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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 8:33:56 GMT -8
Switching from Film Noir to war films during the Kung Flu Hysteria, I watched a couple last night on Prime Video. The first was Sands of Iwo Jima. I’ve seen this before but it was good to watch it again. I couldn’t tell you what is real-life in the Marines, but they did insert a lot of real-life war footage here and there. John Wayne, as Sgt. John M. Stryker, heads a diverse assortment of personalities. John Agar plays the chip-on-his-shoulder Pfc. Peter Conway. Forrest Tucker is the bad character in the guise of Pfc. Al Thomas. Both of the above hate Stryker for their own reasons. This movie has a nice balance of war action and between-battles looks at the individuals and their lives. There’s a nice love-at-first-sight between Pfc. Peter Conway and Allison Bromley (Adele Mara). John Wayne is the designated hero. But this isn’t a hagiographic sort of Wayne. Wayne plays a man whose c-word wife has basically run off with his son. Stryker is torn up over this, particularly because his son won’t write him a letter. We’re assured by Stryker that this couldn’t possibly be because his wife is preventing it. But one wonders if his gullibility led him into a relationship with a harpy in the first place. We’ll never know. We never meet Mrs. Stryker. So this Sgt. John M. Stryker has his weaknesses. One of them is to get roaring drunk which we and others deduce is the reason he lost a couple stripes and was commanding this small rifle company. I don’t quite buy the storyline at IMDB that “Sgt. John Stryker is an embittered man who takes his misery out on the men under his command.” Perhaps this adds a bit of spin on his discipline. But I get the impression that even if his wife and son were writing him loving letters every day, he’d be busting his men’s asses in order to get them into fighting shape. Despite the diversity of weaknesses and sometimes just downright rotten personalities of those involved, the underlying message and expectations is that when push comes to shove, these men will do the right thing, that despite their gruff exterior, they are men of honor and goodness. One of my favorite scenes is when they are onboard a ship headed back from a fight and are being shipped back to Hawaii. Stryker pulls one of his subordinates asides and says “I’ve got two bottles of rice wine in my pack. Get it and give it to the men. Tell them you got it off a dead Jap.” But the subordinate tells Stryker that he really ought to let the men know that it’s from him, not a dead Jap. But Styker wants and needs to maintain the professional distance. This is so 180 different from today’s leaders who try to buy everyone’s favor. Instead, Stryker is doing the harder thing but one that will produce better long-term results. This is a great role for Forrest Tucker, one of his best. And despite him being a nasty sort of character, he does show (at times) when push comes to shove he can do the honorable thing. It’s perhaps unjust and certainly offensive to many to equate the work “Snowflake” with “Marine.” But John Agar’s character, Peter Conway, does invoke that aspect for quite a bit of the movie. But in the end, even he realizes that Stryker isn’t “mean” because of family issues or even because he was a good friend of Peter Conway’s father (whom the son dislikes). He knows that Stryker is a hard man in hard times and for the right reasons. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 8:44:08 GMT -8
Only an idiot or snowflake, oh, I repeat myself, could have written that storyline blurb. I have seen the movie a couple of times and it was clear that Stryker was a leader who knew that a soft group of men is much more vulnerable to being chewed up in battle than a hard, disciplined group. Hard leaders are common in armies. That used to be common knowledge. You will recall that in the Roman Legions it was said that the soldiers feared their Centurions more than the enemy.
