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.

I feel I should clarify that Eugene saw who was responsible for the friendly fire but did not kill anyone, himself, lol. The bunker moment always sticks out to me—not least because seeing a flamethrower in use (even just on-screen) is absolutely horrifying.

I wonder how common the grave-robbing of men not yet dead was.

That's a great question. I know there are some characters in some of the books, like "Souvenirs" from Leckie's book, that didn't seem to give a damn whether they were looting the bodies of the dead or not, but that was mostly in regards to Japanese soldiers rather than the men buying the farm on the U.S. side... Hm...

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.

For all its flaws, I will say that this is largely why I think I prefer The Pacific to Band of Brothers at the end of the day. I appreciate a piece of media—even one that is, admittedly, scattered and doesn't always succeed in its efforts to tell a coherent story—that focuses on the mental strain of combat and what it can do to a person. There was a little of that in BoB but they didn't get into it as much as they do in TP. Maybe if they'd had two more episodes to play with, as we sometimes posit in the Discord, lol.

I imagine that quite a few people did get sick, given the amount of bodies out there rotting.

From what I understand, several illnesses were very common, including some intestinal issues and, of course, good ol' malaria.

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.

That scene is one of my favorites in the show. It does such a tremendous job of showing without telling just how disparate the reality of being in combat was to the general American mindset of the time period, imo. Plus Eugene staring down Mac when he tells them to move along just makes my day. xD