Hog Hunt pt 3

The next stop after mine was Grandpa and my Daughter's stand.  They hadn't seen anything all morning.

It turned out that no one else had even seen a single hog, let alone the numbers that had stopped at my feeder.  At my feeder there'd been at least five hogs for over an hour, with several coming and going.

We drove back to the main camp, they took my hog to get gutted and cleaned.  I got on a another swamp buggy to go with Grandpa and my daughter and the other hunters with the dogs.  Grandpa wanted my daughter to see all of the hunt and they hadn't seen anything yet.  We drove around for a while we saw buffalo, deer, and a variety of birds before letting out the dogs.

We came across another group and decided to follow them since Grandpa decided not to get one.  This other group had already gotten a couple of hogs but they hadn't reached the limit yet.  It was a grand father, a father, and his two sons.  They had gotten two hogs, wounded another and never found it (despite the fact that they had found blood and large chunks of bone from the shoot), and were out to get two more.

Hunting with the dogs was interesting.  The dogs get the scent, chase the hog down, grab it by the ears and keep it pinned until the guides could get ahold of it.  The guides would grab the hind legs, pin it down, then the hunter would kill it.  I wasn't particularly interested in this part of the day, it didn't seem very sporting, but we wanted my Daughter to see it for herself, see how she would handle it.

The dogs grabbed a hog and the older of the two sons was volunteered to shoot it in the head with a 30-30.  He did so, my daughter covered her ears.  It was a good sized sow, they loaded it up with the others.  The guide came over and asked who had a decent knife.  I showed him mine and he said it would work, that he would need it at the next stop.

The next time the dogs got a hog, the guides pulled it out of the brush, and pinned it down.  The guide borrowed my knife and handed it to the father who used it to kill the hog.  Despite what I would have though, it was a surprisingly humane way to do it (assuming the person hits the right spot).

Grandpa hadn't gotten a hog and declined the opportunity to get one with the dogs.  It wasn't the kind of hunt that we were looking for.  If he didn't get one from the stand he didn't need to get one at all.  I'm not surprised that Grandpa didn't go for it, I'm not sure I would have either.

The guide's wife was along for the "hunt".  She was very interested in getting my daughter involved, if only to familiarize herself with the whole process.  She convinced my daughter to get a picture taken with the knifed hog, she's grinning ear to ear.  So much for worrying about how she would handle it.

Then it was back to camp.  My daughter was surprisingly interested in the skinning and butchering of the hogs.  Rather than being disturbed she was fascinated as the guides went about their job, getting the hogs ready for butchering.  She watched them being skinned, gutted, and cut up without a hesitation.  That's far more than I can say for myself at her age, I'd probably have been puking my guts out.

All in all, we all had a good time.  We got to drive around in cool buggies, I got a hog, we got to see a lot of animals and have a lot of stories to tell.  I guess it's time to break out the .22 and get her to the range, next time she probably won't be satisfied just tagging along for the hunt.

Hog Hunt pt 2

I'm not sure what I expected Hogs to sound like.  Honestly, I expected them to be pretty quiet.  What little experience I have in the woods has taught me that wild animals are usually far more quiet than people typically think.  I mean, a loud animal in the wild probably isn't going to live very long.  I guess hogs don't have very many predators to worry about (other than hunters, obviously), these hogs made plenty of noise.

It was still so dark that I couldn't see any of them, but I could hear plenty of grunting, snuffling, and squeals.

The sky slowly lightened.  First. I could just make out shadows moving in the shadows.  Then, slowly I could make out individual hogs.  There were four or five of them in a small clearing under the tree with the feeder.  They rooted around the base of the tree and the clearing, looking for food.  They were all black, or at least appeared black in the early dawn's light.  A couple were slightly larger but they were all pretty close to the same size, not that that helped me much.  Between the distance and the dim light I had no idea how big they actually were.  That might sound funny, but the last thing I wanted was to take Piglet on my first real hunt.

Finally, it got light enough that I thought I could make a good shot.  I put up the rifle, took off the safety... and with my next breath I fogged up the scope.  It went from a clear picture to trying to see through milk.  Well, crap.

I quickly realized that the wind was coming from exactly the wrong direction, every time I exhaled with the rifle at my shoulder the scope would fog up.  Then, it would take five minutes or so for it to clear enough to get a good site picture again.  The lenses were far enough inside the scope that I couldn't just wipe them off.  Eventually, I pulled the neck of my jacket up over my mouth and exhaled into my coat.  It was awkward but it worked.

