restrpo, fallen angels

Watching Restrepo helped me understand Fallen Angels better. Watching two of the marines "friendly fighting", for example, in the barracks reminded me of the scene in Fallen Angels where Monaco pulled out a fake grenade and pretended to try to kill everyone; in both cases they show their manliness for fun. When a marine in the movie Restrepo calls the barracks a "hooch" this reminded me of when Perry learns the same word in Fallen Angels. When Jenkins is killed by a random landmine explosion, it is kind of like the explosion by the jeep in the beginning of Restrepo. When the marines in the movie first go into a local village and try to build relations, its like when Perry's squad goes into the hamlet and talks with the locals. But the villigers are threatened by the enemies of the Americans, just like in the movie. There are many scenes in Restrepo where it shows the marines just waiting around their outpost, then suddenly a firefight breaks out; this resembles the theme in Fallen Angels of "hours of waiting, seconds of terror" Also, the scene where a marine is playing his guitar resembles the chess games Perry played in Fallen Angels. Furthermore, in Restrepo, they named the outpost restrepo in honor of a fallen soldier. This is much like the squad praying for Lieutenant Carrol's death. In battle, the book would describe Johnson setting up behind sandbags and lighting up anything that moved. This is a lot like when the machine gunner in Restrepo shoots off many shots towards the enemy. Finally, when you see the bombs being dropped off on the hills it reminds me of Perry's description of mortar showers

Both the book Fallen Angels and the documentary Restrepo showed me all of the difficulties of war. For one, watching your squadmates die is a horrible burden. Whether it's when Jenkins dies by a landmine, or Restrepo bleeding out in an evac heelicopter, the squad gets very emotional for their passing. Also, working on local relations seems to be a difficulty shared by Perry and Restrepo's squad. In the book, Perry had to go and risk his life and defend a village from Viet Cong, but in Restrepo, the leader had to try and negotiate a refund for the death of their cow, where no compromize was actually made. Finally, in both the novel and the documentary, the military squads are forced to go on dangerous missions. In Restrepo, operation "Rock Avalanche" was the worst mission the squad went on; they were ambushed, flanked and picked off. In the Fallen Angels, when Perry was separated from his squad, it was a horrible experience for him