HBO's The Pacific: Sledge's Bunker

Band of Brother: It's about friendship between soldiers, The Pacific: It's about horror & pain of war

the continued shouts of "Gene?" really get me. he can't tell whats happening and so he's concerned and desperate to confirm his friend is still alive.

Reminds me of my uncle Johnny Rodriguez got a German grenade take half his face off when he came home his fiance left him because he was horribly disfigured he ended up meeting my aunt who saw through the scars of War and into his heart and they had nine children

The saddest moment in the life of a soldier when you realize that the person you killed is also human.

War is Hell. Sledge's look during the flame-thrower assault says it all.

What I love about this series is how it humanises the Japanese, while also presenting them as a serious threat to the main characters.

Standard Operating Procedure to scream while operating a flamethrower.

2:18 gave me chills. You can hear the pain, depression, hatred, and restlessness in his voice.

1:59 he say ｢mother｣ 2:05 ｢help me god｣ 0:06「take this ! American！」 1:09「damn it !! chaaarge!!」maybe 「go to hell 」 0:54「don't shoot me」 0:50「please」

Band of Brothers was a great show, but for me, as an Aussie, The Pacific really hits home. The first few episodes are filmed in my hometown of Melbourne and set when my Grandma was a young woman who met a soldier and got married and bore him a daughter (My Mum) only to lose him fighting the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. It saddens me to say that as a single mother she was treated appallingly by the public even though her husband died defending our nation. My great uncle Alf was at Dunkirk. Also a veteran of North Africa and Crete until finally and by this time a Major in the ADF he was sent to PNG where according to my Cousin he accepted the sword and the surrender of a Japanese officer and what was left of his forces. The bit that really saddens me is that he never talked about any of it until the final days of his life, where he wept as he explained to his family how if there’s an Afterlife will he face God? How will he explain to Him the things he has done? The lives he has taken? He was just one of many. An entire generation of young men and women put through a meat grinder. I would have loved to have known my Grandad. Lest We Forget…

Now I see why Sledge had nightmares and ptsd, he stared death in the face.

When Snafu was yelling and shooting at that japanese soldier it gave me the chills, it just shows the hatred and frustration from the American perspective and how brutal war can be. Great acting and a fantastic series.

This scene is amazing. The part where the flamethrower showed up and men just screaming gave me chills. War is just hell and dehumanizing.

I know war is horrific and both sides had their fair share of suffering. But this scene, touched me. Eugene realizing that they are just people like us. Since I knowing some Japanese, hearing those Japanese soldiers screaming "mom!!" "God please help me" "somebody help me" "I wanna go home" in pain broke my heart. War is terrible, the Pacific has got to be one of the most ruthless theaters that turned men into horrible creatures. I just hope we learn from this and not feed into another military-industrial war complex.

1:57 This Japanese soldier is screaming "mom!". Honorifics were the norm for parents in Japanese culture at the time. So when they become a young man, they call their mother "mother" instead of "mom". So just before he died, I couldn't stop crying when I saw him yelling "mom" like a baby. Beacause this reminds me of how he was calling his mother when he was young.

For those that dont know, this action occurred on one of the small islands at the north end of peliliu, where it was believed there was an operational fighter plane airfield (it wasnt - the planes there had all been destroyed). The action occurred more or less as set out in the episode (the day after the airfield was taken) but whats not clear is that Burgin was awarded a bronze star for this action. He went back and brought up a sherman at considerable personal risk (its his voice you hear calling out where the target is when the tank arrives). The japanese abandoned the bunker when the tank arrived because they knew they couldnt do anything to fight the tank - they didnt start coming out before that, although a handful of grenades were thrown down a vent - when they abandoned the bunker a firefight started out in the open. Sledge did nearly get his head shot off when he looked over the ledge. The tank blew the top of the bunker off and thats when the marines discovered, for the first time, that some of the japanese bunkers had multiple compartments, which is why the unit that was supposed to have cleared the bunker thought they had, and also partly why Burgin was awarded the bronze star, because this was a "new" type of bunker. Two wounded japanese were found in the destroyed bunker and they were both shot. Some people commented on the flamethrower guy. That was a real person - "Red" Womack, and for the record he hated using flamethrowers. He was made a flamethrower man because a flamethrower is heavy and he was a big man (his nickname of "Red" comes from the fact that he had a bushy red beard). Some accounts say he volunteered for flamethrowers but thats not what I have read. Luckily for Womack he was quickly made the NCO responsible for the flamethrowers (because the others were killed) and as a result he didnt have to actually use one for very long.

1:43 gives me chills every single time I watch it. The combination of the flamethrower firing, and the operators scream are legitimately terrifying...

"The worst part of war is that it turns civilized men into killers."

This scene really showed what war really was. Even if those men didn’t die, they went home broken.

I originally watched Band of Brothers obsessively in my youth, and I think I genuinely learned a lot about leadership from the show, (and of course I loved the combat sequences). But the first time I watched The Pacific in 2010, I almost felt let down because it focused more on a few specific characters rather than an entire company - but I didn't understand the overall message. I rewatched the Pacific all the way through a couple years ago in my early 20s. I now understand that both series have their own respective places. The Pacific is raw, grisly, and extremely visceral. It guts you out, and emotionally drains you. It is an undisturbed and nearly unbiased glimpse into war. It is pure horror.