Act of Valor
- Thread starter KingFish
- Start date
I think it's weird when people have to check their Facebook during a movie.
It was heartwrenching to see Brendan Looney's name scroll on the screen. He and his brothers played lacrosse for Navy. My kids were really heartbroken when we heard that he was killed in Afghanistan.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
I have been bothered by this from the first moment I heard about it. To me, this fly's in the face of what special forces in general, and the SEAL's in particular, are supposed to be about.
It is one thing for Hollywood to do their thing about special operations and it's fine for people to laugh at how they are portrayed; it's Hollywood. It's entertainment.
It is quite another to be putting active duty folks out on the big screen in some effort to take what started as a promotional piece and turn it into a full on movie. We don't need to know all this stuff. We don't need absolute realism. And it serves NO purpose for their special operations community.
The 'demand' for SEAL's has grown by over 70% the last five years alone. Given what it is they do and the, by definition, type of person it takes to do it, you don't just get more people qualified to do it by adverting. There isn't a young military minded man in the US who doesn't already have at the very least a vague idea of what special forces, army, Navy, Marines, Air force, you name it, is and does. So, who would a movie be for? Grandma? Fund raising? It's certainly not for trying to keep it as quiet and anonymous as possible and I think it will lead to broader misunderstanding of what they do, how they do it and what is and is not appropriate use of them.
I say all this as a near 50 year old who, in my dreams, would have loved to have been a SEAL as a young man. I would have never made it but, the idea of it, when I was younger, was really attractive. Now, as I age, I'd like to think I see military force, and the uses of it, with a less romantic mind set and a more reality based view. At the end of the day, we are talking about sending young men and women off to fight and very possibly die. It needs to be for damn good reasons and we, the people, who send them, should not have the mindset that, as good as these people are, that they are some infallible superhuman tools.
In any event, it just bothers me because I think it politicizes the Teams and I think, ultimately, it makes a very dangerous and demanding profession just that much more dangerous and demanding.
:shrug:
It is one thing for Hollywood to do their thing about special operations and it's fine for people to laugh at how they are portrayed; it's Hollywood. It's entertainment.
It is quite another to be putting active duty folks out on the big screen in some effort to take what started as a promotional piece and turn it into a full on movie. We don't need to know all this stuff. We don't need absolute realism. And it serves NO purpose for their special operations community.
The 'demand' for SEAL's has grown by over 70% the last five years alone. Given what it is they do and the, by definition, type of person it takes to do it, you don't just get more people qualified to do it by adverting. There isn't a young military minded man in the US who doesn't already have at the very least a vague idea of what special forces, army, Navy, Marines, Air force, you name it, is and does. So, who would a movie be for? Grandma? Fund raising? It's certainly not for trying to keep it as quiet and anonymous as possible and I think it will lead to broader misunderstanding of what they do, how they do it and what is and is not appropriate use of them.
I say all this as a near 50 year old who, in my dreams, would have loved to have been a SEAL as a young man. I would have never made it but, the idea of it, when I was younger, was really attractive. Now, as I age, I'd like to think I see military force, and the uses of it, with a less romantic mind set and a more reality based view. At the end of the day, we are talking about sending young men and women off to fight and very possibly die. It needs to be for damn good reasons and we, the people, who send them, should not have the mindset that, as good as these people are, that they are some infallible superhuman tools.
In any event, it just bothers me because I think it politicizes the Teams and I think, ultimately, it makes a very dangerous and demanding profession just that much more dangerous and demanding.
:shrug:
flomaster
J.F. A sus ordenes!
Glad I am not alone in this. I have particpated in many any "excercise" on the extraction side of the house. Some things do not need to be public.