Finally, I got myself situated enough that I felt I could make the shot.

I sighted in on a hog.  That's when I had a sudden thought.  Say I shoot and kill the hog, what then?

Was I supposed to do something with it?  Was I supposed to call the guides to come and pick it up?  I checked my phone, no service of course.  What if I got to my kill and it turned out to be some 20lb piglet?  When were the guides coming back?  Was I supposed to just sit there with my dead hog for two hours until they came back?

I had gotten into this thinking that Grandpa would be there to tell me what I was supposed to do.  The last thing I wanted to do was shoot a hog and then do something stupid and ruin the meat.  Or do something stupid and look like an idiot.

I seemed to remember somewhere that you were supposed to hang it by it's hind legs, cut it's throat, and let it bleed out.  There was something about the blood needing to be out to keep the meat from being ruined.  I really wished I had someone with me that knew what they were doing.  Do I shoot or not?  If I shoot then I didn't know what to do with it, if I don't than I won't learn anything from this experience.

All these thoughts raced through my head, with the cross hairs still on the hog, 70 yards away and oblivious to it's predicament.

I pulled the trigger.  The hog dropped to the ground, the others bolted for the woods and were gone in a fraction of a second.

I had just shot a living creature.  I sat there for a minute, looking down at the hog I'd shot.  I saw it kick it's legs a couple times then it stopped.  I wanted to go down and make sure it was dead and not suffering, but I waited for a while, knowing that there were other hogs in the brush.

I waited about 5 minutes, thinking that was long enough for the other hogs to leave, I came down and started walking down the dirt track toward the feeder.  The palmettos were chest high and incredibly thick, severely limiting my visibility.  There could have been dozens of huge hogs hiding in the brush a few feet away and I would never have seen them.

As I approached the clearing I could hear the distinct, and now familiar sound, of at least two hogs in the brush around the clearing.  They didn't like me approaching, they started grunting and thrashing the brush.  I got close enough to see my Hog was a decent size and wasn't breathing, then retreated back to the tree stand.

Yeah, I retreated.  That moment was a definite challenge to my conception of my manhood.  I tucked tail and went back up my tree.  At least two hogs, unknown size, in their element, definitely creeped me out.

So, I sat in my stand and looked down at my hog.

I'm not sure how long it was, or exactly what thoughts were running through my head.  I sat there and looked at my kill.  Every few minutes I would look through the scope to make sure it wasn't moving.  I kept wondering what I should do.  It seemed wrong to leave it there in the dirt and I still had no idea when the guides would be back.  I would check my watch, then wonder what i should be doing.

Imagine that, a pacifist, staring at his kill for twenty minutes.  It's almost funny.  Of course, there were other things to look at, but my eyes were inexorably drawn back to the black carcass.  It was like a magnet, always drawing the eyes back to it.

Eventually, I decided that I needed to do something, I couldn't just sit there staring at the hog any longer.  I went back down, intent on hanging and bleeding the pig.  I needed to justify the kill to ease my conscience, if the meat was ruined than it would have been for nothing.

So, I get to my hog and get my first real look at it.  He's probably a hundred pounds and covered in scars, an old warrior.  One of things that surprised me was the smell.  I'm not sure what I expected but he smelled intensely like sweet cranberries, like someone opened a can of thanksgiving cranberry sauce and held it under my nose.  I'll never forget it.

The other surprise?  The bullet hit him in the neck.  It was obviously a good shot, he dropped like someone flipped a switch, but that hadn't been where I was aiming.  I'll never know if he stepped back when I shot, or if I had pulled it (I have a history of that), but I had been aiming for a heart/lung shot, behind the shoulder, not for the neck.  If he had stepped forward, or I had pulled the other direction, then it would have been a gut shot and much, much worse for the both of us.

I heard a hog in the brush.  Only one this time, but it was definitely pissed off by my presence.  It made me nervous but I was determined to do something with my hog.

I pulled some 550 cord out of my pack to string my hog up.  I looked around for a reasonable branch but the only ones nearby were in the same tree as the feeder, which didn't seem like a good idea.  To hang it up I would need to drag it at least 100 yards.  I looped the cord around the hind legs and tugged a little, this was going to be awkward.

