He seemed a little weird but i think he would be a solid friend to have. Especially after going through war with him. Hes never going to betray you and will always have his back if youve got his. Thats what i get from him at least
I would say this. If I was at war, I would want some fucked up guys who could channel that to the enemy. War is the only time you would feel happy having a psychopath and sociopaths on your side. They probably wouldn't save your ass, but they would give the enemy hell.
SNAFU told Eugene not to pull the teeth of a dead or dying japanese soldier because it changes you like it changes him. To me he's accepted what he's become but admires Sledge to getting so close to the breaking point he had to stop him.. as much of a dick SNAFU was at the beginning of the series his moral compass was just as powerful as his unpredictable nature.. he definitely had trouble, but he was a solid Marine
You guys really need to read Sledges book, this show does NOT do the real men justice and portrays some of them and the real events in a misleading light. The real Merriel Shelton was alot less of a dick in real life then the show portrays him, with Sledge saying in the book that in the beginning of Peleliu, Snafu was often looking out for Sledge, and Sledge saying he was glad to be partnered up with a veteran who knew his stuff. He was also an extremely squared away Marine, and supposedly only got his nickname because of the way he talked sometimes, not because of any stupid decisions.
I didn’t realize it at first, SNAFU was gonna ring that guy out for throwing his hole-filled poncho over the mortar rounds, only to realize that was HIS poncho that he swindled that guy into trading for his fresh one. But he can only take a brief moment to close his eyes and consider how he caused this mess before he gets back to work.
Average age of combat Marines in WWII was 20.5 years. That included officers and Old Breed Marines. Near the war's end recruits were given 16 weeks of training.
@Dislike Button - Jeez, what goes through the head of you losers to write something so unnecessary? Get a life. The average age of WW2 soldier was 26, so Marines being 20.5 is a significant difference. Never knew that Dan, thanks for sharing.
Everybody acts differently when you are receiving incoming. Doing what you do to get thru it is and after, is a completely personal thing. If you haven't seen friends blown to hell or bleeding out seems hard for one to say how an NCO should act. In my thoughts he acted just fucking fine.
@@brianford1346 you dont get it. Before this, he tricked that rookie for his poncho, later that rookie change said poncho for the one that was over the ammo, soaking them and causing all that misfire.
@@rapatacush3 That's not on Snafu, it's on the replacement, he got his shit taken by Snafu but he took a poncho off the ammo dump they needed when it was raining. Both were being selfish but the replacement was an idiot because he was thinking about himself instead of the mortar rounds he was leaving in the rain.
@spartan1010101 which wouldn't have happened if Snafu hadn't done what he did. Always expect the new guy to act like the FNG and a moron. Whether he intended it or not he caused the situation through his own actions just as much as the FNG.
@@spartan1010101 for short, it's SNAFU's fault for tricking the new guy by getting his poncho and replaces it with his damaged poncho. All this will never happen if he didn't do that to begin with.
@@flintsky7706 The rate of fire as depicted is a slow RPM machine gun that the Japanese used. This means the weapon they used was the Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun of an rpm of 450-500rpm. If they were using the type 96/99 LMG, the fire rate is much higher at 550 to 900 rpm. The higher sustained fire rate they were dispensing, does not show case it is a magazine fed machine gun where reloads will be frequent, it is the Type 92 with the ammo strip fed system that made reloading much quicker.
@@ConstantineJoseph Well I mean he is partially right. In modern day, we atribute HMG title to bigger calibers gun like the M2 or DSHK. The M1919 or Type 92 are frequently called MMG by modern day classification. So he is technically right under a different era qualification system.
@Dislike Button to be fair, to all in Okinawa, there were even more US army units serving in that campaign. Nothing against how the Marines want to be addressed by.
It's at this point in the show where we really start to see Sledge's descent from his humanity, and characters alongside him like Hamm really show the contrast between the young, impressionable marine who is still trying to stomach what's happening vs the tired, 'crippled' veteran who has seen shit and has become accustomed to it.
I had a teacher growing up who fought in Iwo Jima and at Okinawa, also had another teacher who was in the Navy and survived Okinawa and repeated kamakazi attacks on his ship. Neither would talk much about it at school, but they were in the VFW with my dad who was a Vietnam veteran. Some of the stories relayed to me by my dad about their experiences would fill history books. I knew guys from WWI to Vietnam growing up in the 80's.
