 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2017) |
Generation Kill follows the Marines of the 1st Recon Battalion through the first four weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The characters are drawn from this group of Marines.
The recurring characters are part of the 1st Marine Division. The division is under the command of Major General James "Maddog" Mattis, played by Robert Burke. His callsign is "Chaos".
| Character | Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Colonel Joe D. Dowdy | Regimental Commander | Wayne Harrison |
Nearly all of the recurring characters are members of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion (1st Recon), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando (played by Chance Kelly). His command staff include Major Todd Eckloff played by Benjamin Busch and Sergeant Major John Sixta, played by Neal Jones. Nabil Elouahabi plays the battalion's translator, "Meesh." The battalion surgeon, Lieutenant Alex Aubin (Andrew Spicer) also appears.
| Character | Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Lieutenant Colonel Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando | Battalion Commander | Chance Kelly |
| Major Todd Eckloff | Battalion Executive Officer | Benjamin Busch |
| Sergeant Major John Sixta (referred to twice as "Mr. Potato Head") | Battalion Sergeant Major | Neal Jones |
| "Meesh" | Battalion Translator | Nabil Elouahabi |
| Lieutenant Alex Aubin, USN | Battalion Surgeon | Andrew Spicer |
| Sergeant Christopher Wasik | Battalion Driver | Daniel Janks |
Alpha Company is commanded by Captain Bryan Patterson played by Michael Kelly. The company callsign is "Assassin".
| Character | Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Captain Bryan Patterson | Company Commander | Michael Kelly |
| Gunnery Sergeant Rich Barrett | Company Operations Chief | Eric Kocher |
| Character | Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Sergeant Damon Fawcett | Team 2-3, Team Leader | Theo Landey |
| Corporal John Burris | Team 2-3, Driver | Kyle Siebert |
| Corporal Smith | Team 2-3 | Jeffrey John Carisalez |
| Corporal Cody Scott | Team 2-3, Gunner | Darron Meyer |
Bravo Company is commanded by Captain Craig Schwetje played by Brian Wade. The company callsign is "Hitman". Schwtje is nicknamed "Encino Man" when out of earshot, a reference to the titular character from the film of the same name. This is meant to invoke stupidity and incompetence.
| Character | Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Captain Craig "Encino Man" Schwetje | Company Commander | Brian Wade |
| Gunnery Sergeant Ray "Casey Kasem" Griego | Company Operations Chief | David Barrera |
| Team | Vehicle | Character | Position | Vehicle position | Actor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team 1 | V-01 | Sergeant Brad "Iceman" Colbert | Team 1, Team Leader/Squad Leader of Bravo 1 | Truck Commander | Alexander Skarsgård |
| Corporal Josh Ray Person | Driver | James Ransone | |||
| Lance Corporal Harold James Trombley | Driver Rear | Billy Lush | |||
| Corporal Walt Hasser | Turret position | Pawel Szajda | |||
| Evan "Rolling Stone" Wright | Civilian journalist embedded with Team 1 | Passenger Rear | Lee Tergesen | ||
| V-02 | Sergeant Antonio "Poke" Espera | Team 1, Assistant Team Leader/Squad Leader of Bravo 1 | Passenger | Jon Huertas | |
| Corporal Jason Lilley | Driver | Kellan Lutz | |||
| Corporal Nathan Christopher | Passenger rear | Stefan Otto | |||
| Corporal Hector Leon | Driver rear | Sal Alvarez | |||
| Corporal Gabriel "Gabe" Garza | Turret position | Rey Valentin | |||
| Team 2 | V-03 | Sergeant Larry Shawn "Pappy" Patrick | Team 2, Team Leader/Platoon Scout Sniper | Passenger | Josh Barrett |
| Sergeant Rodolfo "Fruity Rudy" Reyes | Driver | himself | |||
| Corporal James Chaffin | Driver rear | Eric Ladin | |||
| Sergeant Michael "Budweiser" Brunmeier | Passenger rear | Justin Shaw | |||
| Corporal Anthony "Manimal" Jacks | Turret position | Rich McDonald | |||
