Full Metal Jacket | Canadians First Time Watching | Movie Reaction | Movie Review | Movie Commentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- Simone & George are reacting to Full Metal Jacket for the first time! Canadians React!
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00:00 - Intro
01:08 - Full Metal Jacket
30:17 - Discussion
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The actor playing the drill sergeant, R. Lee Ermey, was a marine drill instructor. As far as I know he consulted on the boot camp scenes, and in the end played the role himself. I am sure there are differences to the real version, but likley far less than in other such depictions.
Yeah the scene is completely improvised - afaik the only improvised scene in any Kubrick movie, and every take had different dialogue. But Lee Ermey basically did filming this scene what he did as a real drill instructor.
He'd been acting for a little while already. He was in Apocalypse Now too.
@Doug Nading forgot the actors name, but the dude who originally was cast as drill instructor is the guy shooting in the helicopter.
@Doug Nading Recent interviews and articles seem to indicate it was less Kubrik coming to a realization and more Ermey campaigning behind the scenes to get an onscreen role in the film. The actor who was going to play the drill instructor (and whom Ermey was coaching) felt more than a little stabbed in the back by the whole experience.
I'M PRETTY SURE THERE'S INFORMATION ALL OVER TH-cam ABOUT THIS!! I REMEMBER SEEING SOMETHING THAT SAID R. LEE. ERMEY WOULD RECORD HIMSELF SAYING THOSE INSULTS FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME AND SEND THE TAPE TO KUBRICK!! FINALLY KUBRICK BROKE DOWN AND GAVE HIM THE PART!!
Bob Ross, the painter, was a military Air Force Instructor, the Air Force’s drill sergeant. When he got out he decided to never yell at anyone again, giving him is soothing and calm style in his painting videos.
Interesting!
No way
Never knew...
Fun fact. Thank you for this.
I came here to comment this very thing! thanks 😂
"It sounds like school insults"
Exactly. That was the point Kubrick was trying to make (also, with the Mickey Mouse song at the end and other choices of fun music): they are basically very young men with childish behavior still inside them and they had to go to war, so the war turns into a playground, which is very scary to think about.
Actually the choices of music, including the "bird is the word" song, are all songs from around Vietnam time, in which the soldiers would play during their time in Vietnam to keep moral up. Bird is the word was actually one of my favorites until Family Guy and the internet ruined it for me.
I've also heard it from Vietnam Vets that these guys grew up in the Mickey Mouse Club and John Wayne westerns were thrown into this mess and expected to function.
Mickey is constantly referenced... Mickey Mouse Bullshit! lol... Love Kubricks depth
It's similar if you watch Jarhead and "Generation Kill"
We are basically man-children. We talk shit, but still have love for each other. The schoolyard insults is why you can't take it seriously.
You just try to be creative and funny over actually bullying each other.
Every now and then, you do get that guy who is incredibly disliked, but you don't want to get snitched on for *light hazing, so you leave them alone.
Fun Fact: Lee Ermey was also the police captain in Seven, "This isn't even my desk!"... his fantastic performance in this opened up a completely new career path for him.
In Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (before Jackson became a superstar director), he played essentially the ghost version of Gunny Hartman.
He played a very similar character to that in Full Metal Jacket in the 1978 film, The Boys In Company C.
@Thracius Pratt
Shortly after this movie was made, he also had an appearance in a Coors commercial with a CGI'd John Wayne.
Cracks me up every time I see Seven!!
Lol he was also the little army sergeant in the Toy Story movies.
That cut and jump after Pyle kills himself is SO quick it gives you zero time to process what you just saw. Very much like war. A close family friend (a parent of a friend) of mine after I saw this in 1988, I asked him what Vietnam was like...and he said "we often didn't have time to think, until we had too much time to think." That comment has always stuck with me.
Aye, Iraq 2003 taught me that war is 90% boredom and 10% abject terror.
The yelling, screaming, and even the mental and physical abuse was exactly how boot camp was during the Vietnam era. It has changed a lot. Now days the physical abuse has been outlawed but the psychological has been honed.
My brother got the shit smacked out of him for laughing at the drill instructor. This was in 08
@@imasmokaahh806 yea i came from parris island in april i definitely watched a few of the recruits in my platoon get abused.
Its not even the worse training the seals and SAS in the UK and other special forces around the world go through hell I always find it crazy that guys who have been through boot camp and some of the hardest training can still washout of special forces training
I went through in 03. physical abuse is illegal, but hard physical corrections were how they get around it. like correcting your hand position by physically slamming your hand into your thigh hard enough to make a bruise.
one day, in phase 3, one recruit refused to get out of bed to assume firewatch, eventually the firewatch had to get the DI, who lifted the lazy asshole by his neck out of his rack and slammed him into it moving that rack into a 2nd then a 3rd. nobody really felt sorry for him, if anything we were annoyed he got to graduate, but there's always one of those...
But without the looming threat of physical abuse, the verbal abuse surely loses some of its edge.
Easy for me to say, but I think something necessary's been lost, and may yet have to be re-discovered the painful way.
Imo, it's probably not unrelated to the relative lack of success in wars of recent history (not a comment on the soldiers directly, but on the societies they're coming from)
25:33 Kubrick hated flying so almost all the Vietnam scenes were filmed in the UK.
The urban combat scenes in Hue were filmed in the middle of London at a derelict gasworks, Kubrick actually had sections demolished to add to the worn torn look of the location.
The scenes in Da Nang were filmed on the Isle of Dogs, close to where Canary Wharf now stands.
The Norfolk countryside was used for rural areas (like the helicopter scene)
Indeed, the Marine H-34 helicopters were all RAF Wessex. You can tell because they were powered by Gas turbines rather than piston engines.
There were a lot of old factories in the docklands being demolished to build expensive new high rise flats, perfect locations for setting fires and demolishing buildings.
My dad became a marine in 1969. He said that this portrayal of the drill instructor was overall accurate. They would say whatever the hell they wanted to the new recruits and if you swung at them they would just kick the crap out of you.
My uncle said this was the most accurate portrayal he has seen in a movie of what boot camp was like
The nickname "Charlie" comes from the NATO phonetic alphabet for the initials "V.C", "Victor Charlie". Viet Cong = V.C. = "Victor Charlie" = "Charlie"
Yep. And "the other word" has been a generic american insult for random groups of people since the 19th century
@@donotevenbegintocare Genuine question, what other word?
@@MidnightHowling the one that starts G and rhymes with book. Been used for Asians for awhile.
