March 02, 2004

ALL MESSED UP

Sgt Mom has some advice for Hollywood filmmakers when it comes to making movies about the military. My husband and I went to see the movie Basic this summer, and about ten minutes into the movie I did a double-take and turned towards him. He was slouched down in his chair groaning, "I know, I know." For him, it was pure torture to watch a movie where a Sergeant wears Specialist rank, where they're riding in a Blackhawk and no one's wearing a Kevlar, and where there's a female Ranger.

Incidentally, one of the things that bothered him most about the show was that (spoiler...) the characters were able to switch identity by swapping dogtags. He grouched, "They look at your ID card; no one ever looks at your %#$@ dogtags to find out who you are." On the Saturday that he deployed, the SFC in charge shouted to the group, "Line up over here where you'll get weighed and have your dogtags checked!" I leaned over to husband and said, "If you switch with someone, no one will ever know who you really are..."

Posted by Sarah at March 2, 2004 07:17 AM
Comments

I assume you've heard the line about how the press gets things right, except when they report on things you know about.

Hollywood has to be worse, at least reporters are 'trained' to 'research' their topics.

Posted by: Blueshift at March 2, 2004 12:01 PM