That's when I realized that my borrowed rifle didn't have a sling.  To pull my hog to a decent branch to hang it up I would need to set down my rifle and use both hands to drag the Hog.  I probably could have thrown the hog over my shoulder but he was an awkward size and quite literally dead weight.  There was at least one other hog in the brush, I didn't want to set my rifle down, but I had no other choice if I wanted to move it to somewhere I could put it up.

Whatever.  WTF.  I put the rifle against a berm, I figured I would take the trip in steps.  Move the hog, move the rifle, repeat, so that the rifle was never too far away from reach.

I set the rifle down and dragged the hog about five feet when the swamp buggy came around the corner.

They looped a cable around the hog's neck and lifted it.  I reached around the hog and got a quick pic.  It bled on my hand, which seemed strangely appropriate.  I hadn't gotten any blood on my hands up until that point.

I grabbed my rifle, brushed off the dirt, and loaded up.

Hog Hunt pt 1

When I was a kid my Dad was always trying to get me to go hunting.  I loved going to the range and shooting, but never got into the idea of shooting an animal.  I remember a story He told me one time about the sound of a bear when it draws it's last breath.  He appreciated the animal, made sure that it's life wasn't wasted.  I was more of a pacifist, I didn't like the idea of killing anything so I always kind of brushed him off.

Now a days I wish I hadn't.  When I decided to get into survival skills I realized that I needed to get comfortable with hunting.  All those lessons I could have learned about outdoors skills, hunting, and cleaning game that I missed as a kid...

So, when an opportunity presented itself to go for a hunt I jumped at the chance.  This is the story of what happened, it's not all flattering, some of it is funny, but it's all true.

We were headed to Florida to visit the grandparents.  Grandpa wanted to take my daughter with him on a Hog hunt and I basically invited myself along too.  Grandpa had always been big into hunting, I'd gone moose hunting with him once before but we hadn't even seen one.  This hunt was a guided one on ranch land that pretty much guaranteed we would get something.  We would start out at dawn in stands near feeders, then if we didn't get one we could go hunting with the dogs afterwards.

There was a surprising cold streak in Florida that week.  Temperatures in the mornings were down to 25-30 degrees.  The plan was to get up really early, drive halfway across the state, and get set up before dawn.

My daughter, seven years old, was all psyched to go.  She sat right up as soon as I said her name at 3 a.m., which is pretty amazing since she hates getting up early.  We bundled up in layers, grabbed the guns, some food and water, and set out.

We made it about a mile before we got pulled over.

Grandpa looked at me, I looked at him.  We hadn't been speeding.  I expected a fairly hyped up cop, hand on his gun, to walk up.  It was a little after three am, we were a couple of guys in full camo in a big truck... we were either headed out hunting (so we were armed) or we were drunks on our way home.

Instead, an incredibly attractive young female cop walked up, totally nonchalant, and told us we had a tail light out.  She gave us a verbal warning and let us go.  I'm not sure how wise it is to be an attractive cop, apparently alone, working the graveyard shift, but she seemed pretty comfortable.

We made it to the guide's store a little early so we took a little nap in the truck.  We left it running, it was about 33 degrees out.  The hunt was supposed to start at 6 am, about 10 minutes before 6 a truck pulled in behind us.  The driver walked up, asked us how we were doing, and said to follow him.  We went down the road a ways, onto a dirt track, and down further to the camp.  We didn't know it but the store had been bought out and we were supposed to meet at the camp in the first place.  As such, we missed the informational portion of the pre-hunt, we tossed on our jackets, loaded the rifles, and with barely a word we loaded up on the swamp buggy.

I messed around with the rifle a bit.  I'd wanted to bring one of my rifles, probably the Ruger Scout, but didn't want the hassle of traveling with a fire arm.  The rifle Grandpa lent me was an ancient Browning pump action 300 mag.  He'd zeroed the scope for me (we were supposed to go to the range the day before but everyone had been sick so we didn't get the chance).  It was a pretty nice little rifle, though I didn't like the location of the pump lock.  To rack a second round you had to find the lock next to the trigger, hold it down, and pump the rifle.  I'm sure if it was mine it would be second nature, but on a borrowed rifle I really hoped a fast follow up shot was not going to be needed.

It was at this point that my daughter asked where her rifle was (she'd been practicing a lot with her BB gun and has been getting pretty good).  She was very disappointed when we told her that she wasn't shooting this time, that this was just to show her how it went and see what she was comfortable with.  She'd never seen anything shot before so we weren't sure how she would deal with hunting.  When we first brought up the hunt she seemed fine, but who knew how she would actually do?

