Comparison: Squadron Signal A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around (book 5541 versus 65041)

As I'm putting together my Squadron Signal collection, I am trying to not buy older editions as the newer ones are usually better and may have more pages.

The evolution of updated editions in Squadron's history is a little funky. Early on, they'd update an existing "in action" book, for example, by keeping the same cover art and material but simply adding more pages, usually about eight. They'd add an "updated" banner across one of the corners of the book. But the new version would essentially be identical to the previous one except for the new pages. In those cases it is an easy decision to skip the earlier edition unless you're a completist and want both. 

Things got weirder after a while. Sometimes the newer edition would have a different cover. Sometimes the newer edition would have different text or pictures. Now it became harder to decide which one to buy if you were coming into it late as I am. 

So I'm going to do some cataloging of differences between editions. I'll probably do a table of differences at some point for all the books where I can see the differences, but in some cases, like the case of the A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around, I discovered marked differences, and some of the changes aren't necessarily for the better. Here goes...

I'm looking at the A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around book, number 5541 (2006) versus the later edition released in softcover as book 25041 and hardcover as book 65041 (both 2013). What did Squadron decide to change in the seven-year update? And apologies for the poor readability of the table; tables aren't Blogger's forte.

A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around, 5541 vs 65041

Cover Art

The front and back covers are the same in both editions. I can't fault them for this because the front cover is a great painting of an A-4 pilot named John McCain standing in front of his Skyhawk, before two fateful incidents. The first would be when a weapon misfired while McCain was still on deck, leading to the tragic fire on the USS Forrestal. The second would be later when McCain was shot down over Vietnam. 

The back cover shows an Israeli Skyhawk in colorful camouflage.

So far, so good.

Frontispiece

5541 features a nice side profile shot of two US Marine A-4 jets flying in formation by a rock structure. It's a nice photo.

The 2013 edition replaces the 2006 edition's photo with a nice shot of the Blue Angels flying the A-4 in a pyramid formation. I like both photos but 2013's is more dramatic and so I have to give Squadron props on this change.

Introduction and Indicia

Almost all the "in action" and "walk around" books started with at least a half page up to a few pages of solid text introduction that often summarized the story of the featured aircraft. 5541 and 65041 have the same text in the introduction, but the 2006 edition includes a small headshot of aircraft designer Ed Heinemann. Why did the later edition remove this? Heinemann is one of the most successful and beloved of aircraft designers and it's a disappointment his picture was removed. It's possible there were licensing issues preventing Squadron from using the picture but the omission is no less disappointing even if justifiable. 

Book 25041/65041 does a better job with the indicia page. Both books include the author's acknowledgement statement and some copyright information. But the 2013 edition also includes the "About the Walk Around Series" text block explaining the goal of the category. In addition, the newer edition also includes thumbnails of the front and back cover and captions for each. The 2006 edition has the captions but not the thumbnails.

Body

Most of the editions share the same photos and text but unlike earlier updates that feature identical material except for a new set of pages, there were several changes in the Skyhawk Walk Around. Here are some of the most notable:

