How do you figure? They don't need every civilian to become green berets. Just basic weapons and safety training. You only need a small handful of soldiers to teach them. In terms of guns, I'm sure they would have no problem finding more if necessary. Probably not the really fancy stuff, but they are in a major metropolitan region.

 

Oh GAWD...Truly, the dumb die first !

Farting unicorns with cotton candy encrusted with sparkly springles is not the TWD way.
Go rewatch Harry Potter or LOTR and get your sugar high.

 

Part of Moyers' morale problem is that he's so short handed that his soldiers- National Guard, mind you- are going days without sleep just to patrol. Dr. Exner talks about how they're losing people, and we see bitten soldiers brought to the medical center. The vehicle goes to a library to help some fellow troops and they come out with fewer than they went in with. Soldiers are dying and deserting. They say the virus spread like wildfire, which is essentially uncontrollable.

 

What the hell are you even talking about? You can challenge the evidence that the military is hemorrhaging men if you want, but what beyond that do you find objectionable in what I said? The main show has told/shown us multiple times that the military killed and/or abandoned people in at least some areas. The FTWD writers aren't making that shit up, and neither am I. You're being a jerk for no good reason.

 

Thank you.

 

At this point why would the military want to arm civilians? Moyers himself described what's left of his unit as a "bunch of scared kids who just want to go home to momma" They're sleep deprived and his idea of keeping morale up is to have them on constant patrol, shooting at skinbags. Did everyone miss the riot scene downtown? You are going to arm those people? And you want a handful of scared, sleep deprived soldiers to conduct training exercises for thousands while dodging the undead, anti govt types holed up in random buildings, and panicking civilians? Let alone dealing with gangbangers, drug addicts, criminals, mentally ill, children, elderly...? ( And where the hell are all those weapons and ammo going to come from anyway)The stadium itself has 2000 undead because they lost control and people think these small units are going to retake a city of millions?

They are collecting as many supplies and "useful" people and evacuating before the city is decimated. Like we saw in Atlanta. They are shooting anyone who is a threat or in any way impedes this and do not have the time or resources to differentiate between panicked civilians and freshly turned corpses. Like what Shane saw at the hospital. The military is too fragmented and the troops too demoralized and undermanned for any safe zone to be successful. We see remnants of this when Rick first leaves the hospital. Many soldiers left out on their own or got cut off from their unit- like we saw with the tank guy the Governor as Brain Herriott hooked up with or the small group of soldiers he executed while in Woodbury.

Passing out the last of their weapons and ammo to unstable populace would be a dumb move. You think types like Bawling Doug, Nick the addict, Travis, who can't take a shot at a reanimated corpse EVER, and Strand who's only looking out for #1 , are going to get a military grade weapon and few hours of training and then suddenly be compelled to march into the city of millions and try to save the day? Unrealistic.
It wouldn't be the first time a standing army adapts a scorched earth policy and I think that is what is about to go down

 

Even if you don't arm them with guns, you can arm them with information. The smart thing to do is tell civilians what is happening and how to keep it from getting worse: brain damage. People will make do with what they have. A piece of rebar shoved up through an eye socket.

People will look around and find weapons--a fireplace poker, a baseball bat to crack skulls. Some of them will already own guns.

After 911, civilians tackle potential threats on planes. People want to live. It is very motivating. Informed people are more use than uninformed. Why worry about panicking them. They already know it's bad enough out there for them to be fenced in and guarded.

 

And then killing them. Let's talk about wasting of ammunition.

 

I watch these episodes 2 or 3 times to make sure I catch everything (Yes I'm that much of TWD nerd). I hope they keep him alive and around as well because he seems like he is strong, (must be to put up with that whole peeling off the skin thing). Plus he already made it clear that he understands why they are doing this to him. If he lives, I think he will remain with the group and there will be sort of an unspoken understanding between him and Daniel.

 

Not to be offensive , but what?
Arm them with information? I get it at some level but look at real life, people don't get out of the way of a Cat 5 hurricane when it's predicted days in advance. People on a plane after 911 have no other option - you can't run and you can't hide.
An armed military couldn't control 2000 - with what conscience do you rally people armed with fireplace pokers and baseball bats to try and retake a city of millions? It could be effective in small confrontations, but how confident would you be outside the stadium with only a ball peen hammer? Or running into vigilantes or gangbangers armed with "information"?
My point is they are showing us how it all broke down, why Rick saw what he saw leaving the hospital, why Shane saw the military gunning down civilians, why Shane and Lori saw Atlanta get smoked. But apparently some people think the US military is made up of android-like soldiers instead of scared human beings who are also adept at training the populace at large, who at this point are about 2 weeks into the end of the world, and turn them into zombie killing machines using common household items.
What world do you guys live in where everyone turns into dudley do-right when confronted with a crisis situation?