| V-04 (Command Vehicle) | First Lieutenant Nathaniel "Nate" Fick | Platoon Commander | Passenger | Stark Sands | |
| Gunnery Sergeant Mike "Gunny" Wynn | Platoon Gunnery Sergeant, Command vehicle | Driver | Marc Menchaca | ||
| Corporal Evan "Q-Tip" Stafford | Passenger rear | Wilson Bethel | |||
| Private First Class John Christeson | Driver rear | Daniel Fox | |||
| Team 3 | V-05 | Sergeant Steven Lovell | Team 3, Team Leader | Passenger | Langley Kirkwood |
| Sergeant Leandro "Shady B" Baptista | Driver | Mike Figueroa | |||
| Corpsman 2nd Class Robert Timothy "Doc" Bryan, USN | Platoon Medical Support | Passenger rear | Jonah Lotan | ||
| Corporal Teren "T" Holsey | Driver rear | Sydney Hall | |||
| Corporal Michael Stinetorf | Turret position | Bjorn Steinbach | |||
| Vehicle | Character | Role | Vehicle Position | Actor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Command vehicle | Captain Dave "Captain America" McGraw | Platoon Commander | Passenger | Eric Nenninger |
| Sergeant Eric Kocher | Team 2, Team Leader | Passenger | Owain Yeoman | |
| Corporal Jeffrey "Dirty Earl" Carisalez | Driver | J. Salome Martinez | ||
| Corporal Daniel Redman | Turret Position | Sean Brosnan |
1st Recon Battalion's third rifle company. Members are featured in a short scene in Episode 4: "Combat Jack", but no Marines are specifically named. The company commander's call sign is "Raptor".
Company of USMC reservists attached to 1st Recon Battalion. Members are featured in Episode 6: "Stay Frosty", but only one Staff Non-commissioned officer who has an acquaintance with 2nd platoon of Bravo Company is named.
| Character | Role | Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Gunnery Sergeant Jason Swarr | Battalion Parachute Rigger | Michael Mosley |
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,000 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies. In some countries, battalions are exclusively infantry, while in others battalions are unit-level organizations.
Force Reconnaissance (FORECON) is one of the United States Marine Corps' special operations capable forces (SOC) which supplies military intelligence to the command element of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), supporting task force commanders and subordinate units of the Fleet Marine Force (FMF). Historically, Force Recon was the premier Marine Corps special operations unit, performing deep reconnaissance and direct action operations for USSOCOM, though most of those missions were lost to the Marine Raider Regiment during a reorganization of Marine special operations in 2006.
The United States Marine Corps Reconnaissance Battalions are the Special Operations Capable reconnaissance assets of Marine Air-Ground Task Force that provide division-level ground and amphibious reconnaissance to the Ground Combat Element within the United States Marine Corps. Division reconnaissance teams are employed to observe and report on enemy activity and other information of military significance in close operations. The Military Occupational Specialty code for Reconnaissance Marine is 0321.
The Radio Reconnaissance Platoon is a specially trained element of a United States Marine Corps Radio Battalion. A Radio Reconnaissance Team (RRT) was assigned as the tactical signals intelligence collection element for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Detachment One. Regular RRTs also participate in SOC operations during Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU(SOC), deployments.
The 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion conducts amphibious and ground reconnaissance in support of the 3rd Marine Division and Marine Forces Pacific (MarForPac), operating in the commander's areas of influence. The Battalion is based out of Camp Schwab, a satellite base of Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler. It is geographically located on the Okinawa Prefecture in Japan.
1st Reconnaissance Battalion is a reconnaissance battalion in the United States Marine Corps. It falls under the command of the 1st Marine Division and the I Marine Expeditionary Force.
