Soldiers preview "Over There" and don't think much of it...

Soldiers at Camp Murray in Tacoma, Washington were given a preview of the new Steven Bochco FX series "Over There" and it was not what Bochco expected. Of course you've heard by now how "true to life" and "gut-wrenching" this show was suppose to be. The media has been raving about it, so immediately I was suspicious. If the media thinks its realistic something must be afoot.

A truck tire hits a flagged wire, a roadside bomb explodes, a handsome private with shredded leg screams in agony. In the bloody chaos of the moment, his soldier buddies panic. One pukes.

Stop the cameras! Sir!

"People don't act like that when an i.e.d. (improvised explosive device) goes off. They make us look like idiots. We're not idiots!" said a first lieutenant previewing "Over There," the new TV series from Steven Bochco ("NYPD Blue," "Hill Street Blues") that debuts tomorrow night on FX cable network. It's set in Iraq, hyped as "true to life" by producers and hailed by critics as "unflinching" and "gut-wrenching."

Well what do you expect from Hollywood? Lets sample a few other comments, shall well?

"Bogus" was the preferred adjective among the eight soldiers -- most of them Iraq vets -- viewing the series pilot last week at Camp Murray, headquarters of the Washington State National Guard in Tacoma.

"Thank God that's over," said a master sergeant as the credits rolled.

It appears that not only are there realism problems but the soldiers are not pleased with the way a scene depicts one soldier while describing killing an insurgent.

But some camo-clad critics at Camp Murray were left wondering just what the message was in "Over There." One said a young soldier who brags about slitting the throat of a child sentry "makes us look like murderers."

Master Sgt. Jeff Clayton complained that cameras deliberately dragged out the death scenes of Iraqi insurgents after a firefight, lingering unnecessarily on the carnage. "It made me sick."

And in keeping with the underreporting the mainstream media does of all the truely good things that the US military does in Iraq there is none of that in "Over There" as well. And it only gets a 1 line mention in this articles reeview of the show.

And where, soldiers asked, were the scenes of soldiers building schools, Iraqi kids waving American flags?

Finally the soldiers who previewed the show said they did get a few things right;

A few scenes passed muster. Heads nodded when a soldier opened up a packet of Taster's Choice freeze-dried and downed the whole thing. Nice detail. Ditto the scene of the earnest soldier describing the horrors of war via computer video e-mail as his adulterous wife is writhing in ecstasy with lover-boy back home.

"But after only a week?" commented one soldier.

"It usually takes at least two," added another.