ops team. Battle LA was not a spec ops team. Battleship with Taylor Kitsch was not spec ops team.
Which brings up the grey area. Saving Private Ryan being about a Ranger Company and Airborne Infantry, while not "special forces" often do have "elite" pasted onto them, especially during WWII before the US had special operations forces. The Last Ship has among its Vulture team the one of the last surviving Navy SEAL Officers and his equivalent in an Australian Clearance Diving Branch Chief Petty Officer leading them.
Of others mention the Vietnam era Tour of Duty which had their platoon turn into a Long Range Recon Patrol wearing a Military Assistance Command patch and working with Carl Weathers Special Forces forces. In the TV show Third Watch their street cop Bosco was an Army Ranger who wanted to become NYPD Emergency Services Unit Officer before he was wounded in action. Actor/Rapper Ice-T who is said to have been in the 25th Inf Divisions Long Range Recon and Patrol unit in 1977, what was known as Company F 75th Rangers in 1971, plays Detective Fin Tutuola Army Ranger and veteran of the Blackhawk Down incident in Mogadishu, or he was just working a suspect on a veteran to veteran level, which would have made him a very old rookie cop before he went undercover and then to the Special Victims Unit.
More clever plots would portray ordinary soldiers doing extraordinary things--which is why the true stories of Rodger Young, Alvin York, and Audi Murphy still resound.
More clever plots would portray ordinary soldiers doing extraordinary things--which is why the true stories of Rodger Young, Alvin York, and Audi Murphy still resound.
I still think that when the elite prejudice began the ordinary infantryman did not see combat or his Bradley Fighting Vehicle following a M1 tank just blew through the Iraqi Army in 1991. The character need to be special forces to justify his war story history.
Now it becomes a lazy way to say just how special your cop or Federal Agent is because while the others went to the police academy your Riggs of Lethal Weapon, Tutuola of Special Victims Unit, Gibbs and Hanna of NCIS....and so on and so on went to BUDS or Ranger School and short hand proved to be more than a civil servant with a handgun.
When the elite bias started with Rambo and Magnum PI you could still have your veteran character be a Sonny Crockett and just an infantryman in the Vietnam era Air Cav because the culture knew of all those ordinary troops memorialized at the Wall without the service school with the high drop out rate in their bio.
Which brings up the grey area. Saving Private Ryan being about a Ranger Company and Airborne Infantry, while not "special forces" often do have "elite" pasted onto them, especially during WWII before the US had special operations forces. The Last Ship has among its Vulture team the one of the last surviving Navy SEAL Officers and his equivalent in an Australian Clearance Diving Branch Chief Petty Officer leading them.
Of others mention the Vietnam era Tour of Duty which had their platoon turn into a Long Range Recon Patrol wearing a Military Assistance Command patch and working with Carl Weathers Special Forces forces. In the TV show Third Watch their street cop Bosco was an Army Ranger who wanted to become NYPD Emergency Services Unit Officer before he was wounded in action. Actor/Rapper Ice-T who is said to have been in the 25th Inf Divisions Long Range Recon and Patrol unit in 1977, what was known as Company F 75th Rangers in 1971, plays Detective Fin Tutuola Army Ranger and veteran of the Blackhawk Down incident in Mogadishu, or he was just working a suspect on a veteran to veteran level, which would have made him a very old rookie cop before he went undercover and then to the Special Victims Unit.
On the Last Ship, neither the Seal or the Aussie are main characters. Most of the time regular sailors are accompanying them. Even Females go ashore and carry guns.
On the Last Ship, neither the Seal or the Aussie are main characters. Most of the time regular sailors are accompanying them. Even Females go ashore and carry guns.
What is the definition of a main character just Captain Chandler and lead female? Lt Greene has been there from the beginning when USS Nathan James was under silence and did not know of the global pandemic and Chief Wolf has been there for half of the run of the show normally as the big stick combatant of the Captain's supporting force when Vulture team breaks into two.
Just because the rest of the team didn't go to BUDS is kind of irrelevant, the sailors are in beards and undercover clothes just like all the SEALS in fictional programs and have been trained up by the pre pandemic school trained operators in a world where the schools awarding special operator status likely do not exist because the cadre are all dead.
edit to add:
The "special forces bias" is so bad that when Nathan James entered Norfolk Harbor guess who was standing watch in a guard tower in the harbor? He was identified as a Navy SEAL, no doubt using his special skills standing watch.
Last edited by Taiko; 09-14-2017 at 07:44 PM..
Reason: additional
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