Then there is Nathaniel Victor. North Vietnamese Army = NVA. Although its not November Victor Alpha, so just Mr. Nathaniel Victor if you happen to be in combat with an actually the NVA.
It's complicated, but boredom and the near constant fear of death creates really sardonic humor and a twisted worldview.
@@chrisconversino6294 Thanks for educating me ;)
For my defense, I'm not a native speaker
"Is all that yelling and verbal abuse real or is it a movie thing?"
It's very, very real. I went through (US Army) basic training in 1993, at which point many things had changed from the time frame when Full Metal Jacket was set. Drill Sergeants were no longer allowed to physically strike recruits, for example, although as my Senior Drill explained to us on day one, "there's no rule saying I'm not allowed to hit Army _equipment_ though, and I guess it'd just be your tough luck if you happened to be wearing it at the time." They were also no longer allowed to sling racial, religious, or sexual slurs at us. But the yelling, screaming, and insults began *immediately* when you got into basic training, and continued throughout the course (although they became far less frequent toward the end).
You have to understand that it's not *all* about "breaking people down" or "molding soldiers", it's also very practical--there's generally only one or two drill sergeants (or instructors, in Marine lingo) in control of 60+ recruits, and especially in the current all-volunteer US military, most of those recruits go into basic training already with a great deal of self-confidence, toughness, and varying degrees of alpha-type personality. The drill sergeant needs to establish immediately and definitively that *they* are in charge, *they* are tougher than you are, and *they* are the only true alpha in the room. That way there's far less chance of any recruits fighting back, verbally or physically, which could lead to serious injuries and *would* lead to federal criminal charges being brought against that recruit (and effectively ruining their life, to say nothing of their military career).
Also, as the saying goes: if you can't perform with a couple of people yelling at you, you're certainly not going to perform with dozens of people *shooting* at you.
EDIT: "Drill Sergeant" is most definitely a character that they turn on during duty hours, then laugh their asses off over a few beers after hours while exchanging stories amongst themselves about what stupid shit their recruits did that day. I never really had the opportunity to "hang out" with a basic training drill sergeant off hours, but when we got to AIT (follow-on training when you learn your specific military job) things were much more relaxed and we did get to know our drills outside of the training environment.
As a USMC 93 grad of Basic I concur
Respect for you lads its something i couldnt do.
did basic in 97, can confirm this is 100% accurate.
Came here to add this as well. My drills were all ridiculously chill after graduation that I kept expecting it to be a trap. They'd drawn us in with the "fake friend" routine before. But seriously there were handshakes, laughs, they were really happy for us. It was such a strange turn from a few hours before hand.
Basic, infantry and airborne at Benning 97'. It's very real, most of them switch it off when they are off work. In my case I went to Bragg and a year later my DS showed up as my platoon sgt. The look on my face when he remembered me...
Stanley Kubrick was a one of a kind director. After Kubrick's death, Martin Scorsese simply said, "No more Stanley Kubrick movies." If you were a fan, you knew exactly what he meant. His films were unique, thought provoking, groundbreaking technically and are influential to this day. Please watch more of his films, you won't regret it.
My favorite part of the film is them singing at the end. The stark contrast between the cheerful innocent kids they once were and how far from humanity the military had driven them from it. The film puts common naivety on full display numerous times.
I served in the Marines for 4 years, and obviously went through basic training. R. Lee Ermey was a former drill instructor, and his portrayal was about as spot on re: a real life DI as you can get.
When I went through it was mostly the heavy and the kill hat that did all the yelling. The senior would just "call off" the other DI's and say he's "taking care of us".
@@JoeyEnn Yeah, most people don't know it was even worse in reality cause there isn't just one SDI but also two other JDI's...that "john Wayne" comment first would have never happened but before Hartman got there or reacted a JDI would have been over there up his ass. ha!
They show them at the beginning of the movie and during the wakeup call, trash can scene but it makes sense they condensed everyone into Hartman. I mean it worked. haha
I was called a cheese d--k in Cadets by a drill Sargant.
But I'm not Italian so it was very confusing.
Of all the ethnic slurs he picked the one that doesn't apply to me....
Yes it was a joke. I apologize for the confusion.@@clh35
Yes it was a joke. I apologize for the confusion.@@clh35
With regards to calling The vietnames "Charlie" - the United States often called them the Viet Cong. It was commonly shortened to VC, which in military alphabet code was spoken as Victor Charlie. It was further shortened to just Charlie.
If you thought Vincent d'Onofrio was terrifying here, he has a GREAT role in "The Cell" with Jennifer Lopez as well.
The Cell is such an odd, disturbing movie.
Thank you for reminding me about that nightmare fuel.
Oh my god please do The Cell!
The Cell is disturbing but I still love it.
@@billparrish4385 there reaction will be insane.
My favorite line in the whole movie is when Joker says, "I hope they're just fuckin'with us. I ain't ready for this shit." So true.
Five seconds later he’s blasting
@@jasonkh4 it beats dying
4:06. I was a Marine for 7 years and technically they weren't supposed to hit us. But what happens in boot camp stays in boot camp and we all buy in because that's what we're taught to respect. Also the mind games in this movie are on point dialed to 100 because those silent drill instructors who walked into the room with him later in the movie when he's waking up his platoon would also be yelling. Those are the junior D.I.'s, the "Green Belts" and they're basically drill instructors in residency. They're not experienced or tenured enough to have platoons of their own yet and so assist the senior D.I.. They're usually harder on the platoon than the senior D.I. which this movie didn't really have the time to demonstrate. The senior is the patriarch, the one you go to when you have issues but he's still a hard ass. So imagine Lee Ermey exactly as depicted in this movie along qith 2 or 3 other rotating junior D.I's who are all scarier than he is and that's boot camp in a nutshell. At least when I went in in '98.
Another thing is they do a tremendous job of convincing you that they are like this all the time. They don't even really break kay fabe during graduation. But when I was in field training I had a cool conversation with one of the training instructor who was a really chill staff sergeant and he told me stories from the fleet. Mind you I was only less than a month out of boot and I was terrified of D.I's for at least another year. Somewhere along in the conversation he was talking about one of his old platoons he was in charge of and how he might go back to "training". Well as the convo ensued I slowlu realized that it was a boot camp platoon he was describing and he was a D.I. and I quickly lost my relaxed demeanor and began to go into boot camp mode and he noticed, told me to relax and revealed to me that they mostly weren't "on" like that all of the time. Some of them were, but most weren't.
