Op-Ed: Bringing The Iraq Occupation To Television

There have been many films made depicting Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, Generation Kill, premiering on HBO this Sunday night, will be the second non-documentary TV series to dramatize the invasion and occupation of Iraq while it is still occurring.

The seven part mini-series is “bold, uncompromising and oddly different” according to Allesandra Stanley of The New York Times. David Simon and Ed Burns, recently of HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire fame, wrote the series. Generation Kill is adaptation of the same titled book by Rolling Stone writer Evan Wright who was an embedded reporter with a platoon of First Reconnaissance Battalion Marines (Camp Pendleton, CA). Wright wrote about that experience in a three-part series in Rolling Stone that was hailed for its accurate war reporting. The first series depicting the life of soldiers in Iraq was the 2005 FX series Over There, written by Chris Gerolmo (Mississippi Burning) and Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues,NYPD Blue). Over there was a fictional account of a unit of the Army's Third Infantry Division (Ft. Stewart, GA.) on its first tour of duty in Iraq. The series enjoyed good ratings early on but by it’s 13th episode, the season one finale, the ratings were down sharply and FX decided not to renew it for a second season. The series was also critically panned by some some soldiers of the U.S. Army. The fact that Generation Kill is an adaptation of actual events, and being a mini series as well as airing on non commercial cable TV, I envision great acclaim for the series.