I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Unplugged (1992).

The video of this nearly twenty year old concert came with the remastered version of Ten.  I hadn’t had a chance to watch it until now.  While watching I was pretty certain that I had seen the show either when it aired or sometime right after.  Some of the scenes, maybe from “Alive” looked familiar.  And when “Porch” was ending I had this vague memory of Eddie climbing on the stool and writing something on his arm (he writes “Pro-Choice”).

This is a seven song set of tracks from Ten (Dave Abbruzzese is drumming with them).  And, as advertised, it is unplugged.  Except that it really isn’t.

This set was recorded in 1992 (Unplugged started in 1989).  In my estimation, “Unplugged” shows were a chance to really strip down, play all acoustic and get really mellow (the Nirvana one (1993) is quite a good example) .  But here, we get Mike McCready and Stone Gossard (and all of their hair, holy cow!) playing acoustic guitars.  But Jeff Ament (and his crazy hat) is playing an electric bass (which is funny since in recent years he has been playing a standup bass).  Dave Abbruzzese is banging the crap out of his full set.  I mean, really the only thing that makes this unplugged at all is that the guitars are acoustic, but McCready still plays his rocking solos full tilt.

Nevertheless, the set sounds great.  Eddie barely talks (something about a love song to his surf board and a mumbled line about “State of Love and Trust”), and it’s pretty much all business.

“Oceans” works well in the Unplugged setting…Ament’s watery bass is the real star.  But difficulty sets in with “State of Love and Trust.”  It is just too fast, too loud, and too rocking to really be considered “Unplugged.”  So from then on, we’ll throw the Unplugged label out the window and just rock.  Of course, when the solos kicks in and you hear this really distant acoustic guitar instead of McCready’s ripping electric, you think, well, maybe I’d rather have it plugged.

“Alive” opens kind of in an unplugged state, but again, but the end, it seems like McCready is fighting against the other “plugged” guys.

Title criticisms aside, the set is great.  The band sounds in fantastic form and by the end (when Eddie is falling off and climbing onto his stool) even Ament is getting silly and jumping on the drum set.  It’s a good view (and a good listen too).

[READ: November 10, 2010] “Under the God Gun”

I honestly didn’t think I would like this article and I wasn’t looking forward to it.  I didn’t quite understand the subtitle (Battling a fake insurgency in an imitation Iraq) and in general I don’t enjoy articles about military training and the Iraq war, etc.

And when it started, I was confused by what was happening until I got to the third paragraph where he mentions a prosthetic arm being applied to an amputee.  Then I re-read the beginning and I was pretty well hooked.

The article looks at the fake governance of Talatha and its small villages like Mosalah.  All of this exists within the borders of Louisiana at the army training based called Fort Polk.  It shows how these fake villages were created from the ground up to look just like an Iraqi city.  They even pay citizen extras to be Iraqi citizens (they get paid about $220 a day and are required to speak no English).

In these fake towns they run military training exercises that are designed to replicate the actual conditions in Iraq (hence the prosthetics, fake blood, explosions and lack of English).  It’s a fascinating look at something that I had no idea existed.

The training area is on 98,000 acres of the Kisatchie National Forest.  The realism of Talatha is extensive and yet for all of the expense, it’s still made out of corrugated tin and plywood.  And yet, still, everyone acts like it is real.  The exercises that Tower watches are concerned with trauma, and disabled soldiers.  And the realism is designed to give thee soldiers a believable nad scary experience.

The scene was chaotic with “bullets” everywhere.  There’s even a case where one of the victims is believed to be carrying an explosive device–and all hell breaks loose.  The soldiers’ “casualties” were about 20% during a typical drill and the sergeants felt that that was pretty good.

The second stage of the article looks at the fictional location called Suliyah which is a state of the art facility on the grounds of Talatha.  It cost $49 million to build.  There are digital sights and sounds and laser guns which determine with pinpoint accuracy what kind of damage various weapons have done to you.  There’s even fairly realistic robots on the grounds.

In this fictional city, formerly active soldiers “attack” new recruits.  The former soldiers are insurgents, hiding out in the bushes and trees.  It is meant to accurately replicate an insurgent village.  And, yes, the new soldiers are basically sitting ducks.  In the example they gave, the entire squadron was destroyed by just a few insurgents.

All of this is intended to give the soldiers a realistic expectation of what the war is like even though as one soldier explained, nothing can prepare you really for what you’re going to face.  The soldier

had seen two deployments in Iraq and had fought in the invasion, where he “lost twelve buddies.”  He had not had the benefit of training beforehand, and he wasn’t sure what difference it would have made if he had. “Training helps, but it’s not really like combat.”

These seasoned soldiers seemed to enjoy the subterfuge and the “killing” of thenew recruits.  It seemed to be a way for these former combat soldiers to relive the experience without the real danger.  But it also shows the seeming futility of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But if the training can’t really help all that much, it begs the question, not brought up in the article, is all of this worth it?

This was a really engaging article.  It kind of made the theater of war sound like a lot of fun.  But including the former soldiers’ perspectives was very helpful in reminding the reader that war is not fun, even if the technology is really cool.