Same here. I got kicked in the head doing push up. I remember some officer coming in and asking us has the DI ever hit you. Everyone said no, but we all wanted to shake our heads yes. Semper Fi
@@ChanceNix I got kicked in the head too! I was wearing a kevlar helmet and we were being punished sitting on the ground and holding our rifles out and I was getting fatigued. Even innocuous sh*t you might have said in a phone call home can get back to them and have you on the quarter deck for weeks. Oorah Devil.
My late uncle was a Marine "Gunny" Gunnery Sergeant and explained that the yelling and intimidation is to help train you to remain focused under assault/pressure. They actually learn how to properly shout & yell.
I worked with a guy who had trained to be a drill sergeant in the Army and he said as part of the training they would stand in front of a tree and yell at it.
@@scottpoyer5678 Jesus! Can't imagine seeing that. . .I'd be in huge trouble, I'd be cracking up. Uncle Tony would sometimes yell when he got mad as though he was back training basics and we would make it worse from laughing. Miss him
Biloxi blues 1988 is one other take ww 2 era , Christopher Walken as a drill sergeant ... Men do not face enemy machine guns because they've been treated with kindness. I don't want them human. I want them obedient. I'm tryin' to save those boys lives, you crawlin' bookworm. You stand in my way, I'll pulverize you into chicken droppings.
@@pete_lind YEEESSS Another classic! Toomey was the best. Happy almalagueña!
Black Mirror --- Men Against Fire
George: "Remember when the drill sergeant was just yelling at people?"
Simone: "I miss the yelling..."
Same! When we leave the island and get dropped in the actual war, the film becomes even more intense and depressing. One of the best war movies ever made!
Oh, so that must be why Kubrick made the part 2 in Vietnam War "boring." That makes sense. To make the viewers also miss the part 1 in the boot camp.
I'm sorry. Eating the island a.d knowing what that means is alot
I always took it that the reason the film has 2 half’s is. That Private Pyle represents what the army does to recruits. The destruction/ death of a person as an individual, turning someone into a compassion less killer. Then the 2nd half is the consequences of that and joker just about manages to maintain his humanity through it but only just.
I think the reason why Joker is able to just narrowly keep his humanity might be because of Private Pyle's death. Perhaps some sort of guilt at how he treated him and driving him to that point.
In my opinion the second half of the movie is the coronation of the first in the way it builds up to the final battle scene where we are basically presented with the collapse of the militaristic mythology.
If you think about it, in the first part we are shown an institutional attempt at creating a mighty war machine by turning people into efficient and fearless killers. At the end of the movie we witness a building block of this mighty machine being taken apart a piece at a time by a... young girl, who probably wasn't even formally trained and learned to fight by living in a war zone.
All the training and all the attitude couldn't prevent that outcome and managed to barely prepare those guys for the stress and the pain that the war was going to inflict on them.
The way Simone said 'Jayne!" and her facial expression when George mentioned Adan Baldwin what the cutest thing
Kubrick was a genius. The feeling of being lost, ''what is the mission', going for point to point without knowing why and what to do was basically the feeling of that war to the soldiers. The randomness, senseless of it all is exacty the theme.
Fun fact: this was filmed in my home town in the UK, and my Dad was one of the extras driving the trucks in the scene were they are walking up the the mass grave.
Toxteth after the riots?... ;)
Guessing that might've been Norfolk or Cambridgeshire way (fairly pleasant countryside - albeit flat as the proverbial - rather than the bleak desolation of the later portion) ?
(I remember another reactor saying that the final scenes looked like the end of the world and me thinking "Nah, that's just Beckton" :)
The scenes of Vietnam were mostly shot in London’s Docklands. At the time, they were getting pulled down for redevelopment, hence the scenes of urban deprivation. Also explains the lack of American helicopters as most were borrowed from the RAF (Westland Wessexes) and repainted.
D'Onofrio is such an underrated actor. He is so incredibly versatile, and so good at showing a huge array of emotion. Just looking at his face in some scenes, and you see an entire story. This is a brutal movie, and he is brilliant in it.
8:55 My nephew was a Kill Hat and Senior DI at MCRD San Diego. He was also a Senior DI martial arts instructor as well. In person, he's a cool gentle soul. He's only about 5 foot 5. But when he put's his Kill Hat on, he turns into one scary SOB. His voice changes, he becomes a psychopath who easily makes grown men cry! Hahaha It's a character they put on, but they're so damn good at it!
The Marune Drill Instructor Sgt. Hartman played by R. Lee Ermey was a real life Marine Drill Instructor. This was Ermey first role. He was originally just supposed to be a technical advisor on the movie. Got the role. The original actor lost the role to him. I guess you two last saw him in Seven.
Additionally, rather than script Ermey's opening dialogue, Kubrick let Ermey improv the whole thing.
This is not R.L. Ermey’s first role. Most notably, he played a Marine Drill Sergeant in the movie “Boys in Company C” which is a much better and believable movie.
@@McPh1741 He also had a cameo as a helicopter pilot in Apocalypse Now, where he was working as a technical advisor for the production.
@@McPh1741, Drill Instructor, not Drill Sergeant
RIP
My friend's dad was a Marine. He would watch all war movies and have a good laugh at the inaccuracies and the over dramatizations. But he always refuses to watch this movie but it was just too real. Too real that he cried a few times watching this movie.
My dad (RIP) survived Nam in the marines too. He said this was too realistic to ever watch twice.
@@cyclone8974 I'm not sure, but he couldn't handle the mental attacks of the drill sergeant. He said the seconds half was easier to watch than the first half. I don't know, and I can't clarify. He had PTSD and took his life almost 20 years ago.
@@cyclone8974 You as well.
@@cyclone8974 Well to a large degree, FMJ gets the look and feel of Vietnam aesthetically wrong--but out of necessity. Kubrick shot the film entirely in England, a location that looks entirely different from the Tropical Monsoon climate of Hue. What little we see of the natural surroundings looks more like the dry seasons of Vietnam south of Hue--but during a really, really bad drought.
There are a lot of things the film gets historically right, though, in ways other VIetnam movies fail. The proliferation of the sex trade in Vietnam--which is actually part of the reason the sex trade in neighboring Thailand is persistently so large. The BT scenes take some satirical license, but many of the details are genuine--including the Rifleman's Creed.
And the use of machine guns primarily as suppression fire are a reality of modern infantry tactics--and began roughly during the Vietnam era. Even alot of the technical details in the film are genuine. Such as, that the Privates in BT were using M-14s, whereas their service rifles were M-16s which were developed during the Vietnam War. The fact that Joker's rifle fails is itself a reference to the perception at the time that the M-16 was an inferior weapon to the M-14. (Although, the M-16 is still in service in the US Armed Forces and its poor performance during the Vietnam War has been disregarded as either a misrepresentation of soldiers' feedback or a result of poor training.)
