NO, THEY DON’T HAVE TO MAKE MISTAKES

Last month in Hollywood Heroes we tackled an issue that has come up in the comments on every blog post since we started doing this series 2 years ago — “Does Hollywood HAVE to make mistakes in movie awards?”

You should read it if you haven’t. We have a review and a comment from the DOD guy in charge of Hollywood deals.

Bottom line: they don’t HAVE to make mistakes.

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When there are mistakes is awards or uniforms, are the producers disrespectful? Did they hire a lousy advisor? Did the not even hire an advisor and just want eye candy? Or were they just lazy?

Folks are always welcome to come onto the MyServicePride.com rackbuilder and use the graphic interface to put racks together. Most are building their own, but some try to build racks of heros, some play around with it, and some are posers. Whenever an order comes through for a rack to be printed…that’s when we scrutinize.

A few years ago we got a nice big order out of New York. Everyone was excited — until the artwork was output for review. It was one of the the worst jumbles of fakery we’d ever seen.

So I got on the phone and called the guy, identified myself, told him what the problem was, and told him the only way we could fill his order was if he gave us his DD-214.

“Whoa, man. Hold on,” he said. ”I’m not a soldier. I’m a producer for a show that airing on the history channel. We’re doing a big premier party next month and we wanted some authentic looking military stuff around. Chill out.”

This was our first and only experience with Hollywood, and it certainly didn’t inspire confidence.

THERE ARE GOOD ONES THOUGH

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We gave you some examples of pretty good movie ribbon racks in part one of this two part series. This time, let’s review a new one: the character Seeley Booth in the TV series, “Bones.”

Seeley is an FBI agent, love interest, and later married partner of Dr Brennan — “Bones” — who is a forensic pathologist.

Here’s what the Bones wiki says about Seeley:

Seeley Booth is a former sniper of the United States Army Rangers, and an expert knife thrower. He is currently an agent with the FBI. He frequently consults with his professional partner Dr. Brennan, whom he has nicknamed ‘Bones’, and her team (he refers to them as “squints”), acting as a liaison between the FBI and the Jeffersonian Institute.

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And the IMDB database on characters:

Confident, yet complex thirty-something FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth specialises in Major Crimes. Coming from a family of military men, Booth is incredibly honourable, loyal and patriotic. As an Army Ranger, he worked as a sniper, deployed in Iraq, Kosovo and Guatalmela, though the full extent of his military action is unknown. He was tortured multiple times both as a Ranger and FBI agent. He has been an FBI agent since he was at least 25.

HOW DID THEY DO ON HIS TV RACK?

Here’s one of the few pictures of the character in uniform:

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And a not-so-great close up:

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And here is Seeley’s rack from the MyServicePride.com rackbuilder:

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His rack includes these awards:

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Clik here to view. Bronze Star

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Clik here to view. Purple Heart

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Clik here to view. Army Commendation Medal

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Clik here to view. Joint Service Achievement Medal

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Clik here to view. Army Good Conduct Medal

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Clik here to view. National Defense Service Medal

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Clik here to view. Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal

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Clik here to view. Southwest Asia Service Medal

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Clik here to view. Afghanistan Campaign Medal

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Clik here to view. Iraq Campaign Medal

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Clik here to view. Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal

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Clik here to view. Global War on Terrorism Service Medal

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Clik here to view. Armed Forces Service Medal

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Clik here to view. Army NCO Professional Development Ribbon

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Clik here to view. Army Service Ribbon

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Clik here to view. Army Overseas Service Ribbon

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Clik here to view. Kuwait Liberation Medal – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Clik here to view. Kuwait Liberation Medal – Emirate of Kuwait

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Clik here to view. Army Presidential Unit Citation

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Clik here to view. Army Meritorious Unit Award

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Clik here to view. Combat Infantryman’s Badge, 1^st Award

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Clik here to view. Parachutist Master

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Clik here to view. Air Assault Badge

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Expert Marksman, Pistol and Rifle

SO HOW DID THEY DO?

We think they did really well. The awards make sense for the character’s backstory. No glaring mistakes. They were careful to get the ones right that they used.

If anything, there may be a couple of errors of omission.

1. The IMDB character background says he was in Kosovo. If he served in Kosovo while in the Army, he may be qualified for the Kosovo campaign medal and NATO Kosovo Medal.

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Here’s background from MyServicePride.com library:

The Kosovo Campaign medal is awarded to members of the United States military for participation in the Air and Defense Campaigns. Participation in the Air Campaign must have taken place from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999. Defense Campaign service eligibility began June 11, 1999 and will end some time in the future.

2. He’s supposed to have been a ranger. New regulations allow this to be worn as a 4th Qualification badge. It would be worn above the Master Parachutist Badge.

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3. The backstory also says he was a sniper. For anyone Non-Army, the Sniper patch isn’t one of the officially authorized patches, so we wouldn’t expect to see it.

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THEY DID PRETTY WELL

We think these producers did a darned good job in putting together a costume that was true to the character they were putting forth, and respectful to the symbol of our service. Two thumbs up from us.