And then the company gets wiped out because a sniper plinks the two officers who were dumb enough to paint their ranks on their helmets.

Send it.

jfrankparnell said:
And then the company gets wiped out because a sniper plinks the two officers who were dumb enough to paint their ranks on their helmets.

There was an interesting take on that by General Robert Eichelberger, in his memoirs of WW2. Eichelberger was in charge at Buna on New Guinea, which was an absolute jungle hellhole, and he made a point of wearing his shiny silver general's stars while he was up at the front lines, despite the Japanese proclivity for snipers and picking off officers.

Eich was big on morale, and especially considering he was leading green American troops who had maybe seen a jungle in a magazine once and were almost all fighting with malarial fevers. In his words, "How else would those sick and cast-down soldiers have known that their commander was in there with them?"

It wasn't that the danger was not understood--three other generals of 1-3 stars had already been shot at Buna, though none fatally. But sometimes the circumstances demand taking the risk.

Very interesting. I was more poking fun at Hollywood films like Saving Private Ryan, where they painted the rank of Tom Hanks’ character on his helmet so the audience always knew which helmeted character was him, but which in reality would have had him most likely killed in the first five minutes of the film on Omaha Beach.

Eichelberger is a underrated Army leader. Shame people don’t give him more credit and still give too much attention to people like MacArthur.

Awww, how cute!

jfrankparnell said:
Very interesting. I was more poking fun at Hollywood films like Saving Private Ryan, where they painted the rank of Tom Hanks’ character on his helmet so the audience always knew which helmeted character was him, but which in reality would have had him most likely killed in the first five minutes of the film on Omaha Beach.

Eichelberger is a underrated Army leader. Shame people don’t give him more credit and still give too much attention to people like MacArthur.

Agreed on both points! Eichelberger is great, and I could go on for an hour about how much I dislike MacArthur, so I won't. And the rank on Hanks' helmet would have probably been a real bad idea in an Omaha situation where you're storming a comprehensive and activated defense, yeah. But there are arguments going both ways, and there have been and definitely will be so long as there's war.

wisky tango foxtrot...DID I SUTTTER?? SEND IT!

jfrankparnell said:
And then the company gets wiped out because a sniper plinks the two officers who were dumb enough to paint their ranks on their helmets.

Patterson's plan: Best case scenario, they kill Thott; worst case, they kill both of us. Acceptable.

Since when does Shepherd care about danger close