Posted on 11/19/2023 7:50:53 AM PST by Rummyfan
My point was that Hollywood (or anyone, anywhere) does a rotten job in portraying warfare to the moviegoing audience, particularly my war - Vietnam. The Vietnam movies have been uniformly ridiculous and loaded with Leftist/antiwar tropes. Even those movies that are supposed to be supportive are silly and cartoonish - The Green Berets, We Were Soldiers - had lousy special effects and in the case of Soldiers, was clearly filmed in Southern California - not even close to the terrain and vegetation of Vietnam (even my wife noticed that right off.
The list of weird propaganda/message/horrible special effects movies about Vietnam goes on and on:Platoon, Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, MASH, First Blood, Billy Jack, even Forrest Gump were designed to ridicule the American actions in Vietnam and support the Leftist portrayal of Vietnam Veterans as either whining losers, war criminals, or madmen.
An accurate war movie doesn't have to show unremitting gore or try to shock its audiences - it should show the public what our guys really did and who they were back then - in a proper, realistic setting and with appropriate sound effects.
But Hollywood can't and wouldn't ever do that.
And as far as your cops/First Responders/firefighters etc., etc. Wonderful people, God love them for what they do for us - but honestly, nobody in any of those professions had to face the day-to-day fear, sleeplessness, disease, isolation, rejection and murder that America's combatants faced during our wars.
No comparison.
“You miss the point of this thread: war movies”
Hey! I liked Billy Jack way back when I saw it. Maybe it’s the nice theme song.
The bad guys throughout your post are the media (news plus Hollywood).
You say “[war movies] should show the public what our guys really did and who they were back then - in a proper, realistic setting and with appropriate sound effects.”.
You correctly say “Hollywood can’t and wouldn’t ever do that.”
Some documentaries might come close but not the entertainment side of the industry.
The news/documentary side are the propaganda experts.
Hey again! You mention that cops/first responders/... are wonderful people ... but you ddn’t mention the schmucks like me! To quote Hillary, “It takes a village!”
A village like TicToc.
Yes, soldiers do the nastiest type of work. You make that point well.
Agreed on The Pacific. Actually I liked it better than Band of Brothers although I loved both.
And yes, schmucks, in their day-to-day heroism of providing care and support for their families, raising and educating their children, and just flat surviving the many upheavals in our society have a very vital and unsung role in the greatness of our country.
If you ever want to see what we were like and some of what we Marine Vietnam Vets went through, there is a good documentary called a Face of War on Youtube for free. The copy is grainy and the sound is degraded but it shows a lot of the day-to-day stuff that happened back then. I don't know why a better copy of it hasn't survived, but it's a close as anyone will ever get to who we were. It is still hard for me to watch in places.
The average WWII serviceman was a draftee (62%), 26 years old, 5-foot-8-inches tall, 144-lbs with a 33-1/4-inch chest, married, had one child, and an ninth-grade education.
The increase in the chest-to-waist differential inductees underwent during basic training/boot camp was the greatest of any war since the US began keeping records of the measurements of military inductees, which goes back to the WBTS.
In WWII in specific, the average inductee's chest measurement increased by an inch at boot camp while his waist shrank, despite putting on 5-20 lbs.
To a man they never really liked to talk much about combat but when they did it was very illuminating.
What becomes apparent is Hollywood NEVER gets it right, books about half right.
When you talk with men you were actually there it's incredible.
Almost all of the narratives I heard went thus; “Well, the lieutenant got his head blown off pretty much right away and we were pinned down for hours''. Another reoccurring theme is how quickly casualties piled up. An infantry company in WW2 was about 130 to 140 men. Some of these vets told me and entire company, with about four lieutenants would be almost wiped out in three or four days of fighting.
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