Not Hollywood, but an imprssive movie: "The Bridge" ("Die Brücke", 1959; telling quite accurately the situation my father lived when a 17 yrs old kid officer in the last year of war); Hollywood: "Rules of Engagement", anyone?
Hollywood and not, but both both entertaining and educating (from my POV):
I have had more than one discussion about RoE´s with my wife (who is a gung ho hothead perfectly prepared to go guerilla whenever Spain should be threatened by anybody, Franco education...
) and kids (as there is no obligatory mil since a few years they did not have to go and won´t think about it for too little money, they are actually shaking their heads when hearing about me or my dad, or my wife´s dad striving to go at one time; probably rightly so, I won´t interfere, just tell my part when asked; they almost cannot imagine the situation the guys in the film encounter themselves in, despite the fact that we (Spain) have so many guys in A´stan atm, some friends of them...);
Where my wife and sons are all getting really worked up when the Colonel (?) gets indicted, I feel (and argue, rather futile) it shows more or less the way a situation like the one described in the movie should be dealt with (not all hushed down, trust justice - more the European than the US in this respect, sorry...
), fairly realistically at least in this respect for me (and that the ambassador or the National Security Advisor would let him hang out to dry is also not too far away from reality, my guess).
That most of the scenes in recent (after ´75´s) war movies have nothing to do with reality, one thing. But then, you have (like my kids) folks that have just a rough idea on how things work in the military as they never had to or have to go (they relate to stuff mostly from what I or my father told them, the other GF was dead before they saw the planet, the GMs are all about the ´36 civil war in Spain which is a story all by itself as it was dividing families into friends and enemies), then it becomes questions about "what would you do if you were there" refering to the situation displayed, and hence a valid question that requests a valid answer.
My take always has been (when my kids were young: My youngest was born in ´89, how can I explain to her "The Wall" when even for me it was just a kind of "allegorical expression" until I saw it in an - obligatory in the late 60s - school excursion and realized it was actually a real and true wall, and it was of concrete) to explain what is Hollywood, what with respect to it is just the equivalent to a fairy tale, and what is (of cause only from my POV) the things they will have to worry about if ever in combat like situations from whatever angle or aspect.
LL: You gotta relativate movies by integrating them into your experiences, whatever others later make of them, their problem.
This latter part is commonly referred to as "education", and it is where may of us fail: Many of us adults want our kids to think as we do, we do not teach them to doubt everything anymore, as did our parents that lived a few wars.
Rattler
