July 9, 1938 was the birthday of Brian Dennehy. He is most often remembered for his role as the alien leader in Coccoon and as Sheriff Teasel in Rambo: First Blood, but he was also in the cast of in many other movies and in hundreds of television show episodes.
July 9, 1956 was the birthday of actor/director/producer Tom Hanks. His acting in the movie Saving Private Ryan is riveting.
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Our small remaining supply of waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB sticks is currently on close-out sale, at just $19.95 each. This is just until we exhaust the annual supply. This is your chance to order some extras, for gifts. When I last checked, we had only about 65 sticks remaining, and they’ve been selling at a rate of nearly 20 per day. Order yours soon–before they are all sold out!
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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 83 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
- A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
- DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
Second Prize:
- A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
- A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
- A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
- A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).
Third Prize:
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
- Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.
Round 83 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
In addition to his other acting, Brian Dennehy also falsely portrayed himself as a Viet Nam veteran for years before his lies caught up to him.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fake-war-stories-exposed/
He claimed to have been wounded in action during the five years he didn’t spend in Viet Nam, so perhaps he’s not what most of us would call a good example. I’d call him despicable, but maybe that’s just me……..
I am reminded more every single day:
Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.
I don’t watch any of Hollywood’s junk. Movies that try to play down America’s greatness. Moreover, Saving Private Ryan, Monuments Men and Flag of our fathers.
I find it hard to believe we fought a world war to find a Private, to save Painitngs in museums, and to question our flag and national pride in Iwo Jima. The theee movies above played by liberal haters of our country.
God bless
Looked in an history book ?
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section existed from 1943 – 1946 as a branch of the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies
I don’t know what movie you saw but Saving Private Ryan was and is one of the best movies I have ever seen. I didn’t see anything Anti American in it, just the realities of war. The man in character, played by Tom Hanks simply wanted to go back home to his wife, teach English, and live the simple life only to sacrifice himself for the good of others. I saw that movie when I was young and I have never, never again thought of war being something that is far away. It opened my eyes in a way that nothing else did and I am forever grateful.
I read an interesting piece by Michael Medved (a conservative pundit that has longstanding ties to Hollywood) a few years ago.
He discussed the transition of war movies produced by Hollywood over time. Although not the only subject he covered, he highlighted the incorrect portrayal of the Viet Nam veteran as an unbalanced, victim character with mental issues. This goes against the research data which says the average Viet Nam veteran has equal or better mental health than his/her age group. This is likely due to the fact that people with mental health issues were largely screened out of the military, even in the days of the draft.
Mr. Medved pointed out that the shift in Hollywood war movies transitioning from American Heroes to American Psychos correlated to Hollywood revenue. Many decades ago Hollywood received most of their revenue from US consumers. As time went on, Hollywood received increasing revenue from Overseas consumers. When it was US consumers you portrayed US military as heroes. When it was foreigners you portrayed them as something else.
Here are Mr. Medved’s comments which are much better than mine.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/war-films-hollywood-and-popular-culture/
A few months ago i saw an report that McNamara drafted People with mental issues, it didn´d end well, These men and their comrades Paid a high Price.
How do you think People whose ancestors´ve been massacredan armed force or betrayed by their goverment will react to presenting them as heroes in movies or in which Valor is being stolen from them and pinned on american´s?
Rebels who allied themselves with the coalition in the second gulf war, felt betrayed after they were discarded when Kuwait was retaken.
The movie U-571 showed an american submarine Crew capturing an german Sub, the movie was inspired by the capture of U 110 by the Royal Navy.
How would you expect somebody to react, whose grandfather was part of Operation Primrose?
I’m not sure who I am agreeing with here.
I have been wondering about my contemporaries, called “bush vets”. This thread gave me the push to look into it.
Here is an excerpt from the article I will give you a link to:
Its depiction of bush vets isn’t the only way that “Distant Thunder” starkly mirrors reality for many of these men. A couple of vets under Webster’s care have been separated from their children for the better part of a decade. Others had combat experiences in Vietnam similar to a traumatic event portrayed in the film.
“God, this is close,” veteran George Groul wrote in a letter to the makers of “Distant Thunder.” “I could put names on the characters of real people, what really happened, and how and why today.”
“I was sort of stunned at first,” veterans counselor Webster said of his experience seeing the film last summer. “It was almost too real for me.” Webster’s voice began to crack when he was pressed to compare the fiction of the film to the reality faced by the men he counsels.
And the link: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-11-ca-882-story.html
Granted, the article is thirty years old. And one fella saying he flew choppers for eight years in Vietnam does not ring true.
The rest seems close to reality.
Carry on