The 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion is a reconnaissance battalion in the United States Marine Corps. Located at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the battalion falls under the command of the 2nd Marine Division and the II Marine Expeditionary Force.
The 4th Reconnaissance Battalion is a reserve reconnaissance battalion in the United States Marine Corps. It falls under the 4th Marine Division and Marine Forces Reserve.
Generation Kill is a 2004 book written by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright chronicling his experience as an embedded reporter with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His account of life with the Marines was originally published as a three-part series in Rolling Stone in the fall of 2003. "The Killer Elite", the first of these articles, went on to win a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Reporting in 2004.
The Lieutenant is an American television series, the first created by Gene Roddenberry. It aired on NBC on Saturday evenings in the 1963–1964 television schedule. It was produced by Arena Productions, one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most successful in-house production companies of the 1960s. Situated at Camp Pendleton, the West Coast base of the U.S. Marine Corps, The Lieutenant focuses on the men of the Corps in peacetime with a Cold War backdrop. The title character is Second Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice, a rifle platoon leader and one of the training instructors at Camp Pendleton. An hour-long drama, The Lieutenant explores the lives of enlisted Marines and officers alike.
Generation Kill is an American seven-part television miniseries produced for HBO that aired from July 13 to August 24, 2008. It is based on Evan Wright's 2004 book about his experience as an embedded reporter with the US Marine Corps' 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, adapted for television by David Simon, Ed Burns, and Wright. The miniseries was directed by Susanna White and Simon Cellan Jones and produced by Andrea Calderwood. The ensemble cast includes Alexander Skarsgård as Sergeant Brad 'Iceman' Colbert, James Ransone as Corporal Josh Ray Person, and Lee Tergesen as Wright.
The first season of the television series The Wire commenced airing on Sunday, June 2, 2002, at 9:00 pm ET in the United States and concluded on September 8, 2002. The 13 episodes tell the story from the points of view of both the drug-dealing Barksdale organization and the investigating police detail.
The third season of the television series The Wire of 12 episodes first aired in the United States on HBO in 2004, from September 19 to December 19. It introduces Baltimore's local politicians and the upstart drug dealing Stanfield organization while continuing to examine the Barksdale Organization and the Baltimore Police Department.
The fourth season of the television series The Wire commenced airing in the United States on September 10, 2006, concluded on December 10, 2006, and contained 13 episodes. It introduces Baltimore's school system and several middle school students while continuing to examine the remnants of the Barksdale Organization, the ascendant Stanfield Organization, the Baltimore Police Department and politicians.
The United States Marine Corps's Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion, formerly Company, was a specialized team of Marines and Navy Corpsmen that performed clandestine preliminary pre–D-Day amphibious reconnaissance of planned beachheads and their littoral area within uncharted enemy territory for the joint-Navy/Marine force commanders of the Pacific Fleet during World War II. Often accompanied by Navy Underwater Demolition Teams and the early division recon companies, these amphib recon platoons performed more reconnaissance missions than any other single recon unit during the Pacific campaigns.
The Marine Corps Test Unit 1, or MCTU #1, was an experimental testing unit of the United States Marine Corps. It was established outside the Fleet Marine Force for the development of specialized tactics, techniques and organizational concepts, and to evaluate its tangible employment in the nuclear age. It reported directly to the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Brad Colbert is a former active duty United States Marine, whose platoon's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was featured in a series of articles in Rolling Stone by Evan Wright. Wright was an embedded reporter who rode in the backseat of Colbert's vehicle during this time until his departure on May 4, 2003. Wright later expanded these articles into the book Generation Kill which was turned into a HBO miniseries of the same name in which Colbert was portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård.
Chance Kelly is an American film and television actor who played Detective Ed Cutler on the NBC series Aquarius. He is also known for starring as Lt. Col. "Godfather" Ferrando in the 2008 HBO miniseries Generation Kill, Mitchell Loeb in the Fox television series Fringe, and Randall Watts in the Cinemax television series Banshee.