Pages	25041/65041 Changes from 5541	Comment
3,4	Subject: Aircraft development.  Grammatical error corrected in one photo caption
5	Subject: A-4B pictures "Navy Attack Squadron" added before VA-76. Upper right corner picture of A4B is zoomed in.	The zoom cuts off the tail, even though caption is discussing distinguishing features, including one on the tail.
6	Subject: Cutaway diagram Drawing is slightly smaller. Some text slightly rearranged. VMA-225 is prefaced by "Marine Attack Squadron".	Would not have reduced size of cutaway as it's already hard to see a picture with so many details.
7	Subject: JATO bottles and refueling Upper left pic is cropped. Caption for upper right photo is expanded.	This was a good crop; the part cut out was just extraneous terrain and none of the aircraft shot was affected.
8	Subject: A-4C, A-4F, Blue Angel Same pictures as 5541 but rearranged to give the Blue Angel A-4 an enlargement. Other captions were slightly rearranged with no loss of information.
9	Subject: Gladiators pic, tailhook study Captions enhanced with italicized carrier names and a few extra details, such as noting that one adversary A-4 at Top Gun has a Cuban flag insignia.
10	Subject: B&W TA-4E pics Captions better split between the two pictures
11	Subject: TA-4 FACs Caption regarding VA-126 is significantly reduced, with a sentences about the squadron history removed.	That's cool stuff, why remove it?
12	Subject: Fueling probe and nose Additional and more detailed captions.
13	Subject: Radome Reworked captions, more about Israeli air force
14, 15	Subject: B&W fuselage and engine spread Resized photos, added more detail in captions
16, 17	Subject: Air brakes, chaff dispenser, nose gear No major changes
18, 19	Subject: B&W photo set Same pictures, captions rearranged, and one caption on page 19 is misplaced with wrong picture.
20, 21	Subject: TA-4 color spread Same photos, more captions added on page 21
22, 23	Subject: B&W photo spread with cutaway drawing Nearly identical.
24	Subject: Cockpit
25	Subject: Ejection seat pictures Same pictures but one seat photo is zoomed, showing closer view of shoulder harness and overhead ejection activation handle while cutting out seat and lower activation handle. Some extra detail in the captions.	Didn't like this zoom choice, but you can see the lower handle in other photos.
26	Subject: Cockpit panel diagram Numbers in diagram items list are adjusted to be consecutive unique integers. Original has 18 and 18A, update has 18 and 19.
27	Subject: Ejection seat diagram No major changes
28, 29	Subject: Cockpit detail Same photos, some reoriented and zoomed, some added detail in captions
30, 31	Subject: Cockpit detail Same pictures, minor modifications to some captions
32, 33	Subject: Cockpit detail
34	Subject: Intake detail
35 - 37	Subject: Tail detail Functionally identical, some rewording of captions.
38	Subject: Antenna diagram, fuselage details No major changes
39	Subject: Ejection sequence diagram, fuselage details
40	Subject: A-4F color shots
41	Subject: Export A-4 pictures
42, 43	Subject: B&W spread, tie-down location diagram Captions modified. Mention of USS Intrepid loses its code designation (CVS-11)	Not sure why this was done, there was room to leave it.
44, 45	Subject: Landing gear detail Pg 45, one of the B&W pictures of an A-4 on carrier approach is replaced by a color shot of one doing a touch and go.	Color is appreciated, but the original photo showed the tailhook extended. There are however other photos showing the tailhook down in book
46	Subject: Variant evolution profile drawings
47	Subject: A-4E specification sheet
48	Subject: Wheel wells and tailhook and catapult attachment points Pictures have been resized and formatted in more structured 3x2 arrangement
49	Subject: A-4 squadron pictures Caption detail removed on landing gear operation in event of hydraulic failure: Gear is hydraulic but gear doors are mechanical. In event of hydraulic failure, the gear rests on gear doors. Pilot can manually release the doors and the landing gear will fall into deployed position	This is a great bit of detail that's perhaps not important to modelers but nice for historians. I wish they would have not removed it.
50, 51	Subject: A-4E and OA-4M profile diagrams
52	Subject: A-4M color shot, plus two landing gear detail shots The A-4M shot is completely omitted in updated edition, but the two landing gear shots are kept and zoomed. The A-4M shot's caption had a mix of information about VMA-324 and some history of why the A-4 was originally designed for the marines. Most of its relevant  A-4 information is retained as extra language in the two landing gear picture captions.	I liked the photo that was removed, but fortunately they retained most of the interesting A-4 data from the caption. The zoomed landing gear shots are useful and probably very helpful for modelers.
53	Subject: Two color shots of A-4 squadrons, one VMA-331 and one Top Gun A-4 Functionally identical, some reformatting and zoom of the adversary A-4 picture
54, 55	Subject: B&W wing detail spread Nearly identical, a sentence from one caption was added to one of the others.
56	Subject: Control surface detail Improved caption positioning
57	Subject: A-4 squadron pictures
58	Subject: Ordnance photos Error: Caption for loading of Mk-82 on an A-4 is used twice; thus one caption is lost: "Marine loads 20 mm rounds in an A-4E of VMA-331 at Chu Lai, December 1967. Each gun weighed 88 pounds."	Come on, man.
59	Subject: Ordnance photos One B&W photo of an A4D-2N (A-4C) doing AGM-12C Bullpup missile testing at Pax River, is replaced by a color photo of a Harpoon missile closeup.	Some of the replaced photo's Bullpup information transferred to a different picture's caption. This change is OK, although I liked the original photo, the update shows a newer weapon in the Harpoon. A fair trade, and there are Bullpups in other photos.
60, 61	Subject: A-4 squadron and some ordnance pictures
62, 63	Subject: A-4 squadron and some ordnance photos
64, 65	Subject: Variety of adversary, test, and export A-4s Some photo resizing. Details about squadron VC-8 were dropped in update.
66	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set
67	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set (side  shot of A-4E of VA-144 in flight; a Marine A-4E in hangar at Bien Hoa; a group of A-4s lined up for aerial refueling) This page is completely dropped in update with 5541's page 71 in this space instead.	I guess I can live without yet another profile shot and the hangar shot doesn't show much, but the refueling shot is really cool and I wish it was kept.
68, 69	Subject: Color profile drawings spread Some caption positions changed
70	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set Caption positioning changed
71	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set Updated edition does not have this page. Instead are some color shots of export (Singapore) A-4s. In 5541 this appears on page 80
72, 73	Subject: Color profiles drawings spread
74, 75	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set These pages are missing in updated edition. In their place is a Blue Angels A-4 color spread.	I like the Blue Angles, but not sure I like this decision.
76, 77	Subject: Color 1970s A-4 photos
78, 79	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set These pages are missing in updated edition. Instead is a color spread of export A-4s.	Hate losing good Vietnam shots, and the original captions have good information on weapons usage. But the color is nice and export information is a legit part of A-4 history
80	Subject: Singapore export color shots This page is moved to page 71 in updated edition, and instead is a fitting farewell shot of the A-4 against a sunset.	I like the artistic and poetic update, plus the caption identifies the end-of-service date.

The moral of the story is that while most of the time the updated edition adds on to the older edition and you don't lose much material, sometimes that's not the case. 

The Missing Pages

Some of the original pages removed from the later edition follow. It was a shame to lose these since there's a lot to learn from the Vietnam material.

Pages 67, 74, 75, 78, and 79.

