"Most common Hollywood G.I stereotypes" Topic

Which of these Hollywood G.I stereotypes are the most common. Name others you can think of?

1. The mouthy tough Italian from New York city
2. The young blond physically fit surfer from California
3. The huge strong,round, kind of dumb farmboy from Iowa
4. The grizzled veteran sergeant with the Thompson
5. The wayward preacher with his Bible and promised
repentance if he survives the war
6. The young ignorant, just out of OCS, by the book
lieutenant leading the squad to certain doom
7. The private with Germam heritage who speaks fluent
German
8. The guy with the knockout girlfriend back home who
keeps letting the other guys see her photo -- and
then grows fighting mad over their crude remarks

Anymore?

The guy with a girl in every port.
The guy who can scrounge up anything in the middle of nowhere.

1. The Jewish kid from New York
2. The reliable guy with a wife and baby back home
3. The quiet Native American with uber stealth skills
4. The burned-out veteran who you know is going to get shot soon
5. The war-weary Captain
6. The demanding Colonel who always asks 5) the war-weary Captain to send out his men on dangerous missions (where 4) the burned-out veteran gets show)

They never wear their helmet chin strap even though the Germans always do.

The crooked supply guy

The African-American soldier floating about in the background in a really subtle (!) attempt to airbrush from history the United States Army official policy of racial segregation during WWII.

The Professor: Has three degrees and a doctorate and knows *everything*

The guy who is excited about going home in a month and ends up getting killed.

What!? No Texan/Cowboy!?

The kid from Brooklyn, who isn't gonna make it.

The tough sergeant with a heart of gold.

The Shecky Greene goldbricking private/corporal

The irreverent / borderline insubordinate slob who is really a natural leader when the shooting starts.

The religious southerner

The skinny weak geeky guy always getting picked on and then pulls half of his WIA squad out of an ambush while under fire. Then just when you think the engagement is over and everyone is thanking him for saving their life an enemy sniper nails him.

Wolfhag

Watch Bataan and you'll seem them all. InThe Lost Patrol you'll find a mix albeit British. Hence no Brooklynites.

The fanatically religious sniper

The guy that comes from a military family and resents the twisted authority of the military because he's more enlightened, well, until the shooting starts and he realizes why the leaders are right. Also the goldbrick that gets someone killed.

The coward

Thanks,
I am coming up with a 25mm skirmish game and I am going to give every figure one of these personalities and figure it into the game in someway.

Russ Dunaway

Growing up it seemed like the only southerner in Hollywood's U.S. military was Gomer Pyle.

The awwww shucks country boy who can put a round in the eye of a German/Japanese soldier at 100 yards.

The braggart who cant wait for combat and freezes when under fire.

To add on to Fredrick's #1 The Jewish kid from New York…who ends up translating for/interrogating the German prisoner/s since Yiddish close enough to German.

My own father was a GI in WW2 (and would be the bespectacled "college boy" stereotype -- but, twist! Expert Marksman.) and he said the commonly-held view was there were 3 "types:" New York, Deep South, Everyone else.

Kelly's Heroes had many of the stereotypes … Plus a couple more !

The square-jawed leader (can be an NCO or an officer) everyone hates because he rules with an iron fist, that sacrifices himself at the end to save the unit.

I'd love to see those rules, Russ, and I sent you a PM on a related subject.

V/R,
Jack

Kowalski

John Candy – Stripes

The totally SNAFU'd guy…

2. The reliable guy with a wife and baby back home

Spoiler alert. Just when you think its all over he gets shot by a prisoner with a holdout pistol the braggart missed.

The scrounger who could always comshaw or finagle stuff.

The awwww shucks country boy who can put a round in the eye of a German/Japanese soldier at 100 yards.

That would be real life American hero Sgt. Alvin York.

Given the millions of soldiers that served, no doubt many of the so called "stereotypes" were real people, and only our own bias tend to scoff at any depiction we deem unrealistic.

Kim

Then there's the blond-haired, blue-eyed, incredibly fit SS officer immaculately-uniformed and totally devoid of human decency but who appreciates Mozart, Crème Fraîche, and Veuve Clicquot.

Kim
I didn't see where anyone said they were "unrealistic?"
I even knew some of these in Vietnam and may well have been one?

