Seabees

[Beatrice Otter]

Triva: John "The Duke" Wayne starred in a movie about the beginning of the seabees. I don't remember right off hand, through.

Oh, yeah. John Wayne is one of my favorite actors; he's very much underrated, imho. That one (I believe it's called 'The Fighting Seabees', or something) is very forgetable, though.

I don't know how much of it is true and how much is Hollywood, but the story is that the Navy hires an ordinary American construction gang (headed by the Duke) to build them a base on a tropical island. The guys _strongly_ resist all militarization of their work, despite the Duke's growing friendship with the Navy liaison. This lasts until the Japanese attack and in the process of trying to fight back (instead of stay put and keep their heads down like they were told), the guys get in the way of the Marines trying to defend them. Wayne's character goes back to the States all gung-ho about doing things "the Navy way" (a complete turnaround for the character), joins the Navy, and is instrumental in recruiting and training the first Seebees, who on their first construction job are again attacked by the Japanese, and this time manage to hold their own and beat back the attackers without depending on the Marines to bail them out. Add in a love triangle between Wayne's character, the Navy liaison, and a female reporter on the island, and you have a fairly standard wartime flick.

[Beatrice Otter]

Yeah, I guess you would want to be trained. It seems like with a lot of the military people I've met, they're a bit over trained in combat and stuff like that.

It weird though how the US has it's forces all over the place, enlarged in sci fi by sticking them offworld. Colonel O'neill is in the Special Forces, right? Is that the army or marines or is it a spinoff?

P.S Good luck to your brother.

I don't know if anyone in the military can be over-trained in combat, y'know? Not to put it too delicately, the military's primary job is and always has been to kill people and break things. Despite what some people think, they are neither relief workers nor policemen. While they do get called into such jobs fairly often, it is not their primary function and usually could be done better and more efficiently by other organizations.

Overall, the Marines are far better combat-trained than the other branches (everyone, even the computer programmers and cooks gets regular rifle training). The Army is next in terms of overall combat-readiness; their cooks and supply people and others who are supposed to stay in the rear echelons have only minimal combat training.

Air Force and Navy have the least amount of combat training in the infantry sense, as they don't expect to have to need much of that, and when they do, they've got the Army and Marines to protect them. Air Force spends most of its time in the air or on secure bases; Navy spends most of its time at sea or on secure bases.

However, all four have some elite troopers (though AF has by far the smallest group). Special forces covers everything from elite Marine units to Navy Seals to Army Delta Force to whatever it is the AF calls their guys. O'Neill is an Air Force officer, as are Carter and General Hammond. In fact, aside from the guys who are identified up front as Marines (and those guys generally get the heavy combat stuff), you can generally assume that any military guy on Stargate is Air Force. If you're not familiar with the uniforms, you can tell this because the term "Airman" is used generically to refer to just about everybody. It would not be an appropriate way to refer to a member of any other branch of the Armed Forces, inter-brach rivalry and pride being what they are. Equivalent terms would be "Marine" (Marines), "Sailor" (Navy) and "Soldier" (Army). (This is SG-1, here; on Atlantis, aside from Major Shepphard who was included solely for the Ancient gene, the only military personnell are the Marines sent along as guards and defenders in case the Pegasus galaxy was dangerous. This also does not include the movie, which is a whole different ball 'o wax.)

As to why the US has its forces all over the world, well, that's what world powers do. It's part of the way they are identified as "world powers." And right or wrong, the US decided over a century ago to become a world power.

Thanks for the good wishes.

[Ancient 1]

I was first aware of the seabees when watching an old John Wayne movie, i.e., The Fighting Seabees, and then when my uncle was drafted and was a member. He helped construct the runway at Hahn AFB, Germany where I was lucky enough to spend a TDY for 60 days back in the 80's, so...

I just took all this for granted. Who else would it have been?

[Beatrice Otter]

I was first aware of the seabees when watching an old John Wayne movie, i.e., The Fighting Seabees, and then when my uncle was drafted and was a member. He helped construct the runway at Hahn AFB, Germany where I was lucky enough to spend a TDY for 60 days back in the 80's, so...

I just took all this for granted. Who else would it have been?

Well, I'd heard of the Seebees, but I had no idea they were the _only_ construction force in the armed forces. I'd always argued against the possibility of people from other branches (Army and Navy) being actively involved in the Stargate Project, on the grounds that a) we've never seen them, b) it increases the number of people who have to be 'in the know,' and c) it greatly increases the possibility for miscommunications and inter-service friction. Now I know that we have to at least have the Navy involved, and that makes me wonder if I just haven't picked up on other things that would indicate more Navy involvement and possibly even Army involvement, as well.