So, I got bored, and figured that a movie about Air Force Para Rescue Jumpers (AKA The PJ’s) could be rather cool. Basically, they’re trained to jump out of airplanes behind enemy lines to rescue downed pilots and soldiers and help them get to safety. For a movie tie-in website, I’d suggest “jollygreengiant.com” except that it seems to already be in use (the PJ’s use green foot prints as one of their unofficial logos, in reference to the HH-3 Jolly Green Giant helicopters they used for Combat Search And Rescue during Vietnam)
So Dopers, can you think of any groups in the military that could be the basis for awesome movies if anyone paid any attention to them in Hollywood?
The Air Corps used to be an underappreciated part of the Army - especially underappreciated by the Army, who were very jealous of all the publicity the flyboys got.
It’s not war, certainly, but it might be worth a movie to tell about the trouble they had in 1934, flying air mail after the government fired all the contractors. They had to learn about long-distance flying, night flying, and do it all without decent forecasts or maps. Quite a few got killed, too.
It’d be interesting but I have to nitpick, as a former CSAR guy: we (the helo guys) had the greenfeet first. They have their Gaurdian Angel logos while us helo guys have the Jolly Green Giant.
I’ve always thought the guys manning the silos (Air Force?) were pretty interesting. It doesn’t lend itself to an action movie, but not all war movies need bullets whizzing around.
I remember reading some nice British A5-format comics about those miniature sub guys, where the front of the sub was basically a mine? Imagine riding on that.
Also, the guys who cleared landing strips and the like on the island hopping in WWII. Sea-Bees, was it?
I can’t remember the book (I think it was Can Do!: The Story of the Seabees but I’m not 100% sure), but they’ve always impressed me. I admit interest in the background and logistics side of war, though, so YMMV.
No kidding. I am so damn tired of movies that switch scene locations from the flight deck to a ready room on a carrier and no where else. It’s gotten to the point where the general public thinks that an aircraft carrier can’t get underway without some jag-off pilots to provide a focal point for the rest of the ship.
Hell, we dumped the airwing and took an Army battalion to Haiti one time. Ship worked just fine without Maverick and his buddies onboard.