My uncle's neighbour was in the suffolk regiment when they surrended at Singapore. He told me when I was a child that he could never bring himself to forgive the Japanese
My good friend was force recon during Vietnam. He was there in 68 and 69. He was mainly in chu lai and Ben hua. It’s awesome to talk to vets. He had no filter. He would talk about everything. Much respect to your father. 👍🏽👍🏽🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
It is so sad to see innocents killed. Even is women and children. But for the glory and power of scum. People that lust for power and conquest, sociopaths.
It is indeed hell, no doubt, but I can imagine worse.. Try a prison full of not so friendly guys, riot, stabbings, waiting a lot of years till maybe get out. At least in that battle they had some friends to count... the downside is the way higher mortality, but we are talking about hypothetical scenarios of hell, so mortality wouldn't matter as everybody would be dead repeating the circle of dying again and again so... I think a prison may be worse, a place where you dont have ANY friendship at all, those marines at least would have their friends on those hypothetical scenarios, and they bond are strong, on contrast with a prison. .. not talking about a low level US or Norwegian prison, but a brazilian one, or a Madagascar one, full of pos and overcrowded.
@@pagodebregaeforro2803 prison is pussy shit compared to seeing 100s of dudes die at random chance and choice while you are in the middle of it isolated while you have to push forward. All around you too. So i dont wanna hear this bs.
Most of the Marines, since the Corps was founded,were killed in the Asian-Pacific area.Phillipines,Tarawa,Gloucester,Bougainville,Saipan,Tinian,Guam,Iwo,Okinawa,Korea,Vietnam,Lebanon,Irak,etc.
Im currently listening to the book.. I pefer to read but anyways, im enjoying and its for free lol. Very well explained book without any boring or unnecessary part.
Status report? The last few months on Okinawa have taken their toll. Morale is low... It's the rain, sir, and the mud. Tanks are getting bogged down, supplies aren't getting through... We can't even get the wounded out..."
It was the worst battle of WWII. After the rain started, the overcrowded front line became a swamp of mud and shit from flooded-out latrine trenches. It was WWI all over again. I spent part of my childhood on Okinawa in the early 1950s. It was green and beautiful and we loved it. Even though there were fragmented human bones and expended brass and machine gun belt links everywhere -- it was part of the soil -- we knew it was the war a long time ago (only 8-10 years previously, but that's ancient times to a child). We really had no idea. It was only later in my old age that I read about its real nightmare. We foolish kids kids roamed around the landscape playing and the Okinawans were so nice to us always.
@@needap0078 I also meant to say machine gun belt links, not machine guns. The subject makes me a little emotional, makes me fumble for words. I heard all about the Okinawans' suffering from themselves. Some of them weeping as they told me about it. I was only 12-13, and could barely comprehend.
There are over 240,000 names in the Peace Park, mostly Okinawans who are part of the Japan islands but not Japanese. Over 100,000 Japanese troops died but more Okinawan civilians. The numbers were 3x Iwo Jima. There are no inhabitants on Iwo Jima, but Okinawans would like the US to return more of the 85% most valuable land in Okinawa that is US military bases. Nuclear weapons are stored there although it is neither confirmed or denied.
Lol. 100 000+ civillians killed and you don't feel sorry for them, because...they killed their own civillians as well. You must had been born an idiot.
@@khoanguyen-wc8qz you dont feel sorry for women and children vaporized to death... you are a good person. .. Japan was very wrong, criminals beasts, but there were some innocents who paid for those in command, they didn't deserved the A Bomb. Yet it was the shorter and costless way to end the war.
@@khoanguyen-wc8qz Your comment would have worked, if the nukes actually hit the Japanese army.. and not more children like the ones running in this scene.
Maybe some of you should look up why these cities got nuked; they were military targets. This crap that it was just "innocent civilians" is absolute garbage. If Japan was so worried about their civilians, why did they put military factories, shipyards, communication centers in heavily populated cities? Or why weren't "innocent civilians" relocated? Yeah, these cities just full of old people, women, children and hospitals, weren't they? You think the Japanese military/government at the time wouldn't have sacrificed these same civilians you lament getting nuked if they thought it was necessary, especially if the home islands were invaded? You think they wouldn't do something like strap explosives to kids and get them to crawl under tanks?
hah, funny you didn't realize this whole scene is snafu's fault, hence sledge staring him down as it ends. If SNAFU didn't mess with the new guys earlier, mortars would have stayed dry, they wouldn't have had to move, FNG wouldn't have died.
