A nice little piece about our favorite show in the June 2006 edition of
the United States Naval Institute's scholarly journal, "Naval History",
by a distinguished author in the field:
Looking Back By PAUL STILLWELL
A VIEWER'S TRIBUTE TO "JAG"
Among the smorgasbord of available pleasures in life is that of
escaping from the pressures of the moment by watching television
programs available in our current multi-multi-channel environment.
Years ago I became addicted to "JAG." Though its first-run episodes
came to an end last year, it lives on in rerun heaven.
In the late 1960s, the U.S. Navy created a new staff corps, the Judge
Advocate General's Corps, comprised of the service's lawyers. The world
at large probably took little notice. That changed in the mid-1990s
with the advent of the new network television show that drew its title
from the staff corps initials. It lasted for one season on NBC before
moving to CBS and becoming a hit. Using the titles of two popular
movies of the 1990s, some dubbed the show "Top Gun Meets A Few Good
Men."
Principal character Harm Rabb, played by David James Elliott, was a
swaggering combination of a fighter pilot and lawyer, and a number of
the early episodes were of the action-adventure nature as he and his
Navy junior officer female partners set out with guns drawn to foil
evil-doers. Both Navy lawyers and line officers undoubtedly hooted and
hollered at some of the plot lines and dialogue.
It was, perhaps, a case of the show's producers creating dialogue to
conform with what they thought the viewing public expected Navy and
Marine Corps people to say rather than what they actually say. That
sort of dialogue continued even as the show matured and focused more on
courtroom situations rather than cops-and-robbers scenarios. The word
"six" seemed to be thrown in often, referring to a vulnerable position
as in a six o'clock position behind an aircraft-but used much more
broadly. And each meeting between a senior and subordinates tended to
end with the word "Dismissed." I don't ever recall shipboard encounters
ending with that word.
As the show climbed in the ratings, its ensemble cast developed great
chemistry. The salty, gruff-but-caring Judge Advocate General himself,
Rear Admiral A. J. Chegwidden, was portrayed by actor John Jackson.
Viewers with long memories will recall him as a Navy captain judge
advocate in "A Few Good Men". In that movie, when he was talking with
Tom Cruise, Jackson dismissed Demi Moore from a meeting by saying that
the men wanted her to leave so they would be able to talk behind her
back. After "JAG's" early years, the show brought in Catherine Bell to
be Sarah MacKenzie, a strong female Marine Corps counterpart
to the Navy's Harm Rabb. The sexual tension between the two added to
the program's appeal by giving it a soap opera-type element that drew
viewers into the characters' lives.
Despite the hokiness of some of the stories, I found them immensely
appealing as entertainment because of the "feel" they created. They
evoked memories of shipboard experiences--the roar of F-14 engines, the
ladders and passageways, the interaction among shipmates, guns firing,
shots of ships and aircraft above the blue sea. For an hour a week I
could vicariously be back in an environment that I remembered with
pleasure.
As the program became more popular, the Navy and Marine Corps
recognized the great publicity value of the show and offered
considerable cooperation, including access to ships, aircraft, and
shore stations. It was a synergistic relationship in which both sides
benefited. Some years back a Marine Corps public affairs officer
visited the Naval Institute to talk about his job. In the
question-and-answer period he was asked how often "JAG's" production
company called for information and assistance. His answer: "Daily."
One particularly appealing aspect of the series was that it delved into
the history of the sea services in some of the episodes. One week's
story dealt with the 1944 Port Chicago case in which black sailors were
tried for mutiny when they declined to go back to work loading ships
after two ammunition ships blew up while being loaded with unsafe
practices. The episode demonstrated the institutional racism at work in
the Navy during World War II.
Reaching still farther back, a program focused on the Somers affair of
1842 in which the son of Secretary of War John C. Spencer and two other
alleged conspirators were hanged after being convicted of plotting a
mutiny. For that episode the "JAG" cast donned 19th century uniforms
and took the parts of various crew members.
An episode on the 100th anniversary of the submarine service dealt with
a fictitious 1941 encounter between a U.S. submarine and the Japanese
carrier task force headed for the 7 December attack on Pearl Harbor.
Another historical episode recalled the Vietnam War. It flashed back to
a Bob Hope USO show on board the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14).
Film clips from an actual Hope appearance were spliced in among shots
of the cast members portraying various members of the ship's crew.
"JAG" also dealt with much more recent events, giving viewers something
of a sense of what it was like to be in those situations. There was a
show on a battleship turret explosion, the downing of a U.S.
intelligence plane by the Chinese, scenes from the mountainous terrain
of Afghanistan, the requirement for U.S. female service members to wear
Muslim clothing when in Middle East countries, episodes of friendly
fire, and the chaotic nature of Iraq when it is difficult to
distinguish combatants from noncombatants. Sometimes fictional stories
impart a good deal of truth.
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