Russ Dunaway

The one who when wounded by rifle fire or involved in a fist fight, stoically takes the pain without emotion. But winces dramatically when the kindly, love insterest, nurse dabs his wounds.

The one who, when given a pump-action shotgun, automatically chambers a cartridge even though they are nowhere near the enemy and in no immediate danger.

The one who fires off a full magazine then throws the empty magazine away. You do know it can be re-loaded?

The one, who after being rotated to the rear after fighting on the front line, is seen in a bath full of bubbles scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush.

The British officer the GIs meet up with, who will always be stuck up and condescending, 'You really think you Yanks can pull this thing off?'

The British soldiers the GIs encounter, who are all salt of the earth cockneys about to brew up a pot of tea.

The one who presented with a malfunctioning piece of fragile equipment will give it a hard knock to make it work again.

The one who when given a map can take in all the details in under a minute, whilst at the same time preparing his next mission.

The one with the glasses, that you know will not survive to the end of the movie.

The one chewing gum or smoking a cigar in every scene he is in.

The one with his dog tags on display all the time.

The one from the mid-West who was working on a farm before enlisting.

The devoutly reglious one with ginger hair and Irish heritage.

The grizzled, monosyllable, veteran who gives the boys a lenghty, passionate and inspirational speech in their darkest hour.

The said grizzled veteran who looks as though he has not shaved for several days.

The commander who always has half a bottle of whisky in his desk drawer.

The ones who say, 'Over and out.'

Ezza

The kid who lied about his age in order to enlist,but has key skills. Or the dude who joined up to avoid prison time back home. Similar,the ex-con who gets drafted. Or the reluctant dude who becomes an ace medic under fire(like Lew Ayres).

The quasi illiterate Bowery Boy type from Brooklyn who misuses words like "Scrutinization" and "Delappable" and constantly gets some snippet of news from home that the Dodgers won the pennant. He calls the Nazis "mugs". Usually he spots a German posing as an American when the German cant trade the right Brooklynese banter with him.

The mysterious lieutenant who no one knows anything about and seems to be an unfeeling, self interested jerk but always appears on the spot to save a group of GI's lives from an explosion or an ambush, then disappears again just as mysteriously.

The southern guy who thinks his home state is the center of the universe, misquotes confederate generals and describes everything with quaint down home imagery; "Quicker than a possum's posterior dipped in hot honey"

He has a southern sidekick soldier who cant quite get a word out of his mouth and either just says "yup" or something like "Germans b-b-b-b-b behind the b-b-b-b-b bush.

Marc33594
The husband of my mom's first cousin served in the 82nd airborne. At some point he was asked to translate for the interrogation of a high ranking German Officer. He spoke to the officer who immediately began providing information. The Sgt's CO asked him what he said to the German to make him talk. Nothing really said the Sgt. I was just speaking to him in Yiddish.

You never see him, but you know "Kilroy was here"

The one fighting in the Pacific who had a brother, relative or friend at Pearl Harbor.

The one who keeps on firing with a seemingly endless supply of ammunition.

The one about to parachute into enemy territory, but freezes at the door and has to be pushed out.

The one from Noo Yoik who is there to fight the Joimans.

The one who knows that if he is cast in an American movie about the Pacific it will involve a beach landing, is the same one who knows that if he is cast in a British movie about the same theatre it will involve a PoW camp.

Ezza

The sergeant with black market expertise who can get you whatever you want for a price, nylons, chocolates, champagne, chickens.

The sneaky buck tooth Japanese soldier.
The absolutely no motivation to fight Italian soldier. Could not win a fight against a paper bag.
The callous Soviet commander who push troops into a kill zone until the Germans run out of ammo.
The by the book German who is always in a pristine uniform. What happened to the bundled up soldier on the Russian front.
The heartless German who shoots anyone for the slightest reason.
The sacrificial lamb who will be killed soon. You can always tell them in the beginning.

genew492, great story thanks for sharing.

And, for the record, my dad WAS a skinny kid from New York with coke bottle glasses who ended up landing on Omaha beach on D-Day. Be nice if you could work him into your game Russ :)

I reallly was a "Vietnam stereotype!!"
Born and raised in Iowa--Joined USMC at age 17 in 1967. By age 18 a cynically battle hardened Jar head that hated all politicians and just wanted to go home.
Saving al, my pay to get a corvette when I got home.

Russ Dunaway