I have some friends past and present in the military. I can tell you this, they wouldn't watch Broke Back Mountain if you hog tied them to a chair and sewed their eyelids opened.
I'm currently overseas, retired military but working out of a air force base. If you brought Brokeback in...there would be about 40 people to show up to watch the one and only evening show...mostly school teachers and teenage dependents. The exchange service wouldn't make enough money to make it a major showing.
And I'm willing to guess that throughout small-town America...its the same story. In the state of Alabma...its probably showing in Birmingham, Mobile, and Huntsville...for 3 or 4 days, and then moves on. This blaze of claimed viewership...probably is a California thing only.