@@davewolf6256 The M16 at that time wasn't the same rifle as is in use now. Subtle changes were made and so it now requires less maintenance. (Identical thing happened when the U.K. switched to the hopelessly unreliable SA80, which over a decade underwent modification becoming the much superior L85A1.)
Punishing everyone in your squad (except you) for your mistake actually makes a lot of sense, not just psychologically, but practically, since in combat, if you make a mistake you actually do get everyone else in trouble real hard.
The "Accent" in the marching was when the person "calling" the prepatory command, would give you "inflection" to allow soldiers to "anticipate" the "actual command."
I'm a Marine, I went through Marine Corps bootcamp in November 1978. This is exactly what it was like to survive bootcamp. It was the worst and best time of my life. We were killers not robots that's what they wanted from us. All my staff NCO'S were Vietnam and Korean combat veterans. I got the best training in the world from these veterans. Semper Fi 🇺🇲
Semper fi Devil dog! I just went graduated in September 2021, will never forget those times.
Vietnam, undefeated.
@@JojoTheRedThe north “won.” The whole country became communist. Therefore, the whole country lost.
"It's a very... unexpected movie." and you have now defined all Stanley Kubrick films.
George, reguarding the marching sequence at 4:30. The reason drill instructors place emphasis on particular words is to create a cadence/tempo that new recruits can use to learn how to march in unison. So for instance, a hard emphasis might indicate when the right foot should go down. After days and days of marching you get the cadence in your head and you don't have to think about which foot should be down or up. Usually at the end of bootcamp family fly in to see a graduation ceremony where they all march in, and you want that to look disiplined and military. They do the same thing when running as a group to establish a pace so no one gets out of place. I'm not sure how bootcamp is today, but when I went through in the mid 70's it was just like this.
Awesome review of an awesome movie. I was a Drill Instructor in US Army from 1989-1992 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. When I was a Drill Instructor, I had to attend training for 9-weeks AND go through the exact same experiences that the trainee(s) would have to go through from Drill and Ceremony (marching); rifle ranges; confidence course; extended road-marches just to name a few things.
When I entered the Army in 1981, they were trying to phase out the "face slaps" and other types of "hands-on" corrective training, but it did happen back then.
ALL the racial "expressions" were pretty much outlawed starting in mid-1970s or earlier and IF you heard any it usually came from the trainee(s) (Drill Instructors could be/can be relieved from duty if they used that type of language).
The "accent" during the marches/running is voice inflection by using your diaphragm/lungs in order to speak loudly and NOT destroy your throat - remember that a Drill Instructor is "speaking" to a large group of personnel, and he/she has to get information out to everyone as clearly as possible. You are taught this voice inflection during training and - yep - destroyed my throat numerous times whenever I forgot to use my diaphragm properly.
The "singing" while marching/running is called "cadences" and is used to build morale AND to keep everyone IN STEP, otherwise everyone would literally be tripping all over themselves/each other. The type of "colorful" cadences is also to help build morale. During my time, "colorful" cadences were being outlawed (have NO idea what is used in today's "modern" military).
Head shaving is done to make everyone (males only) look the same and be treated the same. Others probably made comments as to remove the trainee(s) sense of individuality/ego's and such - remember that Drill Instructors (regardless of Branch) have a very short time to mold over 150+ personnel into a T-E-A-M. Also, the head shaving is to control whatever cooties that may be living in the hair for you do get individual(s) who DO NOT PRACTICE proper personal hygiene.
VC = Victor Charlie. Victor & Charlie are the NATO phonetic alphabet words for the letter's "V" & "C".
G!!! (that other word) was used extensively throughout the Korean War and was definitely meant NOT to be a flattering word towards Asian persons. Korean War Veterans that were still in the military and went to Viet Nam introduced that word to the Viet Nam generation. I have read that that word was just a word in the Korean language meaning people/person but was corrupted into its current derogatory meaning during the Korean War - I could be wrong about its actual meaning, but that is what I have read in books concerning the Korean War.
This is just a few comments on my experiences as a Drill Instructor. By reading some of the other comments, there are some way better and in-depth explanations, so do recommend reading them.
Vincent D’Onofrio does not get nearly enough credit for all of the amazing roles he has played, and part of the reason is because a lot of his roles are heavy with make up or costumes which greatly affect his recognizability, but he’s absolutely amazing in everything.
I agree my brother. Even check him out in " broken horses" its a neo western crime drama. The film itself is a remake of An Hindi Indian gangster film called " Parinda" . Both made by the same director 😎. Vincent in broken horses plays a mob boss who has an extream fear of Fire. He plays the role of the original version perfectly.
R. Lee Ermey said that Pyle was his favorite character.
I was just thinking when the guy was saying in those 2 roles(plus this one) how he was terrifying,for those 3 characters he was terrifying in completely unique ways from each other
If a soldier can’t take the stress of being yelled at in boot camp, how well can they handle the stress of combat? In combat and war, things have to be structured. Follow orders. Can’t have a bunch of different people giving different orders and ideas. And going through harsh boot camp breeds camaraderie and a sense of brotherhood.
@@ThreadBomb Wow. I was in the Navy back in '80. Boot camp never 'traumatized' me. In fact anyone whom would be traumatized doesn't need to be a part of a team when the going gets rough. Boot camp weeds out the slackers and others not fit for combat. I saw an organisation designed to safely bring people from all walks of life together to be educated about the service they've entered. During this time they are given specific tasks and ways of doing them while being placed under an amount of duress. The real fun begins when you get your first assignment.
Not always. I mean, I won't say Basic is pointless. It's really effectively accomplishes what it says it does--training in each of the fundamental areas of expertise to be a functional soldier. But it is high stress and physically demanding. Many Privates get personally injured during Basic, others don't have the right makeup for Basic or service. They're supposed to be weeded out. But some people do pass Basic but are scarred by it--and it affects them in service.
I would say that is the problem with Basic Training in the Armed Forces--not that it is so demanding, but that it's not perfect at weeding out Section 8s. I've heard stories from retired JAGs of some Defendants who have cracked when on Reserve Duty. I've also heard of the kind of harassment as happened to Gomer Pyle from a family friend, now a retired Marine. And not because it was provoked, but because the enlisteds just act that way. (There was also this one Private, an occultist, who freaked out when someone touched his Tarot deck and had a nervous breakdown and went Section 8 weeks later.)
