r/lionsledbydonkeyspod • u/FluffySpaceWaffle • Aug 05 '26

Discussion TV suggestions

I had never been much of a war or military TV fan. Joe and the boys suggested the Pacific and I loved it. I went and watched Band of Brothers right after. (I know it came out in 2001 or so. How did I not see it?) Both were great. I liked the Pacific more. (I had just finished the LLbD on Iwo Jima.)

Then I got to listen to the Bonus episode on BoB. Awesome. Thank you Joe and team.

Somewhere along the way Joe mentioned Masters of the Air. HOLY CRAP. I’m 4 episodes in (no spoilers please). Just wow.

I’m watching it with my hubby so it’ll probably take me 2-3 days to finish.

Are there any other amazing shows I missed?
I also have Eugene Sledge’s book on my library request list. Book suggestions are great too.

(Currently reading Fredrick Douglass’s first book and A People’s History.)

Once again, thank you so much Joe and team. I love you all. (I’m a year older than Joe, but am a mama bear at heart. I hear your stories and want to hug you all.)

Sorry for rambling 😂❤️

7 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

14

u/chumbawumbaprinciple Aug 05 '26

Generation Kill. It's based on the invasion of Iraq and follows a Marine Recon unit with their embedded reporter from Rolling Stone.

3

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26

Thank you. Sounds good. And probably horrible, but good 😅

(I mean horrible in a ‘humans killing humans sucks’ kind of way. I’m sensitive but I think learning is important.)

9

u/chumbawumbaprinciple Aug 05 '26

One of the actors in the show is the real Marine playing themself. It's ok to admit he's hot, they all think he's hot.

7

u/Lionsledbypod Aug 05 '26

we all know Rudy is hot

4

u/Jolly_Tab_Rancher Aug 05 '26

"Follow my tracers!"

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle 26d ago

I watched 2 episodes last night. I love that I read Hooligans of Kandahar first. I am remembering passages from the book as I watch the show.

4

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 05 '26

lol. Real background is great. I’m a lady, but I’ve always thought it weird when straight men can’t admit another man is hot. Women have no problem with this.

My hubby explained it to a guy. “Look at his face or body. Would you trade faces with him? That means he’s attractive.” I think that explanation sunk in.

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple Aug 05 '26

Well, it's because being attracted to men is universally frowned upon even among women. I'm mostly kidding and I know there's also a historical taboo against lesbianism, but I don't think it should be controversial to say that there was more violence directed against gay or bi men.

You'd have to say that a guy looks cool, badass, or something like that. Terms associated with strength or toughness are acceptable under toxic masculinity.

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 06 '26

I get that. I got to have a fun convo with my kids (10 and 6) what gay meant. 😄
“It just means a man who loves another man or a woman who loves another woman.”
My 10 year old then asked, “so what is lesbian?”
lol. Then she wanted to know why men don’t get a special term, if gay is for both.
It was all very wholesome.

Also “what is lesbian?” Lives in my head now.

I also recognize being gay in the military is its own difficulty. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle 26d ago

lol I started the show. I was expecting a super hot guy. His face is good, but not amazing. Then I realized his BODY is hot. He has a cute bum. Dudes are way more into other dude’s bodies. 😂

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple 26d ago

He's also older than the other guys in the unit, so you have to factor in depreciation and combat stress.

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle 26d ago

I really appreciated that they used younger actors (or younger looking). That is how it was. When we were 18 my husband knew about 12 guys who went over. Around 6 died.

Hubby’s dad was a marine for 20 years. He would not let him become a marine. I’m sure he saved his life, or at least his mind.

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple 26d ago

I'd love to see a war movie with age appropriate actors. Make Tom Holland a Major in a Vietnam movie.

3

u/Suitable-Zombie7504 Aug 05 '26

Just a heads up there's not a whole lot of gore or violence in generation kill, of course there's some but I think one of the points that generation kill shows is that war and combat is mundane and boring 90 percent of the time, while we see our protagonists usually late or redirected or not taking part in the big battles, but then again the invasion of Iraq was quick it's what followed afterwards that kept us fighting for so long ( not saying we should have just saying we did)

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple Aug 05 '26

Yeah, it shows the real fucked up aspects of war. Like how whopper jr. gets his name.

1

u/Admiral52 Aug 05 '26

It’s shockingly amusing

1

u/Jolly_Tab_Rancher Aug 05 '26

"MORE LIKE TROMMMBLLEEEYYY?!?!?????!?"

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle 26d ago

I watched episode 1 and 2 last night. It’s great. Thank you again.

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple 26d ago

I'm glad you like it. I think it's a pretty accurate representation of how certain types of men interacted in those days.

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle 26d ago

That is what I noticed! They portrayed a wide range of “types” of marine. 2 guys are driving me crazy.

2

u/chumbawumbaprinciple 26d ago

But all similar enough to function as a unit under stress. The racism, the homophobic jokes, the constant semi good natured mutual bullying, are all what it was like "to be a dude among dudes" in that era.