Old reviews: The Sum of All Fears

Another movie review. How funny that long before the tendencies of today's Hollywood, I was already calling for a source material's canon white role to be portrayed by a minority. It was all in good fun, of course, and my suggestion was driven by merit of the better actor. But any of you young liberals pondering whether you can get a cheap self-affirming virtue signal by slapping the racist label on me can eat this receipt. I was way ahead of you in 2002.

After insulting the Pearl Harbor movie and crapping on Afleck in this review, I was probably too harsh. I thought Afleck did a good job in Argo and I put his Batman in the upper half of the cavalcade of people that have taken that role since 1989.

The Sum of All Fears, unfortunately, turns out to be not particularly memorable. I barely even remember the film while I can recall a great deal of The Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present Danger (granted, probably the best of the Clancy movies). 

--------------------

The Sum of All Fears

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Movie Review
Article Date: June 17, 2002

Huh?

Somebody screwed up. When Harrison Ford quit playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character in film, the powers that be naturally needed a replacement. So who would bring a mature dignity to the role? Who could embody the distinguished blend of family man and professional intelligence agent that is Jack Ryan? How about Morgan Freeman? Indeed, Freeman is in the latest interpretation of a Clancy novel, The Sum of All Fears, but the filmmakers goofed and put him in the wrong role!

You think I jest? You think Morgan Freeman cannot play an Irishman? Morgan Freeman could play heck out of anyone in The Sum of All Fears, and he does. You think the Irish couldn't produce a Black CIA agent? Please. Give those resourceful characters a pint and they can make anything happen. These are the guys that beat back England with swords and skirts. The real jest is from Paramount. Ben Affleck is playing Jack Ryan now, and that's a joke, at least for die-hard Jack Ryan fans.

Morgan Freeman as Cabot (left) speaks to Ryan played by Ben Affleck

The Name is Ryan, Jack Ryan

It's a changing of the guard, and it's evident that Jack Ryan has become America's version of James Bond. Just as Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and others took turns carrying Bond's banner, Ryan the celluloid hero is something greater than his papyrus counterpart: a Hollywood franchise. Indeed, for all the awkwardness of it, Affleck's Ryan is flushing money into the pockets of the film's decision-makers faster than the shock wave of a nuclear explosion.

Clancy readers already know that Affleck is too young to be a convincing Ryan in the existing continuity of the films, which loosely follow the order of the books. The Sum of All Fears doesn't try to explain this, nor does it totally ignore the change as the Bond films did through the various incarnations of Bond, Moneypenny, M, and Q. What happens is that The Sum of All Fears behaves as if the other Ryan films don't exist. Affleck's Ryan is a new agent in the intelligence business. His girlfriend (and wife to be, if the continuity picks up from here), Cathy Muller, is also fresh into her career as a doctor. Bridget Moynahan plays Muller in a light role, but she's very healthy looking and between her and Affleck there's plenty of eye candy for the audience. There's no reference to any of Ryan's past heroics because in this timeline, they no longer exist. Other characters from the books are here, like Mary Pat Foley and William Cabot, though Cabot is very different from his source counterpart.

Ryan with Clark played by Liev Shreiber

Super Sunday

The basic story from the book, however, manages to stay fairly close to the original. A nuclear device mounted on an Israeli A-4 Skyhawk in 1973 is lost when the aircraft is shot down. When it resurfaces nearly thirty years later, a group of Neo-Nazis is quick to purchase it, with the intention of detonating it in America at the Super Bowl football event. They've also arranged for simultaneous execution of a deceitful attack on American forces to entice America and Russia into war.

Complicating matters is the rumor that the Russian President, Nemerov, is losing control over his military and that he's becoming erratic. Ryan enters the scene because the CIA's director, William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) knows Ryan did a research paper on Nemerov and wants him on the CIA's Russian response team. Cabot in the novel is a hollow manager, practically a puppet for others in the government, but in the movie he's a good guy and played well by Freeman. Cabot mentors Ryan in the ways of diplomacy and guides his work in the CIA.

Ryan at the Russia desk

The movie makes other alterations. Aside from dropping the usual subplots and details to contain the length of the movie, they changed the terrorists from Middle Eastern, Native American, and German to Neo-Nazi. Given some concern over political correctness, this is an understandable move. Gutless, but understandable. The various subplot omissions are a little more disappointing. In the movie Clear and Present Danger, the creators maintain the story of both Ryan and his counterpart in Columbia, nicely paralleling them until their paths intersect. It added some depth, the kind typical of a Clancy story. There are no threads like this in The Sum of All Fears, leaving it hollow in comparison.

Brave New World

It's clear The Sum of All Fears isn't going to defy the adage that the book is always better than the movie. If we take off our preconception glasses, how does the movie fare? Not bad, but not great either, and director Phil Alden Robinson is as clumsy as any other Hollywood type when it comes to portraying the military.