The question of whether or not Stryker's personal sorrow somewhat colored his handling of his men is something else, but it was not fundamental to his actions.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 8:50:38 GMT -8
Next you will be calling me Flu Manchu. Racist!!!   |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 8:58:46 GMT -8
The other movie I watched was 1943’s Gung Ho! with Randolph Scott. This is a thoroughly awful movie but one that is still marginally entertaining in its own way. All I can say is that if this is what American special forces looked like during the war, it’s a wonder we beat the Japanese. They so badly needed a technical expert on this picture. It is an early film for Robert Mitchum who has a minor role in it. For me, the most hilarious part was when the sub commander was radioing in to Colonel Thorwald (Randolph Scott) that Japanese forces were seen heading this way, so they need to evacuate the island and head for the subs. Thorwald reacts as if he has all the time in the world. Then another radio message comes in from the subs. “They’re even closer than we thought. Hurry hurry hurry.” That’s the gist of the message. But Thorwold still seems unmoved and acts with anything but urgency. Perhaps they were trying to portray him as calm and not panicking, But he just came off as daft. This was to be a commando raid where they were outnumbered 6-to-1. But for some reason they come in under the cover of dawn, not darkness. Immediately they run into Jap snipers. There’s a big and extended firefight. This whole operation is based on surprise. That’s blown, but then they just proceed to the next target as if their plans needn’t change at all. Despite being outnumber 6 to 1 and the element of surprise being blown, we cut to a scene where two soldiers are painting an American flag on top of the roof of a Jap building. A third soldier is there to make wisecracks. The work proceeds not as if they were commandos with urgent work to be done but like general union contractors with all the time in the world on their hands. And then this ridiculous premise come to fruition. It’s all a part of Colonel Thorwald’s plan to use the Japanese fighters against their own soldiers. It’s a horrible premise and there’s no way this looks even marginally practical. According to one reviewer, in the real-life raid on Makin Island, the Jap pilots apparently did mistakenly shoot at some of their own troops. But rather than being outnumbered by the Japs, apparently the Marine Raiders easily outnumbered the Jap force of 80 or so soldiers. This was meant to be a patriotic film. This point is driven home by the ridiculous speech by Randolph Scott at the end of this. I have absolutely no problem with jingoistic wartime films. I generally love them, including John Wayne’s The Green Berets. But there’s a right way to do them and a wrong way to do them. This was the wrong way to do them. This same reviewer imparts more history of the real event (assuming this is accurate): Maybe the movie portrayal was accurate, because it did seem to be a bit of a clusterf***. But it does sound as if the real-life story would have made a better movie than this one hashed out in 1943. War is indeed hell. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 9:05:47 GMT -8
Yes, probably a girly-man or Snowflake wrote that blurb. Clearly his bitterness drove him to drink. But it wasn’t apparent at all that he was anything but a tough-nosed company commander in his role as leader.
One should note that this was not a moody and overwrought characterization as done by Montgomery Clift, for example. Wayne’s Sgt. Stryker was more focused and nuanced. He was not a live wire or bull in a China flu shop or throwing his latent moodiness all over. Even with his drinking, he seemed to have a carefully marshaled and designated time for it.
One telling scene is when a pretty lady picks him up in a bar. He eventually goes home with her. We get the impression at the bar that she is some kind of “working girl.” Wayne realizes that she is a mother and is doing what she has to do in order to buy food for her baby. Sgt. Stryker, hardly out of control by either booze or hormones, assesses the situation and throws his money clip into the kid’s crib. And then it’s just “Good night, Miss.” She recognizes a decent man when she sees one and says she’ll pray for him.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 9:07:56 GMT -8
Flu Manchu it is. I like that.
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Post by artraveler on Mar 22, 2020 9:42:01 GMT -8
My father was wounded on Saipan in the summer of 44 and missed the show on Iwo and Okinawa. He was assigned to a training battalion in Australia getting ready for the invasion of Japan. I personally thank Truman every day for having the guts to drop the bombs. There is a good chance I would not be here otherwise. I don’t quite buy the storyline at IMDB that “Sgt. John Stryker is an embittered man who takes his misery out on the men under his command.” Perhaps this adds a bit of spin on his discipline I have watched this several times over the last 60 years. It was a standard on channel 9 in LA in the late 50s. My father comment on Stryker was that he was the icon of "old corps". It was years, and my own trip to MCRD San Diego that I truly understood what he meant. The NCOs and officers who joined the Marines before the war were not in any way the heroic examples we see in the movies. The old corps was composed of men who joined for three hot and a cot during the 20s and 30s. There was nothing glamorous or heroic about what they were doing. A few saw actual combat, Chesty Puller in Nicaragua, but most were just trying to survive the lack of attention paid to them by congress and the Navy. Marines were viewed a knuckle dragging thugs by the Navy, suitable as cannon fodder and to man the Navy's gun turrets between the wars. However, that said, my father said the best duty he had in his career was two years on the USS Nevada in the 30s. What the Marines taught then and now is not the tools of battle, important yes but not critical, from the fist hour at San Diego or Paris Island, marines are taught leadership and that revolves around caring for the men under your command a rifle squad or a division. That is why he sent the wine to his squad and did not take credit. Over the years when I applied for jobs the first question I asked myself was would I follow the "boss" into combat. If the answer was a definite no, then I would turn down the job. When I compromised and took the offer against this criteria it was always the wrong decision, perhaps for the right reasons, keeping food on the table, but I quickly moved on. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 9:56:35 GMT -8
It is funny that this should come up. I was talking to my wife last night about leadership. She had mentioned something about the difference between a couple of bosses she had. One was very good and on the ball, the other, not so much.