I always come back to this scene because of the tragic lesson that it tells and anyone who has completed Infantry school. Complacency gets people killed.
war is hell, but if you had a choice youd choose the European theatre. the pacific was a slaughterhouse. same if you were a german, youd wanna be out west obviously. 9 out of ten men who died in combat in the wermacht died on the eastern front. you were lucky if you got shot too, and not sick, starved or frozen, ive heard stories of guys shooting each other tryin to get a ticket outta hell in russia. the last planes outta stalingrad had germans hangin off the wings. just an idea of how badly cats wanted out.
Fun fact: Hitlers original plan was to invade and take over russia prior to fighting the west due to its resources and industry. But the west declared war prior to invasion and the actual Russian invasion was delayed several weeks resulting in the winter war that we see in the history books. If the invasion took place at the time it was planned and France/Brittan hadn't declared war prior. Germany would have had a massive military industrial and resource complex. Scary "what if" scenario honestly.
Maybe if you were Amercain the European theatre was better . How ever a German pilot shot down over Brtian and the same verse in Germany then it was pretty grim , you would have been most likley killed before taken into custody. Kicked to death by civilians or there where calls for you to be mistreated and starved by the civllian population. The US tends to have a romantic view of the European front
American infantrymen had a higher death rate in Europe. And both theaters had battlefields filled with harsh terrain and weather. In the end, no theater is worse than the other, they're both hell. You're right about the west being better for the Germans though, that's sort of what happens when you invade a country and try to exterminate their people, you piss them off and they retaliate
Wrong it was the him who took the new overcoat from the new soldier to protect the rounds but that soldier ended up stealing it back if you watch closely and that new soldier is the reason the rounds got wet
@@casey5144 Yeah if he had said that was the reason to the newbie instead of screwing him over for the overcoat then the guy would have known and not just thought he was being a dick.
War it's misery, chaos, anarchy, destruction, economic collapse, migration, destruction of culture, etc. It's funny to hear these gamers that love war games and they say : "this game it looks so real". Games have absolutely nothing to do with the reality of war. Some films can be approached to it, for example the Russian film "Go and see" (Иди и смотри) and the recently British film "1917".
@@patriotvostok8184 some of us love war games because we respect those men who put their lives on the line so we can live in this world. We don’t love the death, misery, destruction, etc. We love the story of those men who lived through hell and went through shit no human should have to ever live through. There’s no better stories then the ones of war because when u look deep into it, all those men are exactly like us, just average boys who wanted to live their lives out but thrown into war because of countries having feuds. We like to see these men as hero’s but deep down we know they are just boys exactly like us
The Japanese kept firing on the civillians, making them run for their lives, right up until their got up to US lines. Then, the gunner drops them just close enough to lure attempts from the Americans to risk their lives out in the open to save them. When the Marines don't take the bait, down goes the kid. Absolutely brutal tactic.
Snafu wanted the poncho to keep the rounds dry, should he have mentioned that the reason he took it was for this reason? Maybe, but at the end of the day the guy who took it off the rounds must have put 2 and 2 together to realise that swapping his coat with holes in wouldnt exactly keep the rounds dry
@Franjay that's not true, he wanted it for himself. They already had a good poncho for the rounds, or else they would have been having misfires before this incident. Plus if they truly needed one for the rounds they would have gotten one.
He couldn't be mad because it was actually his fault. Earlier in the episode Snafu tricked the new guy into swapping ponchos. Had Snafu been a more responsible squad leader, the new guy wouldn't have used his old poncho to cover the ammunition.
@@americanatlas3631 at the same time though, Kathy still decided to choose his own comfort over the good of his company, and it cost people their lives. We have a name for guys like him; blue falcons. Buddy fuckers. Yeah, sure, you could argue Snafu Shelton fucked it first by punking Kathy, but Kathy still chose himself over all his fellow Marines.
@@DansilSchroeder It's worth remembering at this point in the war that many Marines, like Kathy, were draftees and didn't have quite the same discipline, acumen, or esprit de corps as those who joined in 1942 and 1943. No doubt he made a mistake by choosing to make life easier for himself, but then again, had his duty been properly emphasized by his NCO he might have known better than to use the perforated poncho to cover the ammunition.
The pacific may have had less casuality, but the environment was just so unforgiving for both sides. In europe, you at least know which direction to shoot. Here is just a clusterfuck of fortification everywhere.
fighting in the tropical environment is literally nightmare in all aspect, I live in Vietnam and I know how unmerciful tropical climate can be. I think the war in the pacific is horrendous than any other theatre in ww2, anyone who say eastern front is worse is pure russian-ass-kissing bullshit
You are surprised? It was called the baby boom for a reason, these men came home and fucked like rabbits, many of them having multiple children who went on to have multiple children. As the guy above me said millions served, and those millions went on to have millions of children. You would be hard pressed to find a 3rd or 4th generation American without an ancestor who served in any conflict in the 20th century.