The swamp buggy thing was pretty cool, like a suped up truck.  Big tires, the bed was up about five feet and had all the seats up there for spotting game.  We BSed with a couple of guys that were in from out of state, bow hunting.

It was pitch black and freezing cold.  All we could see was the area illuminated by the head lights.  Calling it a road would be an insult to roads, it was basically two ruts worn through the forest from the constant buggy trips.  Branches whipped at our faces, a cold wind seeped through our layers.

We pulled in to our first stop.  The guide pointed at Grandpa and my Daughter.  He took them over to a stand and we set off again.  I was a little disappointed, I was kind of hoping to hang out with them, but I guess they wanted the shooters spread out.

I was next up.  We stopped and the guide pointed out a small tree stand.

"Feeders about a hundred yards that way", he said, pointing toward the dark woods.

I climbed the stand, the guide handed up my borrowed rifle.  Then they left me, alone in the dark.

It was only about 20 minutes later that I started to hear the sounds of Hogs sniffing around in the dark.

Killings and Conversations

First off, I'd like to say that I have nothing but my sincerest condolences toward the families of recent firearm violence. The crimes are horrific, horrible, and I can't imagine that kind of devastation. I'm writing this to honor the memories of the victims by trying to start a conversation about what we can do to try and curb the kind of recent crimes that have dominated the news.  Just give me to the end of the post before deciding if I'm crazy or not.

I started writing this about a week ago, after a mall shooting was all over the news, as a pure opinion piece on the Second Amendment. Then came the school shooting only days later and I realized that if I was going to write this than I wanted to do something better. I didn't want to be another talking head, spouting my opinions as if you should care or my opinions mattered. So, I want to talk about some facts that seem to be desperately missing from most of the conversations and offer some suggestions on things we can do to decrease future crimes.

This morning the news was all about the possibility of reintroducing the assault weapon ban. The politicians and news personalities were all talking about how “something needs to be done” and now might be the time to start a “real conversation about fire arm rights”.

I agree, something needs to be done, but banning or restricting firearms is a knee-jerk reaction that is highly unlikely to make any difference. It's far easier to blame the “assault rifle” than it is to try and and actually find the root causes of mass violence.

First off, if you look at the statistics, the original “Assault Gun Ban” made little to no impact on homicide rates. When the Ban expired in 2004, again it made little to no difference on homicide rates. Homicide rates have been in decline for the past 20 years, whatever the fire arm laws, and is currently as low as it was in the 1960's (FBI's Uniform Crime Review).

Secondly, if you look at the homicide rates, you're about three times more likely to be killed by a hand gun than an assault rifle. In fact, you're just about as likely to be killed with a knife as with an assault rifle (Wikipedia, Gun Violence in the United States). Are the politicians and news personalities talking about banning hand guns or knives?  

Thirdly, mass killings account for about 1/10^th of 1% of all homicides in the United States (Criminologist James Alan Fox on Discovery News). Yet, look at the time spent on them in the news. Obviously, these crimes are horrific, but if you look at the news coverage you'd think that they were far more frequent than they actually are. The average murders doesn't make national news, but several at once, in an especially violent manner... that's headlines for weeks.

Fourth, Why aren't any of the above facts a factor in the conversation? Because the average situations don't make national news, they don't sell news papers or commercial time. For it to be picked up by the national news the story needs victims, lots of violence, and a bad guy, thus the focus on the “assault rifle” (it even sounds bad, perfect for TV). All of that media time means more people calling their politicians. The politicians want to be seen as doing something, so they go ahead and make some rapid policy decision, namely blame the "bad guy". The media is happy, the politicians are happy, and the general populace is satisfied that something has been done. But does any of that actually change anything?

There are already good, mostly rational laws on fire arms. Look at Connecticut, one of the recent states victimized by fire arm violence, it has some of the most restrictive laws on fire arms, and the violence still happened. Criminals and psychos are not limited by the law.

Let's look at it another way, will suicides drop if you ban pistols? Or will those people just find another way to commit suicide? It's the same with homicidal people. Will banning assault rifles stop them, or will they just find another way to commit homicide? In Japan, where fire arms are severely restricted, there is a history of mass violence with bladed weapons (I'm not going to go into the details, the crimes are horrific. If you're that morbidly curious you can look them up yourself).  The mental issues that drive these people to do horrible things will not be shrugged off just because they can't find an AR-15.