The problem with Vietnam was different. US Policy effectively made it so unfit draftees had to pass BT unless they were a Section 8. And as Lee Ermy said in an interview, Drill Instructors had a moral dilemma--they had to prepare many of these young men for certain death. In their mind, even abuse was justified--to prepare those boys to kill instead of getting killed.
I once heard my late Grandfather, who was a retired Marine, say "I don't know why they yelled at us like that in Boot Camp! It didn't do anything." I think there is an argument to be made that much of Basic is superfluous, is just meaningless tradition. Full Metal Jacket makes that point succinctly--a smaller, lesser trained, worsely supplied guerrilla army defeated the South Vietnamese and its technocratic support. And they did it without a similarly demanding Basic Training program. I would agree that Basic is probably necessary for waging the types of wars the US does. *But maybe the way America waged war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is obsolete--and that that is the real lesson of the Vietnam War.*
@@terrylandess6072 This is pretty much nail on head. If you can't stand the "trauma" of boot camp, you sure as hell won't survive the trauma of combat.
All the off-duty instructors I've met are some of the nicest people. Being loud and scary is just their job.
They also give commands that way because it's easier to make certain sounds louder without destroying your vocal chords, which is necessary when you need to be heard by a group of people in an open field. Command Voice is a great skill to have. Like having a microphone at all times.
This is exactly how basic training was when I was in. The accents on certain syllables when calling cadence is to signify stepping on your left foot, or the first motion of action being called. You always step with your left first. So the first and 3rd syllables will be pronounced. And the speed of the cadence keeps the steps at desired pace.
Yeah, private Pyle's demise shows a pretty heavy deconstruction of the hero's arc fantasy we see in other movies. He turns himself around, becomes a seemingly useful marine and if this were any other movie he'd end up a brilliant heroic soldier in tremendous physical shape who his squadmates admire. Instead they all hate him, he's about to go to to the other end of the world where he's likely to die, feels he has no other way out and ends his life. Kubrick doesn't do sappy feel good fantasy, he intends to show what this kind of thing actually results in
It seems to me Animal Mother takes the place of Gomer Pile, like a bizarro version.
There was a program in the 60s that lowered the IQ score necessary to serve. It was a disaster. So much so they got the nickname "McNamara's Morons". McNamara being the Secretary of Defense.
imo Pyle didn't seem to think about the war, if he wanted to avoid deployment he could've simply failed basic, or not shoot himself and get put in prison. I think he just hated Hartman and after getting revenge was too broken to see anything worth living for
Pyle is an example of McNamara's Morons. During the war, they weren't meeting recruitment numbers on top of the compulsory draft so they lowered standards, including IQ standards. The military has one of the best test administered prior to enlist that measures IQ, now more so because this era showed how dangerous a person with an inadequate intelligence could be when a bare minimum is need to complete a mission alongside others. Some of the guys that got deployed to Vietnam despite low IQ did as much damage to American forces as the Vietnamese. One event, a guy grabbed a hand grenade and started to play with like a baseball with some of the other low IQ guys, the pin ended u getting pulled and killed a few of the guys including the Officer tasked with keeping them in order.
Also, there should be some measure of emotional dysregulation before enlistment. Today, many young men enlist because they come from broken homes in poor communities with no prospects of a better life. Those guys tend to have emotional baggage they haven't faced.
Sorry, man, but fragging your drill instructor is the most sappy of soldier fantasies, and it happened a few times in Vietnam, by drug-addled soldiers.
The scene where private Pyle gets beat by his company actually does happen, it is called a "blanket party", it happens to the recruit who always gets the company in trouble, when I was in boot camp, it happened to a guy, to a much lesser degree, though.
Also known as a Code Red (term popularized cause of "A few good men")
@@migiplayz91 During Boot Camp, it's referred to as a blanket party, code red is what it's called after boot camp.
The only problem with the blanket party in the film is that they didn't cover Pyle's face so he could see who hit him including Joker. Normally the recipient would have blanket put over his face so he couldn't identify who took part. It could have been 2 guys are a dozen.
My uncle/tio was a drill sergeant in the marines for many years and from what I understand this movies is the most realistic portrayal of Marine Corp training or boot camp. I believe the actor playing the drill sergeant in the movie was also one for years before acting.
The bootcamp scene was pretty realistic for the time. I went through bootcamp at Parris Island in 1970. It was an experience! The DIs do soften up a bit as you near graduation. There is a purpose behind everything the DIs do!
My late uncle, by marriage, served in the USMC during WWII, then was a Parris Island drill instructor for later wars. He was so quiet, so soft spoken, so gentle... he never spoke of his service. I gather, from others, he experienced his share of hell in WWII and felt obligated to train/harden his men for what he knew they would have to experience.
The battle sequence was shot at Beckton Gas Works in London's Royal Docks which was being redeveloped. They brought in huge palm trees and placed them in large metal skips (used for waste). The crew were faced with significant dangers presented by the toxic conditions of the abandoned docks, particularly from asbestos and poisonous chemicals.
Another excellent movie that is set in a basic training "An Officer and Gentleman" (1982). It's set about 15 years later, after the Vietnam War had ended, and the trainees are college graduates looking to become officers. As a result, the conditioning is less violent and more psychological (because if it was too harsh they could all just quit), but the goal of breaking down their individuality and become part of a team is still there. Lou Gosset, Jr., played the drill sergeant and won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Highly recommended.
Funnily enough, the enttire film was made in England. All that street fighting stuff was actually filmed in London, at the derelict/abandoned Millenium Mills (built in 1905) and Beckton Gas Works which was closed in the 70s. The boot camp stuff at the beginning, and some of the vietnam scenes (complete with imported palm trees) were filmed at Bassingbourn Barracks just outside Cambridge.
Hey guys love your channel. Just wanted to answer a few questions y’all mentioned mainly about boot camp…
1. The head shaving was Initially done because people from all over are being brought to live in close confined spaces. It was mainly to prevent head lice and other things running rampant. It is also to initially bring everyone down to the same “level”. No individuality. You are from that moment on, a “unit”
2. The yelling and tearing down, is very much real. The whole point of boot camp is to break away all attitude and ego and learn to do nothing except what you are told. As it goes on, the “abuse” gets much less and less as your team or squadron or flight gets more used to things. But those first few days or first week, is all about breaking you down.
3. The beatings, and the language. Both of these things are “officially” not allowed to be used by drill instructors. There are rules now where they can’t do overtly racist statements, and they are not supposed to strike you. But depending on the branch and the instructor, they still do.
