2024 US Presidential Election

[Thumpalumpacus]

It pains me to admit it, but he's right. There's that Broken-clock theory at work. Of course it's not a documentary; movies like that do serve as ads for the military. How successful, as ads, they are is open to question, but they certainly paint a picture of the military which is, shall we say, not entirely realistic -- and usually erring to the positive.

I should have noted my smartassery.  I was in the military too...it ain't always pretty but then neither is everything in military movies.

I would be surprised if military movies didn't have guidance from DoD in the same way that medical shows have medical advisors on staff.

Put it this way: If "Top Gun" ended with American pilots complaining about dropping bombs on targets that achieve nothing, do you think the USN would have offered them the use of multi-million-dollar jets and the pilots who fly them?

Forgive my citing Wikipedia, but here:

In Hollywood, many movie and television productions are, by choice, contractually supervised by the DoD Entertainment Media Unit within the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, and by the public affairs offices of the military services maintained solely for the American entertainment industry in Hollywood, Los Angeles [citation needed]. Producers looking to borrow military equipment or filming on location at a military installation for their works need to apply to the DoD, and submit their movies' scripts for vetting. Ultimately, the DoD has a say in every U.S.-made movie that uses DoD resources, not available on the open market, in their productions.[10]

[...]

The 1986 film Top Gun, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer at Paramount Pictures, and with DoD assistance, aimed at rebranding the U.S. Navy's image in the post-Vietnam War era. During the showings of the film, military recruiters set up tables in cinemas during its premieres. However, claims enlistments spiked as high as 500% are a myth, and enlistments only rose by approximately 8% in 1986.[12][13] By the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, Hollywood producers were stressing script writers to create military-related plots to gain production power from the U.S. military.[14]

That article contains an extensive list of movies made with DoD approval and support. Notable by their absence are antiwar films such as "Born on the Fourth of July", "Platoon", "Sand Pebbles" and others.

That's not to mention the expensive flyovers for sporting events which serve no purpose other than the ooooh-factor, or Navy Day in New York and San Fran.

You and I are both vets, and we both know how much horseshit comes from the higher chain of command. Pointing that out is not denigrating our service -- you know that as well as I do, we suffered their cockamamie bullshit too.

But it's true, the Pentagon is much less interested in presenting the truth as it is co-opting formats like the media, Hollywood, or the NFL in order to sell our service to the American public.