If you can accept the shift in the Ryan character, The Sum of All Fears is a passable espionage thriller. Affleck is his usual affable self in the role, and Freeman is highly competent as the calm and controlled Cabot. And the film proceeds along at a comfortable pace for a comfortable duration. The terrorist plot is sufficiently creepy. The Affleck Ryan is a kinder, gentler, and weaker Ryan. When presented an opportunity to participate in a spy operation, he refuses to shoot anyone and is reluctant to even carry a weapon, hardly the former US Marine of the Clancy novels. Some would argue this gives him a different dimension from the cavalcade of other action heroes, forcing him to rely more on his wits, intellect, and doctorate degree. It would be an easier argument to accept if Ryan didn't also have to resort to the tired fist fight later in the film, with a guy twice his size and strength.

Ryan with Cathy Muller played by Bridget Moynahan

The two leads are surrounded by a well-stocked bullpen of supporting performers, though their one-dimensional roles waste their talent; Ron Rifkin, Bruce McGill, and James Cromwell have all made better appearances elsewhere. Liev Schreiber does a little better, giving the film much needed grit as CIA operative John Clark.

Director Robinson made The Sum of All Fears after taking a hiatus. His last movie direction was in 1992, and he appears somewhat mismatched for Clancy pictures, which have always competently mixed political intrigue with action. The highest points in the film are actually the humorous exchanges between Freeman and Affleck. The action scenes lack the power of previous Clancy movies, and even other action films. There is little here to compare to the remarkable scene in Clear and Present Danger where the American convoy is ambushed by rocket soldiers, or where a special forces team illuminates a target for an F/A-18's laser guided bomb.

COMBATSIM's readers will notice the remarkable disparity. There's some military influence on the film, but poor execution mars most of it. The opening scene of an Israeli A-4 cruising over the desert is lovely, but it's downhill from there. The film's previews hint of a nuclear bomb scene, and there is one, but it does surprisingly little damage. Electrical devices continue to function normally even after suffering what should have been an electromagnetic pulse. Thousands die at the blast's center, but there are few effects of radiation poisoning save for a few burned bodies, and Ryan, Muller, and the US President (James Cromwell) suffer no ill effects despite being near the blast.

Hello? Yeah, a nuclear bomb went off, but my phone is fine.

The most painful error surrounds the scene where a corrupt Russian officer orders bombers to attack an American aircraft carrier, and they succeed in destroying it. I could maybe believe in a stealth fighter sneaking past American carrier defenses, but an entire squadron of what look like ungainly Russian Backfires getting past E-2C Hawkeyes and F-14s? I don't think so. It was at least interesting to see the carrier's point defense systems in action. Clancy's novel, of course, took a much more realistic approach to the carrier engagement.

Made for Mainstream

Although my ramblings make it sound like The Sum of All Fears is a terrible movie, it would be more accurate to say that it's simply a mainstream movie. The movie is successful for a reason. It addresses current events in a way that's more approachable and less gory than Black Hawk Down does. To its credit, it also accepts that for the cleanliness a guy like Affleck's Ryan keeps in his ethical outlook, the truth is that people like John Clark are performing dirty work for the government. It's a carry-over theme from Clear and Present Danger days, but one that never expires. It will be interesting to see if Affleck sticks to the Ryan role. The balance sheets certainly indicate he will. Harrison Ford would have fit better in the next books, Debt of Honor and especially Executive Orders, but like James Bond did, the Ryan character may begin heavily diverging from the books. And if you don't like Affleck as Ryan, there's always the next changing of the guard.

Old Reviews: Flying Aces and Bomber Missions

I love aviation art. It's a nice blend of environmental art with an injection of man-made objects. Some people don't like it; I've heard artist Dru Blair got hate mail for his aviation paintings. No accounting for taste, or tact, apparently. 

Many years ago I ran across a Friedman/Fairfax booth at a trade show and the people there were kind enough to send me some spec copies of aviation art books they were producing and I reviewed them for Combatsim.com. I thought I did a good job identifying some shortcomings of the books but on GoodReads.com some people found even more to bash, despite loving the art. 

I still own these books and have added several others of this type to my library.  

Flying Aces and Bomber Missions

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Book Review
Article Date: May 31, 2002


Flying Aces by James H. Kitchens and Bernard C. Nalty
Bomber Missions by G.E. Patrick Murray

'Flying Aces' by James H. Kitchens and Bernard C. Nalty

Words and pictures can each deliver a message, but they aren't mutually exclusive. Text can pack detail into short spaces and spark the intellect; art can bring color and verisimilitude to the imagination. Each has strengths in speaking to a viewer or reader and it's no secret that they can be used together in synergy. The two work together nicely in the Friedman/Fairfax line of military art books.

The volumes in question are a series of art collections, compiling highlights from the work of contemporary military artists. Each oversized book brims with more than a hundred pages of art and text and each follows a particular theme of war. The two observed for this article are Flying Aces by James H. Kitchens and Bernard Nalty, and Bomber Missions by G.E. Patrick Murray. The authors begin each book with a short introduction to their topic, and each page brings gorgeous pictures of artwork accompanied by a short passage describing the scene or contextually relevant matter.

'Bomber Missions' by G.E. Patrick Murray

The stars of each book are easily the marvelous color reproductions of artwork from some of the best in the aviation art business. There are the brilliant works of masters Robert Taylor and Nicolas Trudgian, the unmistakable crisp images from Stan Stokes, and the endearing human ambiance in the paintings of James Dietz. Here too are the fine creations of Gil Cohen, Keith Ferris, Nixon Galloway, William S. Phillips, and more.

