I grew up in the Northern Ireland that this series is set in, so for me it was a real novelty having a television series based in my own country. My local streets were full of Saracens and Pigs and the skies reverberated with the noise of Westland Scouts and Sioux helicopters, and we had these strange men in flak jackets (usually stuck together with black tape) with hugely long rifles, talking in strange accents, running across streets and hiding behind fences. And, of course, being killed. This series did its' best to reflect that; no whys or wherefores, no politics or hand wringing, just men in a situation that for better or worse had found them in a corner of the United Kingdom facing bricks, bombs and bullets. A lot of it reflected what I saw every day, and I'm sure the Barracks life they depicted was familiar to many an old soldier. It wasn't sensationalist, as many programmes made today are, nor did it give a sense of being larger than life. It just was life, every day, warts and all, and all the more real for that. My only gripe is the depiction of the Northern Ireland Police - the RUC - as there are errors in the uniform and equipment depicted, but if you can get hold of a copy - it's available on DVD these days - it's a real nostalgia trip into the pre-mobile phone and Internet era of old cars, dirty streets and dead-end lives.
Worth watching.
