Okay this really bugged me. I caught an episode of the show Army wives. It had actors I liked in it, it was a show concept that interested me, and I have a lot of time on my hands for the next couple weeks. The show really pissed me off.
Some shows have low budgets, poor concepts (a show on the geico cavemen, come on) poor actors, or just don’t have anywhere for it to go. (Are you willing to watch the same guys try and break out of prison for 5 years?) This show, however, had it all. Good actors, a great concept, there are so many places you can take it, and pretty much a built in audience.
If you make anything about the military, Joes will watch it. It is that simple. Take that show ‘Over There” about being in Iraq. I have never been in Iraq and I don’t claim to know what it is like, but in most of the characters you can see people you know in it. The hard ass sergeant, the book smart kid that doesn’t really fit into an infantry unit, the punk from the hood with an attitude, someone who is solid and reliable (in that show the religious kid Angel) and sadly for some, the wounded soldier. As a military member watching that show if you are not like one of those characters, you know a couple of them.
The story lines were made up, and you have to give freedom to work with the subject. But they didn’t do a bad job in the couple episodes I saw. But this Army wives kinda ticked me off. I don’t look at any of them and see a single military spouse I knew. Even their military members were BS. A light colonel does not go to an E-5’s house to check up on him. And if he pulls a gun on her because of PTSD, I am going ot go ahead and say she would report that.
His story of why he had PTSD made me leave the room. It was about an incident in Afghanistan (a place I have been to) and it took place in the Kandahar area (a place I am very familiar with). He was left, by his unit, in an Afghan village because he was wounded. The rest made it back, and they couldn’t get a group together to rescue him for a few days, and after they pulled him out, an LTC, SGT and two other soldiers went out in a single vehicle to bring stuff for the village to thank them. Some Taliban were punishing the village and they just watched because the commander told them they couldn’t get involved in local matters. How many things wrong with that can you find?
What really got me about that is that there are literally hundreds and thousands of stories about PTSD based on real and dramatic events. Everyone is affected by being deployed. Some make it a positive, some don’t, most of fall in between. There are those few, those very few who can’t function after. Sadly, we also know one of those.
Sorry, I got away from the topic. The show is supposed to be about Army wives and it only reflects the negative. The military spouse does more than just carry our children. There is a secret that the Taliban never figured out, and why that country would never prosper under their rule. Also why parts of the middle east, regardless of GNP, will never be able to rise or develop past a certain level.
The big secret? Women are our quiet strength, women are our compassion. Behind every great man is a great woman. That is only partly true, to be a great man you need the support of a great woman. Women are what temper us. We have the best military in the known universe, but without the support of our women we wouldn’t be able to fight our way out of a wet paper bag.
Here is something to think about; every culture that oppresses its women has a laughable Army. In a straight up fight, force on force you take an country where women can vote and are equals, and one where they can’t, the fight would be about as one sided as an adult beating up a baby.
After rambling on for far too long, here is my point. The show doesn’t do justice to who it is supposed to be about, the Army wife. There are so many real stories that need to be told, they don’t need to make up the “dramatic stories” they use. You could go to an FRG meeting and pick at random women with better stories than the show craps out.
I know that some people are going to like it. And that is fine with me. I hate it when people look down on someone for liking something that they don’t. I am hoping that the show pulls out and gets better. Without Army wives, we wouldn’t have an Army, without American women we wouldn’t have this great a country.
