quote:
This is correct. Normally, staff sergeants serve as senior DIs. In special circumstances, gunnys will fill that role if when finding replacements for that position

Have to remember that this was during Vietnam. When I went to basic training in 92, I had an E-7 and 2 E-6's for drill sergeants.

I do agree with Gunny sounding better though.

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Posted by TheTideMustRoll

Birmingham, AL

Member since Dec 2009

8906 posts

Posted on 1/11/21 at 1:03 pm to theantiquetiger

I think Kubrick is the greatest director of all time, but FMJ as a whole falls flat. The first half is driven by Ermey's incredible performance and some typically Kubrickian camera work, but it sets up... well, nothing. The second half feels like almost a completely different movie. The film has two messages which are completely contradictory: that boot camp is too harsh and either turns young men into mindless killing machines or drives them crazy if they can't handle it, and then that the reality of war is too overwhelming for those exposed to it to be expected to bear. So which is it? You can't both criticize the system for overpreparing young men for war and also criticize them for sending them into something they aren't prepared for. If the message is supposed to be that there is no way to prepare someone for the reality of war, that would be understandable, but that's not how the movie presents itself.

As much as I love Kubrick, at heart FMJ suffers from not being Apocalypse Now, which is a better movie in every way.

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Posted by mizzoubuckeyeiowa

Member since Nov 2015

35468 posts

Posted on 1/15/21 at 7:59 pm to SoFla Tideroller

quote:
quote:
FMJ just may be the worse war movie ever made.

That would be Platoon. Well, at least most clichéd and overrated.

Just rewatched it. The entire movie centers on a recreation of the My Lai Massacre.

Stone shows his contempt for the American soldier as they are portrayed as lazy drug addicts who are cruel, vindictive and stupid.

Oh and the one soldier with a moral compass gets shot and left behind by his own men.

I doubt any Vietnam Vets like this movie as it seems to just spit on their sacrifice.

The movie is trash in hindsight once you become an adult. Stone said he wrote it in the 70s after his experience but couldn't get it made. It comes across as a young man writing it.

Well the movie certainly tried to tap into the sensational stories that were in headlines in the early 70s.

Stone took all the cliches of the Vietnam soldier from the 70s (baby killers, drug addicts, racists, etc) and said, this will be my movie...the plot is Americans are bad guys.

This post was edited on 1/15/21 at 8:01 pm

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