The unsung strength of these paintings is not that they're as lovely as they are, but that they even exist. Through them viewers can visit historical sites and witness scenes cameras did not capture.

The artists do as much research as some historians do, and many of these paintings and their captions introduce readers to lesser known squadrons, heroes, and missions. Robert Bailey's Arctic Encounter shows a German aerial raid on English ships. Robert Taylor's Operation Chastise depicts an equally rare image of Avro Lancasters in a dam-busting role. Stan Stokes gives us an uncommon look at the Consolidated B-36 Dominator, the successor to the B-24, in his painting The Hobo Queens. Stokes also comes through for the underdogs several times in the Flying Aces book. In Buffalo Ace, he illustrates the plucky Finn and ace Eino I. Juuttilainen doing his best with the Brewster F2A Buffalo. Stokes also paints a pretty Macchi in his Italian Air Stallion, which honors pilot Adriano Visconti.

It often feels like Stokes weighs in more heavily than the other artists, but complaining about this is like whining that a chocolate chip cookie has too many chocolate chips. And Stokes and the rest do not forego the famous aviators either. Chuck Yeager, Gabby Gabreski, Joe Foss, Adolf Galland, and Gregory Boyington are all here. Between both books, the reader gets exposure to a wide sweep of WWII. There's the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Marines scraping by at Guadalcanal, Rodeos flying over the English Channel, and German jets clawing at bomber formations in the final defense.

Robert Bailey's 'Arctic Encounter'

There are representatives from all the world's air forces, though clearly Bomber Missions could be called "Strategic" Bomber Missions given its bias toward heavy bombers. Where Flying Aces is more cosmopolitan in listing aces from various countries, Bomber Missions skews heavily to the American and English participation in skies over Europe. The Pacific Theater gets less representation, and the US Navy's stalwart SBD Dauntless is completely without mention. Friedman/Fairfax, however, has another art book about the carrier war, and I'm betting it compensates for the omission; just to be sure, COMBATSIM.COM will take a look at it in a future article.

Robert Taylor's 'Operation Chastise'

Although buyers will likely purchase these items for the art, so much so that they might even skip the text, it's encouraging to see some nuggets in the written portions. The captions do a fine job of sharing interesting trivia about the war and the paintings. Judicious use of photos adds to the presentation, and Flying Aces does well including black and white portraits of aces with related paintings. The Flying Aces text, however, sometimes meanders away from the art and leaves a plate without description. Text in Bomber Missions more consistently educates readers about specific events related to the pictures.

Stan Stokes' 'Buffalo Ace'

Both books have some signs of sloppiness in the writing. With the limited space, the lack of detail is excusable, but errors are embarrassing. In Bomber Missions, page 95's caption for one of the few photos in the book says the still shot is of a bomber crew, six officers and four crewmen. It appears there are four officers, actually, standing and wearing brimmed officer caps, while the six men kneeling in front are likely the enlisted, wearing their cloth overseas caps sans any officer markings. In Flying Aces, text on page 93 accompanies a Roy Grinnell painting of David McCampbell's F6F Hellcat. It claims McCampbell branded his steed "Mitzi" but Grinnell clearly painted "The Minsi" on the side of the fuselage. Grinnell is correct.

The worst offense the books commit is perhaps the most unavoidable one. Nearly all the paintings stretch across the gutter of the book, leaving ugly interruptions in these beautiful pictures. Printing the paintings large enough to capture the detail perhaps required this. Restricting the paintings to a single page, as the creators do with some of the illustrations, certainly preserves the wholeness of the art, but at a loss of impact. But making the pages or book any larger would make it unwieldy; it's already oversized.

David McCampbell poses in his F6F Hellcat called 'MINSI'

Except for the minor complaints, these are fine additions to any aviation book collection. They'll cost you a fraction of the money and space it takes to own these paintings, and are nice reads to boot. The art contained within is simply fabulous and never gets old with repeated viewing. These are excellent books for aviation fans, artists, and history lovers.


Relevance to Combat Simulations
These art books don't teach a lot of tactics, but offer something most texts don't in the form of graphical inspiration. Flip through enough paintings of the beautiful WWII warbirds in action, and you'll be primed for another spin in European Air War, Combat Flight Simulator 2, or IL-2 Sturmovik.

Both books are available via Amazon.com and the Military Book Club and are published by Friedman/Fairfax. Bomber Missions (2001) ISBN 1-58663-081-4, and Flying Aces (2000) ISBN 1-56799-815-1.

Image Sources

• Robert Bailey website
  
• Stan Stokes
  
• Robert Taylor
  
• Captain David McCampbell website

Old reviews: We Were Soldiers

Here's another of my Combatsim.com reviews. I'd not fully read the book, We Were Soldiers Once...And Young by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway, but was aware of it and knew enough about it to take a stab at the review. The movie was all right, I don't think it was turned into a grotesque hero-shot movie like so many Bruckheimer atrocities (although Black Hawk Down was good), and it tried to retain touch points to the book. I like that I was able to find out more about Rick Rescorla and tie his sacrifice on 911 to the article. The reference to the Quiz Show film was interesting. I got digs in on Pearl Harbor too, for which I make no apologies.    