I told her that some very basic characteristics of leadership are 1) actually leading, showing by example what needs to be done and letting your subordinates know that you know what you are doing, have done it and are still willing to do it. This builds confidence in subordinates, 2) listening to your subordinates. A leader learns from this and demonstrates concern and respect for his subordinates. 3) Being fair and consistent in one's handling of one's subordinates. This doesn't mean being soft. It may be the hardest of these points to follow. 4) Being clear in what one expects of one's subordinates. 5) Correcting mistakes quickly.
I said these points are necessary for leadership in any area of group endeavor. I thought she might be seeing some of these in the better boss. She seemed to agree with me.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 22, 2020 9:56:59 GMT -8
If you want to see discipline, try Starship Troopers. Heinlein was a staunch Navy guy (as befitted a graduate of Annapolis) and he based his army on the Marines, so this was probably how he saw them (and he would have witnessed some of this during his service). Of course, this was initially boot camp, though he included many scenes of the Mobile Infantry on campaign.
I wonder how bad things got that a company (normally commanded by a captain) was commanded by a sergeant. In the middle of a battle that can happen, particularly a bloody battle in the later stages of a bloody campaign. Perhaps Stryker was the drill master and took over official command on Iwo? That would be a lot likelier. Or maybe by early 1945 the Marines were running a bit low on company-grade officers.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 10:03:54 GMT -8
Yep. Without a doubt.
One is never sure how much of reality is contained within movies. But that was my belief as well. It seemed like at least “old school” was on display in the guise of Sgt. Stryker. (Note his name wasn’t Sgt. Snowflake.)
That’s a great way of looking at it. That also implies that there is real loyalty between employer and employee, that he or she is not just a cog in a machine, easily cast off when convenient.
I think the days of cradle-to-grave in one job are more or less behind us for a variety of reasons. But you mentioned the Buber book, “I and Thou.” As much as we hear about the touchy-feely “Progressive” all-caring, cradle-to-grave, the-government’s-got-your-back vibe, that’s not the same thing as a human — a boss — that you can look in they eye and know if this is true or not.
The central truth of socialism and Big Government is that they are a big lie. They pretend to be compassionate. But in the end, they turn everyone against everyone else. It is an apt church for a Godless people.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 22, 2020 10:09:29 GMT -8
Joseph Major once did an article on various "invasion of Japan" books and dedicated to several of us who might well not have been born if it had actually occurred -- himself, his wife (Lisa Thomas Major), and me. We'll never know, and it's just as well that we never had to find out.
I've read that one of William Bligh's problems was inconsistent leadership. He was not the monster he has been usually portrayed as (TCM recently had the 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, which I saw as a kid). But no one knew what to expect from him. And so he faced such events 3 times in his career -- the Bounty, the fleet mutinies of 1797 (to be fair, that one wasn't his fault), and later the Rum Rebellion in Australia. (Australian SF writer A. Bertram Chandler set his series hero in his own version of the Bounty mutiny [The Big Black Mark], and was quite the admirer of Bligh. He referred to Fletcher Christian as a "spoiled pup".)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 10:12:19 GMT -8
Mr. Flu Manchu, your five points of leadership seem sound. I think leadership is inherently about strong command backed by wisdom, ethical behavior, and justice. And I don’t care if you’re flippin’ burgers or building iPhones. The guys at the top can’t be candy-ass, two-faced, incompetent, wet noodles or you’re not going to get much done.