Banning or restricting fire arms will not affect violent crime or mass killings. So what can we do? What are the answers? Well, isn't that the conversation we should be having? We should be finding out the roots behind the crimes, warning signs to look for, better mental health screening, better education, better security in public spaces, quicker response time from law enforcement officers... there are literally dozens of topics that should be examined right now. By limiting the discussion to fire arms we are missing everything else.

My opinion? I think the media is largely to blame for mass killings. Sounds stupid? I've got a couple reasons.

Have you ever heard of “Suicide Contagion”? It's been studied by psychologists for years, where one suicide is covered in the media and it leads to others committing suicide. Now, the follow on suicides are often people that already have mental issues and are encouraged by the media coverage of the first to go ahead and do it themselves. The bigger the news, the more the coverage, the more it influences follow on suicides (NPR, Media Should Tread Carefully in Covering Suicide). How big a leap is it to think that a mass killing getting major coverage might influence some other mentally disturbed person to do the same? I bet there are psychologists studying this right now.

Also, if someone who already has mental issues has decided to go out in a big way, to be remembered, to make history... they see all the coverage of other grisly murders as a way to do that. That might sounds stupid but do you know who James Wilkes Booth is? Or Hitler?  Or Charles Manson? Or O.J. Simpson (even without being convicted)? Or the Unabomber?  Or Ted Bundy?  

Our society, and especially our media, makes a really big deal out of murderers. There's books, hours and hours of news stories, TV movies, big budget movies, and dozens of websites. The underlying message to the mentally ill is “I'll be a big deal if I'm a murderer, the bigger, the messier, the more disturbing, the bigger I'll be and the longer I'll be remembered”.

So, my suggestion for curbing the mass killing rate is to ban or severely limit media coverage. Ban anyone mentioning the killer's name. Erase the killer from the public record, make sure no one will ever remember them. Send the message that criminals like that don't deserve to be remembered by anyone.  No movies about them, no biographies, or true crime books.  Nothing.  Be extremely respectful of the victim's families, funerals, and their personal space. Don't release victim information, photos, or videos without express consent of the families (ban the media from paying for those things). If a family member wants to talk, that's up to them, but absolutely nothing without permission. Don't glorify the event, keep the coverage short, to the point, and move on.

In that spirit, I'm not listing any of the names or specifics on this site. Notice, I've referenced several of these events in this post without going into any detail (the only ones I mentioned were to make a point and are already infamous). I'll be the first, I don't mind.

Failing media restrictions, at the very least I want us to have a very honest, open, and thorough discussion on the topic. Maybe we can come up with some real solutions.

Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher

I'm a huge fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.  I would call them the modern day version of the James Bond books.  They're a little more graphic, a lot more violent... Ok, they're like modern James Bond movies in novel format.  The main character, Reacher, is a what you would get if you combined the genetics of  James Bond with a caveman, John Wayne, and Rambo.

If you are into well written novels that are action packed, the Reacher series is simply the best you'll find. I have the entire series, love them, and even reread them occasionally (this is a huge compliment coming from me, I almost never reread novels because I remember so much of what I read). Seriously, they are some of my all time favorites... So you can imagine my consternation when I found out Tom Cruise got the role.

Here's a description from the new Jack Reacher novel, where Reacher is trying to hitch hike at night (his normal mode of transportation):

"...he stuck out his thumb and smiled and tried to look friendly.
       Which was not easy.  Reacher was a big man, six feet five inches tall, heavily built, and that night as always he looked a little ragged and unkempt.  Lonely drivers wanted pleasant and unthreatening company, and Reacher knew from long experience that visually he was no one's first choice of companion.  Too intimidating.  And right then he was further handicapped by a freshly broken nose.  He had patched the injury with a length of silver duct tape, which he knew must make him look even more grotesque."
       ---Excerpt from Lee Child's novel, A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel

Jack Reacher is huge, implacable, violent, and yet extremely clever.  He's intimidating, scary, and that's why his enemies tend to underestimate his intelligence.

I don't get any of that from Cruise.

Yes, Cruise is a great actor, but you can't act your way into the part of a lumbering force of nature (unless you're paying to make the movie).  This is one of those few roles that requires very little acting ability; look big and scary, somewhat dark and foreboding, and dead pan the occasional clever line.  No acting required!  Big, scary, deadpan... easy!  The problem is that of those three vital traits Cruise can only get deadpan, which means having to compensate for the rest.  I'm scared of how this is going to turn out.

