Combat! is an American television program that originally aired on ABC from 1962 until 1967. The show covered the grim lives of a squad of American soldiers fighting the Germans in France during World War II. The program starred Rick Jason as platoon leader Second Lieutenant Gil Hanley and Vic Morrow as Sergeant "Chip" Saunders.
My dad used to talk about this when I was a kid... well... his entire life. And I can relate. He sounded a lot like I probably sound when I still talk about the A-Team:
"And then, and then Mr. T did this and.... ahhhh... it was awesome."
"How old are you again?"
"40."
Anyway, hearing about that all my life, when I finally got to watch it, Thank you MeTV, I felt obligated to take the opportunity. After all, Combat! And All in the Family were the only television shows I ever heard my father reference.
And.... WOW.
It humanizes. The Nazi soldiers are just, well, soldiers. They totally ignored the habit of making them characterless monsters and instead just made them soldiers who may or may not be political.
That is pretty amazing right there. That sort of says "Yeah, we are going to be focused on writing and telling compelling stories more than anything else," and of course, it still manages to keep the O. Henry style moral twists that came with the era despite not making a statement of absolute evil.
It makes for a really smart show.