What are you...

[evcake]

Re-reading: valleygirl's Snapshots. Very pleasant.

[justTripn]

Watching: The upcoming HBO special "John Adams" ("Based on the Pulitzer Prize Winning Book")

It's WONDERFUL. Very realistic. It's HBO so there are some shocking scenes--of a tar and feathering. Of a smallpox epidemic. It's shocking in a way that reminds me of "Roots."

It's history so I'm not giving anything away, but the opening episode is about the Boston Massacre. Few people know (I didn't before I read the book) that John Adams, a lawyer, took up the case of the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Masacre, and got them ALL aquitted. The mob had attacked the soldiers and shouted "FIRE" daring them to fire. He eventually was the leading voice at the Continental Congress calling for a Declaration of Independence (except they called it "Independency").

FIVE STARS!!!!

[justTripn]

Oh, I have a review copy. (My husband is reviewing it.) AND . . . it's also a love story. John and Abigal Adams were like a Trip 'n T'Pol. A very smart couple deeply in love and Abigal counseled John throughout his career and he relyed on her--but they were rarely together because of his duties that took him out of the state and to foreign countries for years at a time. So they wrote letters that survive. So we can read all about it!

[Asso]

It's very romantic, isn't it?

[blacknblue]

Nothing keeps romance alive like not having to deal with morning breath.

[Linda]

BnB, you are so practical!

[TPoptarts]

Watching: Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth

I miss SG1 so very much

[Elessar]

Watching: Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth

I miss SG1 so very much

...wait... how are you watching Ark of Truth... Did it air?! Or was it leaked? When does it air?!

HOW DID I MISS THIS!?


by the way: You mean you miss GOOD SG1, aka, with Richard Dean Anderson. Let's be specific here, cuz the last few years have been painful, and post-menapausal-Carter on Atlantis is just the latest "vomit-taste-in-the-mouth".

[TPoptarts]

It was leaked they have it on EZTV. And I miss ALL of SG1 including Mitchell and Vala. I like all of them. Even without RDA it was still a lot of fun. And like way funner than SGA. I just miss the show so much

[Elessar]

It was leaked they have it on EZTV. And I miss ALL of SG1 including Mitchell and Vala. I like all of them. Even without RDA it was still a lot of fun. And like way funner than SGA. I just miss the show so much

I would have enjoyed it so much more if, instead of bringing on Mitchell, they'd have brought back Jonas and promoted Carter. It basically neutered her character to NOT put her in command, IMO, because you can only go on 'science geek' for so many years, round about 8.

I was against putting Carter into the leadership role on Atlantis because I felt like her career had stagnated and she was beyond the point of being able to take a command role like that, but a small leadership command like an SG team would be fine.

In fact, I don't know what some special forces commanders might think about it, but if you compare the hierarchy of an SG team to a comparable unit... it's ridiculous. They are like the size of a fireteam, which is typically commanded by a Cpl. Now, the command decisions being made offworld are REALLY important, so I can see not trusting it to an NCO, but jeez, a Lt or Captain should be able to make those decisions. I always thought that it seemed like overkill to REQUIRE a Colonel command an SG team.

I don't know what it was. It just didn't have the same chemistry for me after RDA left and specifically when Mitchell took command. The first season or season-and-a-half basically sounded like they pictured RDA in their heads and wrote dialogue for him only had Mitchell saying it. It seriously bothered me. The jokes were an absolute carbon copy. Daniel basically just became a jokester along with him... I can't remember one single episode after RDA left where Daniel was a strong, moral, ethical character championing the cause of the downtrodden or arguing a point contrary to what O'Neil would normally default to as a military officer. That dynamic was crucial to the chemistry of the team, I thought. And we just didn't have it without RDA, because Mitchell was basically a pushover.

The fact that Carter was in love with O'Neill actually contributed to the success of this O'Neil-Daniel tug-of-war when decisions of morality came into question because she'd never stand up to him... it's like Cameron and House in the first 2 seasons of House. She can't stand up to him because she has feelings for him. Same problem with Carter - which was actually a good thing because it accentuated the significance of Daniel and O'Neil foiling each other.