I was going to encourage everyone to boycott the movie but that's not fair to the author.  Lee Child deserves to get a blockbuster movie under his belt.  So, go see the movie... then go buy one of his books.  Just don't read the book first, it'll probably ruin the movie for you.

Originally, I wasn't even going to go see the movie, I didn't want Tom Cruise's face plastered on one of my favorite fictional characters.  But I've since decided that, while this might not be the Jack Reacher movie that I was looking for, it might still be entertaining in it's own right.  Kind of like the Red Dawn remake, it might not be exactly what we wanted but it might still be a decent movie if the viewer can keep out their preconceived ideas.

Even if the movie turns out alright, Tom Cruise is NOT Jack Reacher

Couple more book reviews

I love survivalist/prepper/zombie books, I've mentioned that before.  Since my last book review post I've read a few good books, so I figured it was time to share again.

• Apocalypse Law 1-3, John Grit.  A devastating plague wipes out a large portion of the world's population.  Nate Williams, a decorated war vet, must keep his son safe as the world around him and his remote farm gets worse and worse.  There are some good survival tips for those planning on home steading, the main character lives on a farm and does his best to keep it going to feed his son.  There is also a lot of combat, which keeps the tension and excitement up.  The third book finishes nicely but left it open to a fourth book.   I really liked these books and hope that the John Grit keeps putting them out (he has a couple of short fiction books that are also worth a read, especially Fierce Blood).
• Joshua, John Wilson.  The economy collapses and leads to a rapid deterioration of society.  In this bad situation a young man stumbles upon a two year old boy, Joshua.  He decides to take care of the boy, despite how difficult that makes his own situation.  This is now one of my all-time favorite survival books.  Seriously, it's that good.  It's extremely well written, interesting, and with enough emotional themes to surprise and entrance even the most hardened survivalist.  The only thing that really bothered me about this story was how the main character is never named, he's just "the man", and how we know next to nothing about him.  It takes half the book to even find out what his profession was before SHTF (despite the frequent mentioning of "his training").  Honestly though, I think the author did this deliberately, taking attention away from the man to put it on the relationship with Joshua.  While mildly annoying, it does not detract much from this otherwise awesome book.
• Path of Survival (Passion Killers, Blood Beyond the Abyss, A Dark Wind of Vengeance), David Maudlin.  During a terrible economic down turn, two hurricanes strike, and a terrorist attack damages the world's supply of oil, causing a rapid collapse of societies across the world.  These books are about several different people and their different paths to the relative 'safety' of the mountains.  There are lots of characters with intertwined story lines, a good mix of family values, action, survival, and the different ways that people deal with these stressful situations.  These are light, easy reads that are entertaining, with enough action to keep everyone on the edge of their seats.  I hope the author keeps this series going.

Those are a few of my recent reads that were good enough to pass on as recommendations.  These are all available in the kindle store and are relatively inexpensive.  Any of these would make a good addition to your reading list.

Movie Review: Red Dawn Remake

I don't normally do movie reviews, but there was so much hoopla around this one that I figured I would put in my two cents.

The first and most important thing I have to say is that if you are a big fan of the original and want a tribute movie, this movie isn't for you.  However, if you like modern action movies than you'll probably get a kick out of it.  It keeps some of the themes and ideas from the original movie but puts a new, modern, spin on the classic.  This movie is big action, over the top, lots of explosions... not real big on plot or dialogue.  So, yeah, it's another hollywood action movie.  Think "Transformers" with teenagers instead of robots.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  I knew it wasn't going to be as good as the original, but it was entertaining in a cheesy, explosive kind of way.

Alright, here are a few things I picked up watching the movie.  Here's a couple things that bugged me, later on I'll list a few things I liked.