Granted, I will say that it seems American business has done of job of integrating a sort of fuzzy-wuzzy, congenial, consensus-minded Deepak Chopra-ish squishiness where the worst offense is hurting anyone’s feelings. I happen to think that more gets done under a General Patton style of leadership. And note, I don’t mean just bullying and screaming. Clearly Patton was very competent in his chosen profession.
But things are what they are. I think you would likely projectile vomit, Mr. Flu Manchu, if you were to step into a corporate boardroom and read whatever passes for their “Five Rules of Leadership.” Believe me, they would be dripping with estrogen, not the smell of napalm in the morning.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 10:26:10 GMT -8
At one time, my family and I had supper every Friday night with someone whose best friend was an ex-Marine-bird colonel. I don't recall what size unit a bird colonel leads in the Marines, but this guy was commanding officer of some unit when the 2003 Gulf War started. Before he and his unit shipped overseas, he canned his no. 2, who was a major, because it became clear that the men of his unit did not have faith in the major when in a war-time situation. Although the colonel had supported the major for some years and was close to him, the colonel had little problem removing the major from his position. Apparently, the major said that his career would be ruined, to which the colonel said something like, "I can't help that. The men don't have confidence in you and that is vital in war. Their lives are more important than your career."
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 10:31:12 GMT -8
Having read enough history, and watched enough war movies, I’m often impressed by just how much the Germans and Japanese had it coming. I don’t wring my hands over Dresden accept to the extent there were apparently POWs in that city at the time. These bastards had it coming. And, given the history of the fate of a conquered people, they got off not only lightly but were arguably better-off in the long run. One can wring their hands over the innocents harmed or killed. And there were plenty of those. But if we were to elect a Communist such as Bernie Sanders, many of whom we might call “the innocent” would be (or should be) actively implicated in the disaster. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, but this is from a zoomed shot from my iPhone taken looking directly across the street. This is not a photo-composition. This is reality. The blue at the square at the bottom is a Bernie Sanders sign quite appropriately underneath a street sign. Both are at the entrance to someone's driveway. These people shouldn’t vote and should probably have their property confiscated and given to “the homeless.”  |
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Post by artraveler on Mar 22, 2020 10:46:20 GMT -8
I don't recall what size unit a bird colonel leads in the Marines Under normal circumstances a full bird commands a battalion about 500 men. That can vary with the mission of the unit. A full regiment is commanded by a brigadier or major general and division by a major or lieutenant general. I am surprise his exec was a major, should have been a lt col |
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Post by artraveler on Mar 22, 2020 10:56:10 GMT -8
I’m often impressed by just how much the Germans and Japanese had it coming Speculative history but my belief is that the cause of WWII was the willingness of the English and French to come to terms with the Germans. Pershing and most of his staff favored continuing the war and dictating terms from the steps of government house in Berlin. Had that actually happened there would have been no stabbed in the back myth in Germany and possibly no WWII, Cold War, Korea, or Vietnam. I suppose some other crisis would have brought on a war but we know how the 20th century turns out. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 11:04:40 GMT -8
As the Germans say, "I wouldn't put my hand in the fire" as regards his being a major. That is what I recall, but I have it second hand so who knows?
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2020 11:38:29 GMT -8
As I recall, the problem with that was that the British and French Armies had a huge amount of unrest within each, particularly after the Bolsheviks took over in October/November of 1917. Neither government wanted to take the chance of revolution.
The Americans had only landed troops in Europe in 1917, I believe, thus were much fresher. But even the Americans had troubles with their troops which were landed in Archangel to help put down the Bolshies. Of course, that was after the war had officially ended, but not so long after.
In any case, soon thereafter the Spanish Flu did a job on humanity and who knows what might have been done had that not happened.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 22, 2020 11:40:55 GMT -8
My father was a lieutenant colonel when he commanded the 39th Engineer Battalion at Fort Campbell and in South Vietnam. (Elizabeth came across a quartermaster museum while touring the Petersburg (VA) area, and one of the things they had was a large array of unit patches -- including, I was pleased to see, the 39th Engineer Battalion.) In the Army, at least, that was standard. A regiment would be commanded by a full colonel, and a company by a captain.
