"Sir, the aliens are retreati-GAAHHHHH"

When I joined the Army and came to Iraq I expected certain things. Some expectaions were met, others exceded and still others did not make muster. But with that being said I came into the military without many expectaions. I figured the less I assumed or knew the easier it would be to track with the way it really was. And I have to say I think I was right in that. But one things that I don't think anyone foresaw is the way that serving your country ruins motion pictures.

Yes my friends, once you're inside the beast it changes the way you see it, and this is reflected most clearly on the big screen. You notice the small things first: uniforms worn wrong, medals awarded from 'nam on soldiers who might be 35, the way no one ever reloads ever or characters charge their weapons 3 times in 20 seconds, the inexplicable amount of saluting and so forth. Little things that don't really matter and you just laugh at.

Then bigger things start to come along. If its a war film you can bet the farm at least half a dozen times someone is going to ignore orders. And not just small orders about petty things, (because in films no one is ever told to straighten their beret or take off their sunglasses) BIG orders. Take that hill, steer course 10-50 degrees north, charge! and whatnot. If its a film about monsters or aliens or zombies or something then the fighting men and women are actully much more obident to their chain of command, but there is a certain disregard for any sort of tatical or strategic operations. Not to mention how the characters react to the inevitable loss of a battleship or having an entire battalion wiped out. They react not at all in most cases to the loss of massive assets in the form of human life and expensive hardware which is not terribly callous so much as its stupid from a tactical and strategic standpoint.

Then we come of course to the ending. Monster killed, aliens repulsed, robot deactivated, day saved! Cue some whitty comment by the hero to the heroine (or vice versa) while standing amongst ruin and the dead bodies of their commrades-in-arms. Oh so very wrong.

I know that they are just movies, and I don't lose sleep over the plot holes and so on, but I can't help but empathize with the grunt who gets steped on by the 10 story tall dinosaur. Or the sentry on guard smoking a jack who gets this throat cut and his body dumped early in the 1st act. I always see those things and think; whup, that's me! It has become something of a favorite passtime around the platoon actully when we watch films. We pick out what manner of faceless death we would most likely recive if the fiction on the screen was fact.

So on top of the lousy hours, the inherent danger of being killed/maimed, the not-so-great pay and the terrible food add another downside to this lifestyle; the loss of pure enjoyment from so many of the movies turned out by Hollywood.