I was going to response with PJs who are the most badass guys in all of the USSOC. Other SpecOps guys go in on the d.l. to recce or stir up trouble; PJs go in under fire to pull some busted up pilot or unlucky PBMF out of the muck. Other SpecOps guys are alternately revered and envied by their particular service, but everybody buys drinks for PJs regardless of what branch they serve in.
I work with several former silo rats, and the duty is as deadly dull as it seems. I suppose you could make a stagey, two man play about silo duty, but it wouldn’t come off to non Space Command folk as being particularly heroic.
A movie concept that would be interesting (to me) would be about the Army Air Force XX and XXI Bomber Command led by Gen. Curtis ‘Bombs Away’ LeMay. This was not only the command that bombed the living hell out of Japan before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also instituted the first modern logistical planning for long range, long duration warfare (and where future SecDef Robert S. McNamara earned his shinies by helping to apply statistical methods to optimize the effectiveness of the bombing campaigns). LeMay would be a fascinating character, similar in many ways to George S. Patton; once could style a similar film as the eponymous film of the latter. John Goodman or Frank Langella could play the title role. Of course, they’d probably cast Colin Ferrell as Bob McNamara, Orlando Bloom as Douglas MacArthur, and the film would end up with the First Infantry parachuting into Japan to fight hand to hand, so I wouldn’t expect too much out of the film.
As the son of an A-20 pilot, I always wished that more attention had been paid to the plane in various areas–movies, models, and the like. Lack of available flying examples might have had something to do with that in the movie instance, but we’ve got CGI now to help out. I think that “cocoanut bombing” at 75 feet, skip bombing shipping, that sort of thing, would make for exciting action sequences.
In part, no doubt, although LeMay was not so obsessed with “precious bodily fluids,” as JDR. However, aside from that the following quote could have come directly from LeMay:I can no longer sit back and watch Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the internationally Communist conspiracy continue to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
This was probably Sterling Hayden’s best performance ever.
Hell… they ought to combine a couple of these posts and make a movie about my grandfather… was an A-20 flight engineer/gunner in the ETO in 1943, then got reassigned to B17s as a replacement, didn’t get his 25 mission number credited for the A-20 missions he’d flown, so he completed his 25 and went home.
He got an Air Medal at some point, with the citation signed by COLONEL Curtis LeMay.
Seriously though… while I loved “Memphis Belle”, I always thought a grittier, more dark B17 crewmen in 1943 movie would be a real interesting one. The reason I say 1943, is because we didn’t have long range fighter cover, and the heavies were suffering horrific casualties relative to their numbers. The movie I’m envisioning is something like the first season or so of the reimagined BSG in terms of grit and darkness.