Unless you've served, you'll never know exactly what it means to be in the military. Sure, friends and family can come home, do their best to explain to you what it was like, show you pictures, and maybe go explain what the food is like, but it is an entire experience. Something that, unless you lived it, will never fully comprehend.
Always worth trying, though.
Reddit user, u/Ancient_Session, wanted to hear the first-hand experiences when they asked:
War Veterans of Reddit;what's one thing war movies get wrong?
They're Not Out To Rule The World
Giphy
Military leaders (at least in most developed countries) are generally not warmongers. It seems that's their only purpose in Hollywood, though.
They're the ones who know the horrors of war the most. They've been there, they've seen it, and they're responsible for a lot of those lives - people they know personally...people they identify with. General officers have spent the better part of 30 or 40 years working their way up the ranks. They know how horrible war is.
A typical general is a lot less likely than a non-military policymaker to advocate for starting a war.
The Environment Is Not What You Picture
I was in the mountains in Afghanistan and most movies about the wars in the middle east are about how hot it is. I was goddamn cold with more snow than i've ever seen.
Peppered In Some Realistic "Language" To Spice It Up
The dialogue.
For example, a movie scene that shows some military guys hanging out and are deploying soon. Maybe there is a cookout and one guy is all like, "hey sarge, what's the sitrep on those burgers?" And he says something like, "eta in five mikes." People in the military don't talk like they would over the radio calling in air support 24-7.
Seriously. Can We Get Past This.
The Middle East has roads.
No effin' way! I thought its juat dust paths with a donkey at every few miles with direction painted on their side!!
Keep It On The Green
[The Hurt Locker] is the most full of sh-t movie in the world! If you go out of the fob to play soccer with kids you're going to get killed or kidnapped and get your head sawed off
But It Sounds So Cool In The Movies...
Doing areas i.e picking up cigarette butts whilst being shouted at by a bored full screw. Amount of films where squaddies don't even use their chin strap is a bone of contention for many.
Calling sergeants 'sarge' is a sure way of getting your arse kicked.
"The only sarge is me masarging my sausarge up your f-cking pasarge you utter c-nt!"
Why Waste So Much Fuel?
Fighter jets are not always on afterburner....they would have to hit a tanker so many times due to the amount of fuel they are burning.
My favorite is the random two ship flying over an airbase during a time of war.
The whole Maverick "hitting the brakes, he'll fly right by"....not a thing.
The end scene of the movie "Pacific Rim"...all the choppers flying in formation ....why?
Wait a minute... you're telling me that "Pacific Rim" is unrealistic?
"But How Am I Supposed To Be Reckless, Loose Cannon Who Always Gets The Job Done?"
The countless hours of "safety" briefings and being told not to do dumb sh-t.
And, of course, someone goes and does it anyways.
I experienced this for the first time about ten days into basic and it blew my mind. Now I'm nine years in and I don't think anything could surprise me anymore.
The DS told the entire company to put on their "god d-mned motherf-cking green t-shirt on fire guard. Don't let me catch you wearing that f-cking gray PT shirt I swear to god." Guess what happened that same night...
We give these people grenades and firearms.......
When You Need To Put Something On Those Rations
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Texas Pete is EVERYWHERE
I used to carry around a 40oz bottle of Texas Pete around Iraq in '03.
Lasted a whole 3 months.
Sometimes, The Movies Aren't Right At All.
In most movies with missiles, they just pick a random one that looks good. It doesn't have to make sense in time or application. You can have a movie about the 60s show a ship to ship missile made in '92 blow up a building in Cuba.
It would be like putting a 2020 dodge charger in a western but it could only drive on the water.
There's Supposed To Be An Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
F-cking explosions.
Those fuel explosions in the movies don't happen. It's always just some dust, shrapnel, and very rarely a fireball.
No Movie Could Ever Capture This Spirit
No movie can capture the feeling of actually having to say things like,
"Sir, the machine gun feed tray cover is not a place to put your sandwich."
"Private, where is your helmet? And your pants?"
"Sergeant, that rifle only works if you have a magazine in it, and for f-cks sake there has to be bullets in your goddamn mag!"
All things I have said seriously in my 21 years, also,
"I'm not sure what that is man, it could be syphilis, go see the doc!"
Feels Like This One Should Be More Obvious
How nice the average Afghanistan civilian is.
Some of the most hospitable, kind, and generous people I've ever met.
WAIT, WHAT?!?
People can hear each other and have an almost-normal level conversation about tactics and enemy locations during a firefight in movies.
"WHAT?!"
I said: "PEOPLE CAN HEAR EACH OTHER AND HAVE AN--
"THE F-CKIN' FIFTY IS FIRING RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS!! LOUDER!!! WHAAAT?!!"
I SAID-- You know what, this is one reason we developed hand signals and radio sets, sometimes, that have noise dampening.
Just A Lot Of Overcompensating Dudes
The military is about 60% homoerotic humor.
When was the last time a war movie showed a bored enlisted dude run up behind someone and pelvic thrust a traffic cone into them?
When The Music Is Gone And Back Again
The one dude that can play guitar and sing like Eric Clapton, any song you want and you sit there for hours listening, remembering good times with friends, family, spouse. Then you cry a little because your home sick after 8 months of looking at sand and smelling sh-t and all you want is to get laid and mother f-cking cheese burger.
Movies never get that right or don't show that at all.
And then, 3/4 of the way into your deployment that guy gets killed, and you're left with emptiness.
This was oddly specific
The Lack Of Anything Happening
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My veteran friends say it's f-cking boring most of the time.
