Anyone
else ever been in Thailand or Vietnam? You ever do any shopping over
there, in the street markets or anywhere, you're gonna hear this
phrase: "same same but different." Meaning "This is basically like the
thing you were just looking at, except it's more like what you want,"
-- even, of course, if it's not.
We've come to the conclusion that Generation Kill
is kinda like that: each successive episode a broad recapitulation of
the themes and predicaments and characterizations of the previous one
-- waiting on bridges, waiting for supplies, waiting for the brass to
do something idiotic -- but with each successive episode the pattern is
tweaked a bit, the stakes are raised higher, the hole is dug a little
deeper, bringing the series closer and closer to... Well, to the end
that we've come to simultaneously fear and desire, and a moment that
only truly works if the story is told by slow degrees: the moment that
one of the men of the First Reconnaissance Battalion realizes that the
war in Iraq has been a mistake.
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