I'm going to try not to spoil it too much, but if you're seeing it soon you might want to skip this:

• There were a couple things that bugged me when it came to the time line.  There is absolutely no sense of the time that passes between the start and finish of the movie.  Is it two weeks or two months or two years?  There is a training montage, a la "Rocky" style, where the kids go from ordinary to trained killers.  Did that take two weeks or two months?  Then, when they pick up new people there is no apparent break-in period, they seemlessly join the experienced Wolverines.
• Chris Hemsworth is too tall.  Yeah, I said it.  He's like two feet taller than everyone else in the movie.  Most people probably didn't notice or care, but he looks like a giant in several scenes.
• Hemsworth's character gets shot too many times.  Like most modern action movies, the main character shakes off the same damage that drops his enemies in their tracks.
• In the beginning, their old Dodge truck is apparently invincible.  It soaks up a TON of damage and keeps ticking, despite the fact that it destroys military grade trucks when it rams them.
• At one point they jump from one building to the roof of another, about two stories down from their window.  Who does that and doesn't break anything major?  Why would you even try it?
• At one point, the Daryl character is aiming his AK-47 at some enemies on a podium with his flip-up scope cover down.  I probably wouldn't have noticed this but they kept going to a close up of his face behind the scope, cover clearly down, multiple times.
• Most movies I don't notice the musical score, but every time there was a speaking moment the music was really obvious.  Music during an action scene?  Cool.  But when there's an inspirational speech  with loud, inspirational music... it's just over the top.  Every time something was going on, it was obvious by the music what we were supposed to "feel".  Loud sad music?  I guess it's a sad scene.  Maybe the director didn't think the actors could pull off the scenes and over did the music to compensate.
• The lack of opposing military technology.  They partially cover this by saying that there is an EMP style weapon that was used, so maybe that played a part in limiting the Korean's technological capabilities.  However, when everything else seems to be working; tanks, phones, trucks, aircraft... it's hard to believe that the Koreans didn't have any tech advantages up their sleeve.  Mostly there was the obvious lack of air support, especially ones with with infrared cameras.  Granted, when the Wolverines were in town than infrared wouldn't have been very useful, but when they were being hunted in the wilderness (the Koreans used dogs) one high altitude plane/helo/UAV with infrared cameras would have ended the Wolverine's streak really quickly.  Hell, one satellite and they could have tracked the Wolverines without ever tipping them off.  There was none of that.  
• There was no examination or character development on the Korean side.  They were all pretty generic bad guys.  That's kind of expected in most big budget hollywood action movies, they don't want you to feel bad when the bad guys get torn up with .50 cal fire, or exploded.  However, it would have added some depth to the movie if there had been a bad guy glancing at a picture of his girl friend thousands of miles away, or one who felt bad about invading another country, something.

Ok, there were some good points too:

• I liked that none of the main characters were perfect.  In fact, the main characters weren't even all that likeable.  It wasn't a case of hollywood creating the 'perfect' good guy with no character flaws, these characters all made mistakes, had temper tantrums, and were honestly annoying at times.  Those traits made the movie better than most modern action movies.
• The actors were all pretty good.  I mean, there isn't a heavy acting burden in modern action flicks, but they got the job done without being distracting.  It was all pretty straight forward.  I was honestly surprised that Hemsworth did so well, he had probably the most nuanced role and played it well.
• There's lots of action.  LOTS.  They rush through the non-action scenes, which might bother some people (ie. the training montage), but the action scenes were exciting and frequent.
• There were some tribute moments where they directly or indirectly tipped their hat to the original.  I'm sure you'll recognize them when you see them (if it's been a while, it might not be a bad idea to watch the original before you see the remake just so you can appreciate them).
• It puts a modern spin on Red Dawn: one of the main characters is an Iraq war vet (gives the whole teenagers successfully fighting trained soldiers slightly more credibility), it does a decent version of modern guerilla warfare, and it has far more urban combat than the original (I consider that points toward realism since so much of the population lives in cities these days).  It stuck to the ideas and themes while managing to update the time frame.
• It has a couple good twists, if you're expecting it to strictly follow the original storyline you will be in for a few surprises.
• I liked the how the movies ends.  It felt like it wrapped up well and I liked the last scenes (the music was annoying, but I already mentioned that).  Die hard fans of the original will probably hate this ending since it's wrapped up with a pretty bow compared to the original, but I've already said that you have to go into this one with an open mind.  The original will always be a classic, this movie won't be, but it does have some good moments on it's own.

So, if you managed your way through all of that, it was a decent movie as long as you weren't expecting the original.  There were a couple of things I didn't like, but I could say that about any movie these days.  On it's own Red Dawn was entertaining in a big budget hollywood kind of way.  If you liked movies like Transformers and GI Joe (the style, not the quality), fast paced, lots of action, and explosions, than you'll probably get a kick out of the new Red Dawn.