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We Were Soldiers

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Movie Review
Article Date: April 05, 2002


Innocence Lost
Assuming there is such a thing, when did America lose its collective innocence? Filmmaker and actor Robert Redford theorized that America lost it in the 50’s. His film, Quiz Show, tells the story of how that powerful medium, television, captured viewers with a ruse and broke them when the truth came out. The theory is interesting, but an equally if not more compelling argument is that American national innocence is still lost in Vietnam, that far away place whose grounds soaked up American blood, ideologies, and broken promises, and where misconceptions and mysteries still live.

Gibson (left) and Elliott look remarkably similar to the characters they play.

The book We Were Soldiers Once…And Young, certainly seems to subscribe to the concept of the Vietnam conflict as a rite of passage. Even the title is poignant with remembrance. The book is about the time when America and its military were still confident from their past successes, when Korea was a minor aberration, and when its soldiers hailed the staples of God, family, and country. It chronicles the battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965 where the American Army’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, led by Lt. Col Harold G. Moore, clashed with the North Vietnamese troops led by Lt. General Nguyen Huu An. Director Randall Wallace and actor Mel Gibson have translated the story to the big screen with the abbreviated title, We Were Soldiers.

I admit I had concerns before watching the film. Gibson was a driving force behind two pictures, Braveheart and The Patriot that were about an idealistic hero leading an outnumbered band of warriors. Gibson looked to be on a familiar path. Reinforcing this thought is the use of Randall Wallace, who left military enthusiasts less enthused with his rendition of Pearl Harbor. Gibson and Wallace did well with Braveheart, but given the paths since taken, worries that We Were Soldiers would be another spiritual remake of Braveheart have some merit. The incredibly sappy trailers, filled with the kinds of quotes Rambo would utter, bolstered preconceptions. The final product, despite flaws, is fortunately better than the trailer would indicate.

We Were Soldiers looks at a time in the American Army's early material involvement in Vietnam. The battle is reportedly the first major battle of the conflict. As such, it was part of the introduction of new concepts to the battlefield, the most notable being the use of helicopter cavalry. The source book for the movie is also rare in some senses, as it's one of the few to highlight the times American troops engaged in a "set piece" battle of conventional troops. It also shows that the troops involved were not always the jaded ones commonly paraded in Hollywood's perception. The public has the misconception the Vietnam conflict was all about booby traps, guerillas, and drugged-out soldiers. Although it's accepted that the war was a defeat from political, social, and economic standpoint, there are arguments it was a military success. Perhaps it is more accurate to say the Americans held ground and achieved success in military terms, but at great expense, and were unwilling to keep bleeding as much as the Vietnamese, who fought for the heavier and more easily adopted stakes of defending a homeland.

We Were Soldiers ponders only briefly the philosophy of victory versus defeat. The bulk of the movie is more like Black Hawk Down, retelling the events of a battle. It this regard it is a less effective movie, because clearly there are several gaps in realism more serious than the ones Black Hawk Down makes. By Wallace's own admission, the picture only follows the book partially, condensing it to cover primarily the first half. There was additional action after the initial American troops were lifted out, omitted in the film except for parts of the conclusion. There are also several nits to pick: In the movie, Gibson, as Moore, refers to the M-16 as a "pretty good" rifle. The M-16 as we know it currently is indeed a capable weapon, but it flubbed miserably at its debut in Vietnam. Moore's leading non-commissioned officer, Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, balks at using one, which makes sense, though I don't recall such an argument made in the book. What's silly is that instead of doing something in character for a crusty old sergeant, like sticking with the M-14 rifle, Plumley chooses the Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol…for the entire battle.

Major Plumley (Sam Elliott) on the left eschews the M-16 rifle for his .45 Colt pistol.

Another gaffe in military realism comes when Gibson's character calls for an air strike on the enemy. Some critics accuse Wallace's battle scenes of ham-fisted direction, writing that they're not as well choreographed as action segments from, for example, Ridley Scott. I'm ambivalent about this assessment; Wallace's use of fast cuts from one scene to the next make it look like the aircraft are upon the scene mere seconds after calls for air support, which is rarely the real-world case. On the other hand, I can't fault Wallace for not taking time to make war look pretty; it's war, and it isn't pretty. If you want pretty combat, go watch The Matrix. The other problem with the air support is that the movie shows Moore waiting until the 7th Cavalry is in dire straits before posturing with quizzical facial expressions then muttering, "Broken Arrow" to call the air strikes. The movie is partially correct. Realistically, air support isn't a last resort, it's a resource that can be used anywhere there's a concentration of the enemy. The book notes several times that A-1 Skyraiders and armed helicopters participated in strikes throughout the battle. It also mentions the "Broken Arrow" code, but claims it wasn't to initiate the air strikes; it was a desperation signal that all available flights from all services were to assist the nearly overrun American force. Also, the declaration of "Broken Arrow" was made by not by Moore, but forward air controller Lt. Charlie Hastings, clearly a detail changed for dramatic effect.