4. The drill instructors…they go through training themselves, in order to use their diaphragm to make their voices more louder. That “accent” or way they speak and talk like that, is a result of them pushing their voices louder. And no, 99% of the time, they don’t typically talk like or sound like their drill instructor alter egos. Often times you start to pick up that the drill instructors are just saying outrageous shit to get a laugh from eachother, and to try and bust someone for cracking up.
R. Lee Ermey said that drill instructors were practically stand up comedians.
I figured the head-shaving was also practical, for not giving an enemy something to grab, in hand-fighting.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 not so much, as that is practical, but as seen in the movie after you’re out of your boot camp and training, you’re allowed a bit more freedom to grow your hair out to a certain length, but still has to be kept within certain regulations. A lot of it is just based on the type of guy. (And I say “guy” as we’re basically talking about the “high and tight” crew cut styles and when they shave). Many guys like the “24/7 always military all-the-time look”, and some like to “leave it behind” in their off time and feel like they’re blending back into the civilian world.
@@jude7225I think shaving head in army, is more of the tradition that was born for easier hygiene in bygone days. But I do admit, shorter hair or bald was much easier to maintain in extended periods in terrain and in excercises. So during my time I ekpt it short as possible or bold for sake of being lazy. When I got back civilian life, I grew hair back immediately.
@@thejamppa hey there. And I hear ya, and my days were in the Air Force from ‘94-‘98 so admittedly some things or branches may have changed. Also have more recent family in army. But we definitely had our heads initially shaved though in boot camp too. And I don’t particularly have the good “bald head” look so as soon as I got to my regular base I was growing my hair out as long as I could. (At least as far as the top and bangs that I could gel back or hide under my hat lol)
4:04 It was real… it was ALLL REAL… so real that eventually they had to stop being as harsh(Nationally debatable) in basic… but for the Corp… yup even more hardcore in real life, back then… definitely not now tho.
If I remembered correctly, one of the reasons your head is shaved is to prevent the enemy from grabbing it and slashing your neck...just like if you're fighting someone wearing a suit and tie. You can take advantage and grab the tie to try and choke your enemy. I've heard its also about cleanliness too.
na bro, it's about not spreading lice. You have a bunch of people from all walks of life, from farm boys to orphans who join because they don't have family, to people wanting free college, to near homeless people. You gotta take some precautions
@@mcpudd1540 Actually that's what I meant at the last sentence of my post. When I said cleanliness, I meant like hygiene so you don't spread any lice. My apologies. I should have made it clearer.
Probably originated from a combination of combat safety and dealing with "infestations" such as lice.
0:37 the impression of Edgar was spot on it cracked me up 😂
Lee Ermy, the Drill Sergeant, improvised most of his amazing monologues!
He would sit with the Director and come up with funny (don't dare laugh!) yet deeply insulting lines; a tape-recorder nearby captured it all.
His audition tape was weird: he is sitting in a chair, delivering his unique brand of 'motivation', while a person off-screen is pummeling him with oranges!
Not once does Ermy break character or even seem to acknowledge the fruity assault.
Ermey cleverly appeared in other actors audition tapes as their drill instructors lol
He was also a former actual drill seargant.
In one Kubrick biography they said it was tennis balls… was it really oranges? That’s even more impressive!
The original drill sergeant was the guy who ended up the door gunner in the helicopter.
Ermey was hired to advise and train him (Ermey was an actual drill sergeant in a former life)
Ermey wanted the role for himself, so when Kubrick assigned him and the other actor to read lines to actors auditioning as extras, Ermey advised the other actor to 'play it low-key' so as not to overshadow the people auditioning, while Ermey went full-on, in-your-face madman, like he does on screen (supposedly made at least one candidate break down and cry).
The auditions were taped for viewing by Kubrick later, and Kubrick changed his mind and fired the original actor.
When that guy threatened to sue, Kubrick gave him the door-gunner role.
(The same actor was bitter about Ermey 'stabbing him in the back').
Ermey was already told by Kubrick that he couldn't audition for the role (because someone else was already under contract), so Kubrick supposedly congratulated Ermey for finding a way around that obstacle.
was there not a guy they hired and Ermy pointed out how unreal it was so they gave him a chance to show them and it was so good they hired him or is that an urban legend
"But under fire Animal Mother is one of the finest human being in the world"
My grandfather was a war vet. He was a medic during our country's revolutionary war. After finishing his military service he returned home and became a nurse at a general hospital. The doctors and nurses praise him for his fortitude and ability to stay calm in dire situations. However when he was at home I would see him chain smoke 3-4 packs of cigarettes a day, have trouble sleeping and stay up for days at at a time, have a flaring temper and drink constantly. I guess his time in the military and what he has seen cause him to be so maladjusted to what everyone feel as normal.
I don't think you mean revolutionary war. That was 250 years ago.
@@JayM409 His country's revolutionary war. Wherever that may be. He's not from the US.
Most likely Malaysia (Considering that's where it says hes from). They had a revolutionary war in the 50's I think?
@@JayM409 I think he was referring to HIS country’s revolutionary war, there’s 194 out there that are not called the United States. I actually have this crazy friend who believes there’s a land NORTH of the United States called “Canada.” I think he’s referring to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but I don’t judge him
@@SirBroadcast Indonesia, we fought the Netherlands when they returned to colonize us after Japan surrender. Its from 1945-1950. He then served after the Revolutionary War to fight insurrections in the country post the War of Independence.
@@SirBroadcast They did, my grandfather also fought in it - with the British army.
The origin of "Charlie" is from Viet Cong being shortened to VC, which over the radio would be "Victor Charlie".
Simone gets it. She had trouble expressing it but clearly understood the message
One detail I LOVE about this film is that the only member of the North Vietnamese Army we actually see is the young girl. Apart from a few silhouettes during the base invasion, we never see any other enemy soldiers, putting more focus on the American troops and they're decent into madness.
We're you in Vietnam?
@@norman6694 Nope. Wasn't even born yet.
@@MariusWales then stop repeating lies about vets
@@norman6694 Did I say anything about Vietnamese people?
@@MariusWales vets.....veterans
The idea with the haircuts, strict discipline, yelling, and sameness was to break them down and then rebuild them. It was also to let them understand they are to act as one unit and to run into the face of danger and kill before getting killed.
One thing I think people miss was the running across the water scene. Pyle is in front, Joker is holding him up, and the rest are following. Pyle screws up and falls despite the help. Everyone around him stumbles and falls as well. His mistake effected everyone. I believe it was to show why they are so harsh and cruel with the training. Weak links break the chain, and everyone dies.
There is also a Hygiene element to the haircuts, Lice, Ticks and the like. Makes sure that there are no nasties hidden away to be shared with everyone.
