Heavy Artillery

Interesting moments in this episode, with Eugene first killing someone with friendly fire, and then saving his troops by spotting the uncleared bunker. The waste of ammunition due to panic and adrenaline must have been enormous. I wonder how common the grave-robbing of men not yet dead was. I guess with the rain at least their water problems were solved.

The plight of the stretcher bearers, where they are particularly likely to be hit, only to create more of a need for evacuation, must have been a constant problem. Risky job, and it would seem only creating more casualties. It surprises me that they would try to evacuate injured soldiers during a firefight, rather than after trying to secure an area, especially for those who were probably not going to survive the delay in treatment anyway.

The mental strain in the sorts of situations they were in seemed to be a focus of the episode -- both people trying to deal with the situation and also deal with morale and the physical toll.

Shame about the Skipper. I can see now why there were various moments dedicated to showing his humanity with the men. Easy to understand why it was such a blow for them.

The moment when Eugene is attempting to eat in the middle of the carnage, then switches to digging out gold, wow. I imagine that quite a few people did get sick, given the amount of bodies out there rotting.

I thought that scene of them returning to base was so good in the call back that it provided to their departure. And what we saw among the returning soldiers -- we now understand everything that was behind it.

I imagine the women dispensing the juice seemed so surreal and incongruous in a place where the soldiers had experienced so much that was awful.