There are other foibles in the film, such as the fact that Sergeant Major Plumley seems too invincible, never missing at any range with his .45 and running around at full height while everyone else is ducking bullets, but the film otherwise generally follows the key events in the book. This includes a look back at the families in the United States. The sappiness from the trailers doesn't materialize quite the same way you'd expect because the trailer crams the most cheesy lines of the movie into a few minutes, but the scenes from home make up for that. Most are just emotional setups. The movie spends most of its beginning showing us that the soldiers have families, complete with lots of newborns. This may indeed be the truth, but to dwell on it is to build the same sort of amateur cliché around the characters that surrounds the Goose character in Top Gun; you see their newborns and you know some of these guys are destined to be goners.

The homefront

Such scenes in We Were Soldiers, however, do have some redeeming points. A shocking revelation about how cruel the American government could be about notifying families of the deceased comes straight from the book. The film also scores for portraying the Vietnamese commander, Lt. General Nguyen Huu An, as an intelligent and contemplative leader with compassion for his men. There's also a scene where Moore writes to the family of a Vietnamese soldier whose journal is among the artifacts collected from the dead. I do not recall the journal owner from the book, but Moore did meet with An after the war. The use of the dead soldier's journal is a poor substitute for showing instead the peaceful meeting of the two leaders, but at least it's an effort to show enemies can ultimately coexist if not ally. It could have made more of an impact had the subplot of the Vietnamese journal owner been better developed.

Gibson does his usual credible job as an actor, and a solid cast joins him. Long-time Hollywood tough guy Sam Elliott gives Sergeant Major Plumley a fitting gruffness, and standing beside a similarly uniformed and helmeted Gibson, the pair looks surprisingly close to the real Hal Moore and Basil Plumley in the book photos. Barry Pepper steps in for an appearance as Joseph Galloway, the combat reporter who has to temporarily drop his camera for a rifle when the action gets too hot. Chris Klein plays a young officer, Jack Geoghegan, and symbolizes the innocence of the American soldier, and perhaps the American people, at this stage of the war. Although he's a capable actor, Greg Kinnear struck me as miscast as helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall. The uniforms and equipment in the film all appear authentic within reasonable limits and the only things I thought were missing were shorter haircuts and Dale Dye, the former Marine who's in so many war films. Viewers may wonder, with leaders as good as Moore, how could America lose in Vietnam? The answer is that there were guys like Moore on the other side, and not enough like him among the American politicians.

Berry Pepper portrays combat reporter Joseph Galloway. When the action gets too hot he drops his camera for a rifle.

Like Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers also pushes the theme of combat soldiers fighting as much for each other as for any cause. This is a valid point in most combat stories, though if Hollywood pushes it too much it will get old. With war movies being popular again, it may get old soon. In general, the film does its job depicting the battle and also serving as a counterpoint to several other Vietnam movies, even if it needs some nauseating clichés to do it. It also does a decent job with the passing innocence angle. Gibson's Moore is the hub of the film, and is like a father seeing his children grow and change. He mourns the tragedy of lost life, but the maturation of those who survive and persevere, such as the exhausted troopers that request permission to return to the front line, nearly moves him to tears.

Greg Kinnear as helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall

Reality Check
There’s another parallel to Black Hawk Down, one both glorious and somber. One of the soldiers from Black Hawk Down made the news by landing himself in prison. One of the We Were Soldiers participants made the news in a different way. Rick Rescorla is seen briefly in the movie taking a bugle from the Vietnamese as a war trophy. He left the Army and became a corporate security consultant for Morgan Stanley in New York. When terrorists flew an airliner into one of the World Trade Center towers the morning of September 11, 2001, Rescorla was in the adjacent WTC tower. Ignoring authorities' requests to stay put, Rescorla immediately ordered Morgan Stanley’s employees to evacuate, saving all but 6 of the 2700 who worked on the company’s floors. Even then, Rescorla refused to leave, and selflessly went to higher floors to continue helping others. You know the rest. Rick Rescorla: man, warrior, American; rest in peace.

Special thanks to COMBATSIM.COM's own Peter "Zhukov" Pawelek for identifying the site www.lzxray.com, a site dedicated to the memory of the battle.

Note: All images are from the official We Were Soldiers website.
© 2001 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Saying Goodbye: The Boxee Box

It sold, it sold, it finally sold! I've managed to sell off my old Boxee Box media player. 

I can remember when I learned of the D-Link Boxee Box in 2010. A friend of mine showed me an article about it, and I recall immediately being impressed with the device's remote. It had a navigational button that allowed you to move a cursor or on-screen selector in the four cardinal directions, but when you flipped the remote over, it had a full QWERTY keyboard! That was awesome to me because trying to type in text on a TV is typically one of civilization's shittiest experiences, superseded only by dealing with lawyers and car salesmen. The remote sold me, I knew then that was the device I was going to buy.

And buy it I did. And it was indeed great...at first. The oddly shaped Boxee Box was a visual treat, its flat glossy face looking out from next to the TV. It had connections for HDMI and component cables, and it had an Ethernet port, WiFi, USB ports, and a flash card reader. But the remote was as advertised and really great. 

I used the Boxee to watch Netflix, and also to hook up my portable hard drive of pictures and movies and pump content to my TV. I really liked the device.

But things went downhill from there. Numerous updates came out for the Boxee Box over the next year but they served largely to reduce the device's stability. And then in 2012, the Boxee guys quit on the userbase and ceased supporting the device [webarchive.org]. They'll tell you a different story, but Boxee Box users will tell you the truth: we were abandoned. 