 

Dr Exener said her 2 best nurses had already been evacuated, which is why she wanted Liza to come help.

So apparently, they are evacuating people with useful skills, not shooting them.

 

Seriously! If they are that short of manpower they could tell everyone to grab any guns they have and show up at a central location. Training could be as little as "don't point the barrel at anyone, and don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot, and the most basic of aiming, loading, and a practice round or two. Take 10 minutes total. They'd probably waste a ton of ammo, but still be more effective than the plan of killing them all would be. That does make a LOT more sense than telling the soldiers to kill off the few remaining citizens they can find.

 

But there are a lot of guns and a lot of ammo in America. And for each person that dies, the ratio of guns to survivors increases. Not to mention they could be doing other things for the military like parking cars or stacking bodies to create makeshift barricades, etc. In a fight for survival of the human race, killing off the human race seems a poor plan.

 

Killing off the human race is a poor plan. I don't think that's their intent. They are evacuating and taking supplies and people of value. They plan to decimate areas that are beyond retaking and anyone left in it is simply SOL. I believe the military calls this collateral damage.

 

I understand, but I don't even see that being a good option. There are billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of assets in L.A., buildings, vehicles, power, water, sewage infrastructure... Why blow it all up? They don't even know if blowing something up will work, right? The only way I could see to justify that would be if they did a few test bombs in small towns and it worked overwhelmingly well.

 

I don't see how it is realistic anyway short of Nuking the area and that will kill everything and vaporize whats left but that will include the escaping military for a pretty wide radius around the city too.

So there is no real way to do a "Humane Extermination" even if that is part of the plan,so another losing concept about handling the apocalypse here.

 

The soldiers were used as window dressing and could have been a really integral part of the story. The premise of the series was to show people in a real situation where everything breaks down. Primarily we see domestic bickering with the horror of limited electricity. All L.A. is crumbling it could have been a great show.

Now civilization has fallen so the original premise is gone. Not sure what they will do next. At least they will have to relocate their bickering.

 

Fair enough.
But I have to wonder if all those who saw Atlanta get firebombed asked the same questions? I believe most people thought the city had been lost. I never heard anyone question why the military didn't just arm thousands of people to take it back or think that the military was trying to annihilate the whole of mankind.

I agree about the infrastructure but what good is any of it if it's inaccessible? That's why I believe they targeted large population areas like Atlanta, rather than waste time and resources, risk the lives of what's left of the military, trying to sort through millions of people in an urban area. Quick effective disaster mitigation procedure that would significantly decrease risks ( undead, sick injured , elderly, mentally ill, anti govt) and allow for rebuilding at a time when they had the situation under control. At only a couple weeks in I would like to think the military was trying to implement such a contingency plan with the idea that they could get things under control and THEN things like training and controlling the (much smaller) population would be more useful and effective.

 

I think its implied that they have told them , "The infected will kill you , the only way to kill the infected is to inflect massive brain damage." I think they also strongly implied its something you have to see close up first hand to believe and I think they show a realistic cross section of how people would react to something so unbelievable .... Travis still wont get it , Daniel worked it on the first try , Susan thought it was a biblical apocalypse and killed herself , Nick went to get high , Madison believes and will act if confronted but has shred of doubt, weepy neighbor had a break down and his family are wearing bio hazard suits to play with Lego, Ophelia is seducing a corporal for antibiotics and info. You want to give these people guns?

I want to put forth a theory.....I'm not sure the safe zones were originally suppose to be safe zones but quarantines of highly infected areas. The fence was to keep the suspect people in while they put in checkpoints, evacuate/patrolled less infected areas and tried to contain LA. Evacuating millions of people and leaving 10-50 thousand in safe zones you have to guard , feed , water , soothe, control, count an health check daily. It may have morphed into a safe-zone quickly, but you evacuate people into a safe-zone you don't evacuate the people surrounding it miles away. While it might not really be clear for 6 miles surrounding the safe zone its at least somewhat clear , they are seeing mini hordes on the streets or at the fences.

That the military resources are strained makes perfect sense , its not one city its 5 , then a dozen then 50 they are trying to contain. It makes sense that they would send a few hundred to thousand troops to accomplish step 1 with the plan of sending 20,000 more in the next couple days an those were diverted to ever worsen emergencies and higher priorities. That plan may have even worked for the first few big outbreaks.

 

I am pretty sure it is the worst I have watched completely. If not the TWD I not have watched it so that may be unfair to the other bad shows I started watching then left. I did not watch TWD until I saw the episode by chance where Andrea shot Darrel and got involved with the characters. Then I became a heavy user. I imagine I will hang in there with the series.

It would be awesome to see it turn around and the characters grow. It seems like there is mind set for the production of the show that needs to be changed. The end of civilization as viewed from one house should have still been a good show.