Vincent D'Onofrio is one of the most underrated actors working in film and television. He makes a good living portraying villains and psycho's but in my opinion his role of Detective Robert Goren in Law and Order Criminal Intent is some of his finest work.
Charlie is the phonetic alphabet word for the letter C. The phonetic alphabet helps eliminate the ambiguity of spoken communication over radios.
Viet Cong wash shortened to VC or over the radio was called "Victor Charlie" which was eventually shortened to charlie.
I was an officer in US Navy Boot Camp. I was not a “drill instructor” (we have a different term) but many times I’ve seen people slip in and out of character in half a second. It’s a character. They’re actually normal people and they tend to lighten up throughout the course of training as the recruits begin to gel and work as a team. People are yelled at but in a modern environment they wouldn’t be dehumanized like this. I have heard from Vietnam vets that this boot camp scene is spot on.
Part of the training is to force people to deal with stressful situations. If you can’t deal with someone screaming in your face while marching, how can you deal with fixing a leak while the ship is sinking? Part is just to teach extreme attention to detail. If a recruit can’t fold their underwear or bed sheets according to instruction, how can we trust they will do nuclear reactor control rod maintenance according to procedure?
Kubrick was an outstanding film maker. Maybe there should be a Stanley Kubrick poll on Patreon. A Clockwork Orange would have my vote
2001 is also a Founding work of sci-fi movies and shaped a lot of later Pieces
Clockwork Orange is truly a great movie with a small caveat. The gang fight scene looks like it was choreographed by Star Trek stunt men. It’s just jarring every time I see it because it’s truly a fantastic movie otherwise.
There is also Dr Strangelove and Spartacus, The Shinning, Lolita, Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon. I don't know how you can choose. My favorite Kubrick film is the one I'm watching!
Nobody reacts to Barry Lyndon, but it’s an astonishingly beautiful film and one of Kubrick’s best. I’d love to see them watch it.
@@johnshull2454 fun fact about that fight, it only lasted about 15 seconds, thats why it was filmed in slow motion
Oh, you asked about the purpose of the "marching songs". The main purpose is to provide a "cadence" to achieve 120 steps per minute and provide the correct step for additional movements. "Inflections" serve as a downbeat, usually when the left foot strikes the ground. Many cadences are creative and kinda fun. Love your channel!
It’s real. My dad was in Marine Boot camp in ‘64
Hey Guys, The armed forces originally, one of the reasons for the induction haircut was to reduce the chances of disease among closely quartered recruits from different geographical areas (with varying immunities), such as head lice. Furthermore, short hair also prevents the enemy from grabbing a soldier with long hair and slashing his/her neck.
Definitely a hygiene issue.
But also a psychological, training one.
Young men tend to invest quite a bit of their sense of individuality in their appearance, especially their hairstyles.
"That's over. Your identity now is what we tell you it is, and it's exactly the same as the guy to the right of you, and the guy to left of you"
I think it started in the U.S. Military during WW 1 due to the persistent problem of lice in the trenches.
@@GK-yi4xv Hygiene, yes.
Taking away individuality, more like fostering unity and cohesion. Uniformity is a powerful psychological tool for creating loyalty and camaraderie among people from disparate backgrounds. Another way to do that is through shared hardships, like those a platoon would go through in a bootcamp like setting.
The scene where Joker is talking about wanting to be the 1st one on his block to have a ‘confirmed kill’ was him being sardonic. He wasn’t saying it because it is his actual goal.
The line where Joker said he wanted to ‘travel to exotic lands, meet exciting, unusual people & kill them’ was based on a popular bumper sticker from the 70’s & 80’s. I think it’s a quote from a movie, called ‘The Great McGonagall.’
Country Joe and the Fish released an album in 1967 called I feel Like I'm Fixin to Die. The title track from that album was a specific anti-Vietnam-war song and contains the line, "Be the first ones on your block to have your kid come home in a box." I always felt Joker to have been riffing on that, nearly quoting an anti-war song in such a gung-ho way.
R. Lee Ermy, the drill sergeant in this film, was originally hired as a consultant as he was a real drill instructor. Kubrick loved his demonstration so much he cast him in the role.
I was on Parris Island, summer of 1989. Our DIs were not as intense as R Lee Ermey, but they were intense to be sure. One of them was crazy about our drilling performance. He was on the silent drill team. Did Embassy duty....and was also in Beirut during the bombing. The guy was and is a legend.
The yelling and berating is real. It teaches you to focus and follow orders under chaos. You don’t want to learn that during combat. I never met a drill sergeant that was the same person at work as they were outside of it. The longer you’re training and the closer you get to finishing, you usually get to see more of their normal side. Most drill sergeants do care about you and want to see you succeed. Training occupies almost their whole lives and those men and women have so much dedication to what they do.
Vincent D’Onofrio is a damn acting powerhouse.
One of the best hours of broadcast TV I ever saw was an episode of a show called Homicide: Life on the Street where D’Onofrio played a man who was pushed between a subway and the platform. His acting opposite Andre Braugher was simply masterful.
This reminds me. These guys need to watch The Wire
I forgot that was him in that episode, an absolutely phenomenal piece of television
My father was a Marine during Vietnam and he was on that Island. We visited the island with him around the mid 80's. We could walk the paved roads and that was it. He said the depictions in the movie are spot on.
He said the only thing drill instructors could not do was hit someone with a closed fist.
R. Lee Ermey was an actual drill sergeant and while he was a serious person irl, he also had a good sense of humor. Met him at a rifle competition(was not competing, was there doing IT work).
That "me so horny" line and "everyting you want" lines made it into the pure poetry by the the 2 Live Crew song "Me So Horny".
As for the use of Charlie, unlike other terms, it was not racial. The enemy of the US was called the Viet Cong, not the Vietnamese people. Charlie is the NATO word for the letter C(like Alpha for A, Bravo for B, etc), in this case used for Cong.
You should also see Adam Baldwin in one of the more fun series of the last 25 years, Chuck. It kind of jumped the shark in last couple seasons, with product placement right in your face but it was fun, nonetheless.
I went to see this with a Marine; 10 minutes into the movie, he leaned over to me and said, "This is real; that's what it was like."
It's not the same today. They've gotten a lot softer.
@@DestinyAwaits19 Yes, he was a Vietnam-era Marine, and it has changed since.