The Navy rank of captain is equivalent to an Army commander, with a commander being a lieutenant colonel and a lieutenant commander equal to a major and a Navy lieutenant equal to an Army captain. Below that were lieutenant junior grade (= first lieutenant) and ensign (= second lieutenant). Marine and Air Force ranks are the same as the Army's.
There would also be a second-in-command for many units. Sometimes that would simply be the senior subordinate commander, but sometimes there might be an actual second-in-command, which would be the next rank down. Of course, the standards in World War II might have been a bit different, especially late in the war. (My father graduated from West Point in 1945, so he wasn't in combat though I don't know what his mission was. In fact, I never really knew what his duty was until he was sent to the Army Language School in the Presidio in Monterey to study Greek in preparation to be Assistant Army Attache there. The earliest I remember where we were and what rank he held was at Fort Leavenworth, where he served as a captain from 1955-7.)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 22, 2020 11:47:15 GMT -8
I was watching a little bit of 1954’s Beachhead with Stony Curtis. It’s interesting to see a color movie about WWII from a fairly early era. Stony has been sent on a intelligence-gathering mission on Japanese-held Bougainville Island. There is a French plantation owner there who has given the Allies a map of the Jap minefields. But is it real? Stony’s job is to find out. Okay…all well and good so far. But they need technical advisors on these things. Or else Artler (quite rightly) is going to tell me that screw-ups are just part of every mission. Things don’t happen perfectly like you see in the movies. Well, not perfect in this movie, for sure. What lost me and caused me to give up on this is a scene where they are creeping around a dozen or so Jap soldiers who are frolicking naked in a water hole. Their job is not to engage or alert the enemy so Major Scott (at the last moment) stops Stony and one other soldier from firing on the Japs. Didn’t they have a plan going into this? Yikes. This movie started to smack of amateurism. It earned that medal fully when it came to the scene with the tank which the soldiers found on the other side of the watering hole as they stealthily made their way around it. All of a sudden, there are explosions in the far distance. Who? Why? Where? Anyway, Major Scott says something like “If the Japs get that tank into action, it’s going to hurt a lot of Marines.” Maybe that's the Marines landing early. Wouldn't he know? Isn't he supposed to be there *before* the invasion? Anyway, he decides the plan has to change. They are hiding in the bushes about ten yards away from the tank. Major Scott asks one of the men if he could take out the tank with a grenade. He asked the wrong man. The soldier crawls up to the tank, lifts the lid, and then a shot is fire in his direction. He ducks. In one, easy, quick action (which we see in so many other movies), he could have inserted the grenade, easy-peasy. But then when he tries again, he is somehow pulled inside by a Jap who is inside the tank. The grenade goes off and it takes out the tank. But talk about a botched job. I have no training in grenades but I’m pretty sure I could quickly lift the lid just enough, pop the grenade in, all without somehow being pulled into the tank by someone already inside the tank. It’s a truly horrible scene. And to top off the amateurishness of it, we then cut to Stony Curtis who puts his head down in the dirt and is doing an overt bit of virtue-signaling about how shook up he is by the death — all while they are under active fire from the Japs in the watering hole who have now gotten to their rifles and are counter-attacking. He really should have his mind on the enemy. I just couldn’t go on. So then I switched to 1974’s Mr. Majestyk whose early moments could be summed up as “A liberal Hollywood actor virtue-signals his way via telling us about the plight of migrant workers against white-privilege gas-station owners.” I mean, maybe the rest of the movie is okay. But this has liberal-stink written all over it. If someone has watched this all the way through and can recommend it — because the moments I saw were just an aberration — please tell me. I’m thus moving on to 1940’s Sante Fe Trail with Errol Flynn playing the role of a pre-Civil-War Jeb Stuart. His sidekick includes Olivia de Havilland as Kit Carson and Ronald Reagan as Custer. Other notables include Raymond Massey as John Brown, Alan Hale, and Van Heflin. And it actually says in the credits that Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams plays Windy Brody. Never heard of him, but what a name.
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