Generation Kill does a decent job with them just driving the first few episodes and barely any action.
I've deployed to Kuwait but I'm not in a combat role and there was absolutely zero fighting going on anywhere near me. I still identify with like 80% of that series. Can confirm, pretty damn realistic.
The amount of boring, and the amount of bullsh-t. I've had superior officers ask for the weirdest sh-t, and you're expected to just do it. Dig a hole here, move the hole over there, they don't care at all about how much time you have to put into it. That and the paperwork, some one always has to have a form filled out for something. Signing in, signing out, it's soul crushing after a while. It's almost second nature to ask for a form whenever you need something or need to tell some one something after a while.
Glad that I'm done.
It's Not Always What You Don't See...
Not that they get it wrong, but it's something very important that's missing: smell.
The smells in there are rather strong and stick to the memory more than anything else. Burnt gunpowder, mixed with whatever the area smells like, only it seems to be amplified. If you ever see an exploding vehicle in a movie, try to imagine the smell of burnt gas with it.
I was first recon on a crash site in a forest. The whole area smelt of kerosene and freshly cut trees. The bodies didn't smell though.
Apparently a group of D-Day Veterans were taken to an early showing of "Saving Private Ryan". The only comment was, "They got everything but the smell."
I won't ever forget the smell of Ground Zero. Crushed, damp drywall, kerosene, and rotting meat. It was a heavy, greasy stink, and for the next 2 months every time I sneezed hard, I smelled it.
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk him about it.
One of my favorite books is "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It was a key element in unlocking what I could see with my imagination. No adolescent should go beyond sixth grade without knowing it. What else?
"ANNOUNCEMENT FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE READING THIS THREAD:"
"MANY OF THE BOOKS MENTIONED HERE ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND IN AUDIO BOOK FORM. GO THROUGH YOUTUBE/RANDOMHOUSE/AUDIBLE/OVERDRIVE FOR ALL THE CLASSICAL GOODNESS YOU WANT."
"It almost totally eliminates the financial/time commitment that many will cite for not picking them up. I listen to books on double speed all the damn time. I am working my way through "A Tale of Two Cities" now."
Meaning
wondering simon cowell GIF by X Factor GlobalGiphy"Man's search for meaning - Viktor Frankl."
Oh Milo
"The Phantom Tollbooth."
"Maybe one of my favorite literary moments…"
"Milo: "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose of learning them at all."
"Princess of Sweet Rhyme: "...what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover the wonderful secrets of tomorrow."
- wort_hog
Johnny
"Johnny's Got His Gun. It's so intense, but it's so good. Metallica's song One is based off this book. Guy has his arms and legs blown off, goes blind and deaf, and is left to live like that. I only read it once, but it's forever engrained into my memory. It hits you like a freight train."
Brothers...
"Surprised I haven't seen it here already so I'll add it... The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut said it could teach everything that we needed to know about life, except that wasn't enough anymore."
"If the only thing that book did was make you marvel at how people centuries and oceans removed from you in time and place, could experience the exact same emotions about life as you did, it would be worth the read. There's so much more to it, but Dostoyevsky had such a knack for digging deep into universal human experience. And it's just a hell of a good story too."
Classics
diva read GIFGiphy"Speaking as somebody who isn't religious, the literary value of the Bible (and the Hebrew Bible) is severely underrated."
I took a class on it in college, with a prof who'd once allegedly gotten into a bar fight over Beowulf. We would sometimes spend half a class discussing a single verse or two because there's so much stuff going on under the hood."
- dmillson
I know so many of those. And sadly, I'm already behind in my studies. I love books and I'm always on the path to find more to consume. Let me ready my already lengthy list.
WAR
War Shockwave GIFGiphy"All Quiet on the Western Front. Everyone should have to reckon with the reality of what war actually means."
- BigHern
Thanks Teach...
"Night, by Elie Wiezel. It is absolutely heartwrecking , and I hated every moment of reading it, which is exactly the effect it is supposed to have."
"Came here looking for this one. I had to read it back in high school and it blew me away how moved I was by it. Stories like his need to be remembered for all time, no matter how hard it is to get through (emotionally-speaking; it's actually quite an easy and short read). I'm so grateful that my English teacher assigned it."
West
"The Westing Game."
"A Librarian here, such a terrific book. I have gotten so many kids to read it by hooking them with the fact that the reader can play the game and has all of the clues. And good luck as it is fiendishly clever."
All the Good Crazy
"The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Such a great book."
"Oh my god yes. I love this book for being the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the classics world. It is lengthy but has revenge, treasure, plots and schemes and drugs. There is nothing stuffy about this classic."
- skundrik
The "Good"
"The Giver- that book made my 9-10 year old mind really think about what was important in society. It was the first time the idea of "good" things having a negative consequence was presented to me. I think what makes it work is that we are learning how this whole society really works along side a character who has lived in it his whole life."
"As the facade of the utopian society begins to fall away to show devastating consequences of the "perfect life and society" the reader not only feels their shock but the main character's shock. This was a book I read in school 4 times- once in 5th grade and once in 10th for English and then in both high school and college sociology classes. This book written for 9-13 year olds made for great discussions."
Good and Bad of Life
read ford GIFGiphy"The Grapes of Wrath and/or Of Mice and Men. Both are heartbreaking, but not for the sake of being heartbreaking - instead they provide a glimpse of how freaking hard life can be, but also how beautiful it can be."
That is a lot of good advice. And a lot of great storytelling and advice giving. Did anyone miss anything that should be there? And make sure you read anything by Harlan Coben, he's a fav.
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