Hardware failures aren't uncommon, you can read on this very blog about some other examples of buyer's disappointment. But getting completely abandoned, less than two years after spending a premium price (I think it was upwards of $250), is a kick in the testicles. I mean, when you are lower on my company rankings then HP, you've really accomplished something. 

To be fair, the Boxee Box device continued to work and I still used it for a couple years. Even today I believe it can still play media files from your connected devices and unless the Netflix API changes have completely invalidated the app on the Boxee Box, it should still play Netflix. But eventually I dropped my use of it when I switched to serving content to my TV from a network attached storage device. For streaming, TVs got smarter and could do apps without needing a Boxee, and the Tivo 4K can stream anything the Boxee could in a smaller device that, as part of a Sling TV promotion, was FREE. So as disappointing as Boxee's demise was, I have recovered.

My Boxee Box went into mothballs on my unused hardware shelf. Until about a year ago when I listed it on eBay as a part of my ongoing effort to declutter. Mostly I've sold my computer and video games and a few books. But after being listed for months, someone finally decided to buy my Boxee, which I had dropped in price from about $40 down to $25, and a pretty far cry from the $200+ I paid. Creative people have found ways to jailbreak/hack the device and make it more useful, and the remote is still as cool as ever. To the guy that got it: good luck, I hope it gives you some happiness. To Boxee: goodbye and good riddance.

Review: Youngblood Hawke

My first exposure to the great American writer Herman Wouk was when I was in intermediate school and we read excerpts from The City Boy. It was the right introduction for the right person at the right age. I was chubby and nerdy like the book's character, Herbie Bookbinder, and suffered a lot of the same struggles (although living in California and not New York I couldn't partake of some of Bookbinder's salves, like walking a mere block to get a frappe shake). For my book report I rigged up a cheap diorama out of a shoe box that captured the scene in the book where Herbie assembles a sort of roller coaster that does down the side of a hill at his summer camp (I think...it's been a while, maybe he just found an existing one and put up the marketing around it as an attraction for a camp event). Looking back, I don't think it was the best of my attempts at dioramas, but the one hook that made it different from the other projects was that my father helped put a few battery operated LED lights on it so that it looked like a sign Bookbinder put up to showcase the ride. Keep in mind this must have been around 1979, so LED lights weren't the ubiquitous thing they are now. My father being an electrical engineer was a great boon to this particular book project.

I left that piece of Wouk in the rear view mirror and never really came back to him. I knew he was a respected writer but my only interaction with his work for years after that was when I got a copy of The City Boy. The years between high school and young adulthood were mostly filled with the writings of Harlan Ellison, Marv Wolfman, Paul Chadwick, Stephen Coonts, Barrett Tillman, Bob Hall, and yes, damn it, Tom Clancy. 

Then a couple years ago I ran across a sale at Amazon on a bunch of Wouk's work, and I figured it was time to pick up some ebooks and audiobooks of his. I finally tackled Youngblood Hawk a couple months ago, and what a ride it was. 

Wouk's writing is very good, there's no issue with his choice of vocabulary or style, though I'm not the stickler on that sort of thing that more pretentious critics are. I just want a writer to respect my time; have a decent story to tell and be competent in the telling. Bonus points are awarded if: the work manages to be both educational and entertaining, it sticks with me a bit and makes me think, and the author's not an asshole if I ever meet the person in real life. If your style can makes gods weep, if you've scoured the text ten times over to remove any instance of passive voice, if you scrutinized it ten more times to make sure you "show don't tell," and if you've taken pains to ensure at least ten percent of the characters are homosexual minorities...well maybe bonus points for that too but not at the expense of the more important items. 

Youngblood Hawke is a tremendous work. It's a massive book and between a mixture of listening to the audiobook twice a week on commutes, and reading bits of the ebook, it took me two months to finish. The story of the smart but naive young man that enters and navigates the world of New York publishing as he becomes a bestselling writer is a big non-stop sprawling tour through a tumultuous life. I've read some critics say it's one of the best books for explaining the financial side of writing, and it certainly does give the reader an eyeful of it. In fact I'm not sure this is the book for everyone. I think a lot of people today would be quite bored with Hawke, despite the presence of plenty of sex (mostly G-rated in the proceedings), tons of dialog, lengthy descriptions, and a detour to a couple court cases (one a red scare communist hearing, and the other over land rights). The book is really long, and though it's buoyed by well developed characters, intrigue, drama, and humor, I think a modern movie rendition would look nothing like Wouk's work. I can't say anything about the existing 1964 movie; I haven't seen it and don't have a particular interest in seeing it, given my poor faith in Hollywood's ability to respect the printed word, though I'll take a look if it ever crosses my path in one of the many streaming services I currently use.

Most of the reviewers on Goodreads put Hawke at four to five stars. I'm ok with that. It's a bit of a writer's fantasy, but it is interesting and educational. The writing profession, I think, doesn't hold the same allure  as it did in 1960. I know from experience how little it pays and how difficult it can be to succeed, although it's still respected and we still need writers. But prior to the invention of the damned internet and proliferation of videos as the new literature, writers were giants and their works were and still are inspiration for other media (plays, movies) and I can see how Youngblood Hawke was a glimpse into the fantasy of that life. I believe I will read more Wouk in the future.