[Entilzha]

About the rank thing. For example the Russians have some special forces units that in order to be considered for them the minimum rank requirement is Captain. Most of the guys in these units are very experienced.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Here in Sweden we have an elite ultra-secret special operations force consisting entirely of officers. It's called SSG ("special protection group"). They're currently in Tchad, paving the way for the EU force (EuFor) that's just started to deploy. They have previously served in both the Congo and Afghanistan.

[CX]

It's the USAF though. Really, they shouldn't have any less than 10 on a team, and a junior officer like a captain or a 1st lieutenant would be enough to lead that unless they wanted to make a point of including a senior officer. Thing is, I'm guessing their budget wasn't large enough to have all those extras with them every time, and it might make it a little less exciting if they had to involve all those people every time.

I'm actually bothered by the fact that they never used USAF BDUs and instead used some kind of generic fatigues I don't recognize, and for the characters that were wearing BDUs, they never had the name tapes or rank insignia on them. Irritated the hell out of me, but then I was a STANDO as a cadet.

[Elessar]

It's the USAF though. Really, they shouldn't have any less than 10 on a team, and a junior officer like a captain or a 1st lieutenant would be enough to lead that unless they wanted to make a point of including a senior officer. Thing is, I'm guessing their budget wasn't large enough to have all those extras with them every time, and it might make it a little less exciting if they had to involve all those people every time.

I'm actually bothered by the fact that they never used USAF BDUs and instead used some kind of generic fatigues I don't recognize, and for the characters that were wearing BDUs, they never had the name tapes or rank insignia on them. Irritated the hell out of me, but then I was a STANDO as a cadet.

psht, that's just cuz you AF like to pretend you're real military by putting on the big-boy pants... aka BDUs

Just messin with ya. I find US Navy BDUs even funnier than USAF ones, actually.

I like the jet black uniforms the Atlantis base uses when they're on battlecruisers, but you're right about how combat personnel were just kind of in random civvie tac fatigues a lot of the time on SG1. Especially O'Neill.

I know you don't like Atlantis but the were better about strict use of uniforms in the beginning, but that's because there were lots of Marines on Atlantis, and they wore the digital camo a lot.

----


In reference to the Russian SF team or Swedish SF team of all officers.. I just don't follow exactly how that chain of command would work. If you had a Major in command of a Captain and 4 Lt's, every Lt probably just came from a position where he was in command of an infantry platoon, and is therefore really used to giving orders on the platoon level. Now, 6 people is more like a fireteam than a platoon, but this is just an example.

I guess eventually you could get used to it, but a Captain or a Lt is simply not trained the way a SSgt is to relay and follow orders. They're trained to make them, and take initiative. I guess I'm not saying it'd be impossible to implement, I'm just not sure I'd see the advantage. Experience is certainly not one of them. You could put together a platoon of USMC Recon with 1 Lt and 21 enlisteds, 1 Gunny who would have 8-12 years experience in the Corps, including prior combat, and 2 or 3 Corporals leading fireteams. If you really really needed a crack squad of experienced hardchargers, you could just up the ante... Platoon XO goes from Gunny to Master Gunny, Fireteam leaders go from Cpls to SSgts or Gunnies. There are plenty of enlistedmen in the military with several years experience in combat, in fact, you're more likly to see a Gunny with direct combat experience than a Captain, because officers just aren't the trigger pullers.

I was thinkin about this earlier and the one circumstance under which I could see it being necessary for crack specops to be officers, is if you're operating in like 2 or 3 man teams in a Delta or SEAL type environment, where you need guys that are used to taking initiative and being self-sustained. In that situation, I could see the benefit of recruiting Lts or Cpts.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

^ It's because neither the Russian nor the Swedish army have employed NCOs. The NCO ranks (corporals, sergeants etc.) are filled by conscripts, not employed personnel. We do train conscripts in special forces (paratroopers, rangers and stuff like that), but our meanest of the meanest aren't conscripts, they're employed and thus they are officers.

We're about to change that BTW. We will get back to using NCOs in much the same way as you do. But it'll take a while for the transition. We used to have NCOs like that some decades ago, but for whatever reason we decided to abolish that. They probably thought that you could fill the NCO positions with conscripts.

But now we're going back to it. The reason is most likely that we've downsized our armed forces so much that we don't have many conscripts doing their military service anymore. And since we do a lot of international service nowadays, we want to have an organization that resembles our partners. We've even adjusted our ranks to fit the NATO standard.