Growing up in the 1960s I think war movies might have been my favorite thing, save maybe King Kong, Godzilla, and the Wolfman. I loved fantasy and science fiction and comic books but war movies were just as thrilling, and had the added benefit of being a middle ground with my non-nerdly childhood friends. We could watch Vic Morrow in Combat! or the guys in Rat Patrol on TV then head out to the back yard with our war toys and have a fine old time perpetuating sexist rape culture and the military-industrial complex. I mean, sure, I frisbeed a couple trash can lids in the alley and called myself Captain America, but none of my friends were into that … but turn us loose in a building site or a park or my overgrown back yard (with the Rainbird sprinkler acting like a machinegun nest in the corner) and we were our very own Band of Brothers.

I do still love war movies, and have watched a ton of them with my boy Miles these past few years. Saw Patton just a few weeks ago in fact. (And Patton doesn’t fit the mold, but I think the “guys in the squad” is one of the great dramatic paradigms so I shouldn’t be surprised that Sgt. Rock worked so well for me).

This: ‘References to the “combat-happy Joes of Easy Company” and the frequent observation that “nothing is easy in Easy Company” are repeated so often they become a kind of mantra’ certainly seems deliberate in the DC world of the Silver Age. It’s also been a staple of television for decades – simple rituals on shows for both kids and adults that we all look forward to. In childrens’ TV, those rituals are demanded by the network.