@@FormerGovernmentHuman of course I'm surprised even tho my family is like war generation. IDK how to address the man who created this family but as words got carry, he served in the Napoleonic War and his son got a German wife which her father also served in the Napoleonic war but on the different side. And after all those stuffs he moved to America until civil war broke out and his son or whatever, I lost count, served in the Civil War under General Briggs and so on to his son and son's son to WW1 and WW2, Korean war, Vietnam war, Afghanistan war and now my big brother is stand by in Syria with the 3rd battalion I supposed.
That Marine was a boot, experiencing combat for the first time & was sitting on his ass while sledge was prepping ammo... Snafu would’ve done that to sledge, back on peleliu. He wouldn’t have done that to him in Okinawa because he now sledgehammer & has proven himself... it would’ve been nice, yes but no infantry Marine is nice to boots. they weren’t then, definitely weren’t when I was in, & I’m sure it’s still the same now
No wonder veterans from Europe and the Pacific couldn’t relate to each other’s experiences. At least in Europe soldiers could be reminded what they were fighting for in the eyes of all the local civilians, POW’s, and concentration camp prisoners. In the pacific there was nothing, but jungle, you only fought in absolute hell for the guy next to you.
That's not quite a fair representation. American Soldiers who liberated the Philippines certainly would have been treated as liberators much like GIs in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Even on Okinawa it can be argued that GIs inherited the responsibility of caring for native Okinawans who were horribly mistreated by the Japanese military.
So a little fun fact (well not so fun): During Okinawa, the IJA would have civilians run out into the middle of an active firefight to draw out American positions by the Americans either shooting the civilians (which did happen) or by them leaving cover to get them to safety. They would also use them as human shields as well. Oh and also a not so fun fact: the IJA conscripted a bunch of middle school and high school boys from the island to fight as well. Which means that a lot of the enemy being killed where young boys aged 12-14. Ain’t war shit.
It's not just war. The local people in Okinawa are actually not Japs, but Ryukyuans, who had their own small but independent country called Ryukyu. At the time Ryukyu was annexed by Japan. The Japanese see Ryukyuans as inferior, as they do to other peoples of those countries they invaded. Japanese has a track record of using civilians as human bombs, human shields, and even human experimental subjects, including but not limited to Chinese, Korean, Ryukyuan, and Russian. The middle school and high school boys and girls you mentioned are also Ryukyuans. The Japanese also forced the local Ryukyuans to commit suicide by the families to prevent them from surrendering. The better ones were given a grenade, the not-so-lucky ones, the father had to kill his daughters and wife himself and then jump off the cliff. The sarcastic part was some of the IJA troops ended up surrendering. Few people talk about these Japanese war crimes nowadays.
Wait who the hell was killed during the ammo run? It wasn’t Hamm, he gets killed later when he saves Kathy from goading the enemy into shooting him during his breakdown. Who was that?
My uncle used to work with a Vet from Iwo Jima and his company did business a lot with a company out of japan and would regularly get calls from Japanese men. One day the vet got a call and put the Japanese man on hold and my uncle heard the Vet say out loud in his cubicle.."I probably killed that son of a bitches father on Iwo" and he also had a big picture of The Enola Gay right on his desk
So here goes my observation: why americans use the same single word(kids) to describe: little children, teenagers and young adults.. Makes no sense and it explains nothing. One time I was reading about a plane accident that the pilot let a "kid" fly the plane. I thought it was a 10yo or something.. it was 16yo boy.
@@pagodebregaeforro2803 Well the interpretation of a "kid" does vary from person to person, it's not just an American thing to identify teenagers as "kids", I also find it weird that ppl like to label 20 something year old young women as "girls" when they are clearly young adults, I think it's just out of common courtesy.
You're times on the thumb nail are wildly incorrect. The thumb nail time is 8:28 and the actual time is 3:52. Please fix this. To me this is the same as click bait.
you never could tell what kind of tricky shit the japanese would pull. trying to find out gets you killed. sledge knows that & saved the young marine from meeting the business end of a japanese machine gun.
@@OurHereafter the Japanese did not view Okinawans as Japanese. They looked at them as expendable and willing to die for the Japanese empire. So when the civilians were running at them in the dark, you never knew if the Japanese gave them a grenade and convinced them to suicide bomb