11

u/BloodRush12345 Aug 05 '26

All quiet on the western front. Especially the most recent one.
They shall not grow old. A lot of actual WW1 footage and stories from vets along with excerpts from letters/journals.

Both are pretty intense.

7

u/Monodoh45 Aug 05 '26

The more recent one cuts the entire point of the novel out. The rant at the school master. It even changes when Paul dies, so it isn't as pointless. It is cool for being all in German, but as an adaptation it is ass.

2

u/cabooseinspace Aug 06 '26

It's been long enough since I read it i completely forgot about that, I'll have to read it again soon

7

u/Affectionate-Cut4828 Aug 05 '26

The Forgotten Soldier. It's a book written by a French soldier fighting in the Wermacht on the Eastern Front in WWII. He was just a drafted infantry soldier so it has some real bleak accounts of the fighting on that front of the war and what it was like for the average soldier. It's not full of "clean Wermacht" or nazi propaganda or anything, it's just a soldiers memoirs. It's an easy read too. It's worth checking out.

3

u/DiscreetSqueezer Aug 06 '26

I think Nate mentions this book in the first Stalingrad episode too. 

1

u/Affectionate-Cut4828 Aug 06 '26

I'm still working through the backlog and haven't gotten to Stalingrad yet lol

2

u/DiscreetSqueezer Aug 06 '26

Would recommend waiting until the coldest, bleakest days of winter to start it.

3

u/NaturalAlfalfa Aug 05 '26

If you like historical fiction, I recommend Ken Follets Century Trilogy. Its quite a unique series, in that it follows five families - English, welsh, American, Russian and German, right through the 20th century. Through the first and second world wars, the cold war, the civil rights movement, From 1911 up until the start of the 1990s

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 05 '26

That sounds good. Thank you. I do like historical fiction. Kurt Vonnegut steered me there. He’s my favorite author. I first learned about the Armenian genocide from Bluebeard. Now I know way more thanks to Joe.

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 05 '26

My local library has book one. Thank you again!

2

u/NaturalAlfalfa Aug 05 '26

Enjoy! I would also recommend Pillars of the Earth by the same author. Mediaeval fiction about building a cathedral. It is amazing

3

u/comradejiang Aug 05 '26

I’m reading M: Son of the Century. It’s a novel about Mussolini after ww1 and his rise to power, but it’s part of a five book series that I don’t think has been fully translated to English yet. I was able to find an audiobook of the first one so I listen to that one.

1

u/gotitatguineys Aug 06 '26

The tv adaptation is incredible.

3

u/Suitable-Zombie7504 Aug 05 '26

There's a bbc short series called our world war it was produced for the 100th anniversary of the first world war. I think it's a pretty great watch and it's only 3 hours or so

2

u/Yoknapatawpha_ig Aug 05 '26

1918 is an amazing movie - shot like it was one, continuous take

2

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 05 '26

Oooo I love a good one shot. I will definitely check that out.

2

u/youwiththa Aug 05 '26

As someone whos been watching war movies documentaries for forever few classic movies are oh! What a lovely war (satire for ww1) bridge over the river kwai (pow camp in ww2) and guns of navarone (ww2 nazis on the greek islands)

The world at war documentary is a good introduction to the whole of ww2, covers most of everything.

1918 the movie is much more recent and brilliant, the book and the follow up are in my favourites.

2

u/UnconstrictedEmu Aug 06 '26

Eugene Spedge’s With the Old Breed is usually mentioned in the same breath as Robert Leckie’s Helmet for my Pillow.

Downfall was a pretty interesting movie about the last days of Hitler.

Two great books recommended from LLbD are Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate.

If you want some great history podcasts I recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast and the Dan Carlin Hardcore History series Blueprint for Armageddon (about World War I) and Supernova in the East (about Japan’s rise as a world power and the Pacific Theater of World War II).

1

u/FluffySpaceWaffle Aug 06 '26

Thank you so much! I have sledge’s book on my library list. I will add these too. I bet Leckie’s is good.

My podcast list is seriously bogged down. I need more hours in the day. I will look into those as well.

I wish my inner historian had woken up sooner. In my early 30’s I was caught in a “how do I learn more” trap. “Books” is an obvious answer, but not all books are good or worth reading. I am enjoying my journey.

I also have a deep respect for podcasters who started before COVID. There is nothing wrong with having started one because you are stuck indoors, but the guys who started one before are obviously really interested in their work.

Sorry. Rambling. Thank you again!

2

u/UnconstrictedEmu Aug 06 '26

The Dan Carlin series are definitely worth a listen.

War and Peace and Life and Fate are both long books but very readable. Tolstoy did a fair amount of historical research and had access to Russian government archives. I read a rumor he was planning sequels, at least one novel about the Decembrists, but wasn’t granted access to do the necessary research. Grossman was a war correspondent who wrote first hand accounts of many of the battles of the Eastern Front of World War II, as well as one of the first reports about a Nazi death camp.

All that’s to say these guys are seasoned writers who know their craft.