military movie portrayal

[BEAR]

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. After the assault on the machine gun where "Doc" was killed there was a scene where you heard the MG42(or was it an MG34) "clicking" as it cooled. Sure brought back memories of my early days as a "hog" gunner.
BEAR

[Sean P Gilday]

"Silent Night" had a scene near the end of the movie where the GIs get back to their unit and encounter a total jerk officer who reminded me of a CO I served under.

"A Midnight Clear"http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWhite.../0/IqYoHDtXhXg

[rider]

Thanks for the correction. I only saw that movie once several years ago.

[Roadkingtrax]

Catch-22,...not the selling off of equipment, but the scene of the commander shouting his praises for the bomber crews...only to end on the middle finger.

[Griff Murphey]

Loved all of those mass flights of grungy looking B-25s. Beautiful!

[Fred]

I was the safety officer on a tank range when a crew experienced a misfire. In my experience we had the crew dismount and I went through the misfire procedure with the gunner at his station. After we completed that procedure I dismounted the electrical firing probe, cleaned it, reassembled it and the round was fired normally, however the time spent with parts of me directly in the recoil path of the breech was unpleasant. I was relieved we didn't have to execute the final procedure of ejecting the unfired round and removing it to a safe location and calling for EOD.

On another occasion none of the misfire procedures worked and we did have to eject the round. I only handled it long enough to hand it up to someone outside the turret, but those few seconds that round was out of the breech in my hands are memorable.

If we had a misfire on the main gun, after waiting the appropriate time, the loader would just drop the breechblock and give the round a 180% turn and then spit onto the primer/electrical contact and close the breechblock in place again. if it didn't fire then, the guner would wait again for a bit and then pull the round out and hand it up to the tank commander, who would climb out and kneel down outside the loaders hatch on top to accept the round base first. the TC would then hand the round to the Platoon leader (me), who would be there to carry it, craddled in his arms, nose down range, across the back of the line of tanks to where a pit had been dug in the ground, where the Platoon Leader would lay it down and then start breathing again. If the platoon leaders tank had the missfire, he'd just carry his own round to the missfire pit.

[John Sukey]

Speaking of the "Sand Pebbles" years ago, I had my Lewis gun on display at a gun show, and I met a man who was on the gunboat Panay and fired one at the japs who where strafing the boat.

[Roadkingtrax]

The best part of the movie, real flying and no computer graphics ala George Lucas style.

Loved all of those mass flights of grungy looking B-25s. Beautiful!

[comm pogue]

never have seen a Vietnam movie where any of the little people, chewed beetal nut (spelling?) does make for some pretty teeth only guys that never took garbage to the dump, complain about burning Sh**ers........Semper Fi

[Kirk]

When I was 16, I read Joseph Heller's Catch 22. My father had just finished it (he was a B25 Navigator/Bombardier in a unit stationed in N. Africa and flew a number of missions to Italy. By the time I got to page 5, I had a splitting headache becasue everything was insane. Four or five years later, I started again & made it to page 8. Then, I watched the movie & realized Yosarrian was the only sane person in the movie. My father loved it because he said "it's just like it was".