Someone asked me today why (or how) I could not only love The Rat Patrol but remember it all these years on. Quite simply, I freakin’ LOVED that show. Some kids wanted to be Batman with the Batmobile. Cosplay losers. I wanted a Jeep with a Ma Deuce on a swivel mount and seemingly endless supplies of ammo. For the kids I hung out with, Sergeant Troy and the boys were our role models. Anyway, on with the conversation.

Can you think of any other TV show where the Germans speak German, the French speak French, the “Libyans” speak Arabic and so on? No. All the other shows, like Mission Impossible (TOS) dumb-down the foreigners to heavily accented English so you and the kids can play along at home. Until I learned to speak German later, it was really cool to see Captain Dietrich say something “auf Deutsch” and have a whole squad of guys react.

I didn’t know it at the time, but they did a great job of showing the disdain between the Wehrmacht (Captain Dietrich, et al) and the SS. I think most people assume that if you spoke German in World War II you were a Nazi, just like they think the SS was part of the Army. I won’t get into it now, but I think they did a fine job portraying Dietrich with the moral courage and integrity a true Wehrmacht officer would have against the a-moral fanaticism an SS officer might display.

So, if you want to practice your foreign language skills, watch The Rat Patrol. If you want to compare and contrast the Wehrmacht with the SS (or the Waffen-SS), watch The Rat Patrol. If you don’t know what a Ma Deuce is, go back to watching The View and eating your low-fat yogurt, REMF.