@@DestinyAwaits19 Have you ever been to Marine Corps Bootcamp? And heard the cries at night? Because unlike this movie you have 4-5 Drill Instructors, and the tormenting doesn't stop at night. If the answer is no, then shut the hell up. All you're doing is creating the idea that the "Marine Corps has gone soft". and then anyone who wants to be cool, thinks they can join, and then gets smacked right in the face when they learn that it isn't. You only call it soft because you have the pleasure of never having to attend it.
@@isaacserrano5095 Oorah devil dog. I take my words back.
4:05 - Back then, yeah, that was indeed a thing. They literally tore you down, so they could build you back "better". (I knew several Vietnam vets who swore to that fact)
4:40 - It's a "Cadence", to help establish and keep a constant rhythm.
"Charlie" comes from the Nato Phenetic Alphabet, its an example for "Evolved Slang".
The Enemy were called the Viet Cong, Or V.C.
In the Nato Phenetic Alphabet, V.C. = Victor Charlie, and that simply got shortened to "Charlie".
R. Lee Ermey did do it in one take during the opening boot camp scene, but that's because he had read the book the movie is based on before hand and the lines are all the same.
When Joker says he "wants to be the first on his block to get a kill", he is being sarcastic. Like saying "Look at me mom and dad! You raised a real good murderer! Aren't you proud?"
R Lee Ermey, who plays Sgt Hartman, was by all accounts a nice guy. But he used to be - you guessed it - a senior drill instructor. So he's just doing here what he used to do in the corps.
Was a nice guy
Vietcong as a VC was coded as Victor Charlie, later simplified to Charlie. Single letters have their codename because of the radio disturbances etc. for better chance to get a message through. So Alpha, Beta (or Bravo), Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf (Gustav), Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. Sometimes different words might be used with same goal. Same with the letters in coordinates.
In the rifle training scene after the soap attack, you can see Leonard not fully empty the first magazine, “the bolt didn’t lock back” these are the bullets he took back to the barracks.
I don't know how you guys feel about reacting to movies like this, but I definitely love seeing you spot things in thinkier and more thematic pieces like this and discuss them (I'm glad you're not belittling your intelligence anymore!). Not that it surprises me, but you caught on the whole "what makes a good soldier, makes a terrible human being" thematic on the first watch. Its structurally really weird and yes, rather built around a theme than a plot. For that reason, I find it gets better on repeated viewings.
The average US soldier in Vietnam was 19, so it's no wonder their insults are schoolyard level. And, of course, very old school so I'd guess they're period-accurate.
I mean, it's what the entire movie is about. It's kinda hard to miss the theme.
@@sjajsjsja4523 I’ve met a *lot* of people who don’t care about themes in movies and wouldn’t recognize one even if it shot them in the chest.
@@sjajsjsja4523 ...and every human is the same so everyone is seeing the movies like you do.
@@VilleHalonen That's because they're average, casual moviegoers that don't know or understand film-making.. The "theme" is the heart of the movie. The movie is regulated by it. The theme is why the majority of people go to the movies. It is not just because of the characters, story, plot, cinematography, or genre.
While movies don't necessarily require a huge conscious focus on conveying a particular abstract idea to be good, a high level of clarity and depth in the exploration of a given theme can be a major boon to a film's weight as a meaningful piece of art. Great filmmakers generally put some serious degree of thought into what they want viewers to take away from their work.
@@VilleHalonen Right? I know a marine and when I was explaining how they are singing a children's song at the end in the middle of such mayhem was another example of the 'duality' theme and he insisted that, 'no singing helps people march in rhythm' Forest for the trees
Kubrick was morbidly afraid of flying. The Vietnam set was a condemned gasworks in London. They bought in palm trees lol.
Yeah, the set design is NUTS.
Origin of the term Charlie in Vietnam. The Vietnamese forces that we fought against were called Viet Cong or VC for shorthand. In our military, they use a phonetic alphabet to spell things out. So, VC became Victor Charlie in military speak or, just Charlie, for shorthand.
The drill sergeant was played by R. Lee Ermey, who was also an actual USMC drill instructor. He was initially hired as a consultant but after hearing him do his routine Kubrick cast him in the part. Much of his dialog was unscripted and came from actual ways he would treat new recruits. He played a very similar character in a very good movie called "The Boys in Company C."
Boot camp depictions are more or less accurate from my experience, I always get a laugh and a nostalgic thrill out of the first half of the film. The haircuts and uniform appearance is for stripping the individual away and building a team, it's very effective.
@YT In my experience, 4 to 6 weeks. You go through dozens of hours of weapons drills, familiarisation, safety and simulated shoots before using live rounds. Need to earn the right to use them so to speak. Once you've been qualified for your primary rifle, the other firearms you're trained with are introduced more quickly since you've already proven yourself to be responsible on the range.
Bootlicker.
@YT When I went in the Army, it was about a year after this movie came out. Thinking back, I want to say that we got our M16's around the second week and fired them for the first time around the 3rd week, but I won't swear to that. That was 1988, a looooong time ago lol.
George: Oh my God. That's was like 17 minutes of straight screaming in my ear.
Me: Now imagine that but for 3 months 🤣 Still the best experience of my life
Also the Drill Instructor thing is a persona they turn on when they are around new recruits. After my platoon finished The Crucible in Boot Camp and had our first meal with the Drill Instructors as real Marines, we were all so surprised to see that they weren't complete assholes. They were, to be honest, some of the nicest people when they turned it off.
We got the crap beat out of us at Ft Jackson in '67...so when sarge stopped that 7.62 in the latrine,, as long as it's been since then..a lot of us got that warm and fuzzy feeling...
In the book, when the Drill Instructor is shot. He actually looks up and is proud of Pyle, then dies.
"What did you think of the structure?" Kubrick asked his next screenwriter. "Well... it didn't really have one, did it?" I remember being shocked when it suddenly just STOPPED. Now I think that's an amazing choice.
The main reasons for singing cadences when your running, is to 1, teach unity in your platoon, and 2 to increase lung capacity and breath regulation. you never know how far or how fast you may have to run in war
My understanding of shaving the hair is a twofold effect: one is lice and the other is, as George stated, to strip away individuality. Everyone is the same, there is no before, only now.
My dad was in the Marines in the late 80s and this movie among other things is what motivated him to join. He was 27 living in rural Missouri with no future. Glad he joined since it's how he met my mom who was in the Navy. That being said I decided to follow my moms footsteps and joined the Navy in 2018, still serving now. Yes they do scream and yell at you in bootcamp they don't physically touch you though at least they're not supposed to.
You guys were pretty spot on with the haircut thing. It's about erasing all vestiges of the person you used to be, eliminating any sense of identity, so that they can rebuild you as something else. Basic has changed a lot since those days, but still the general idea is that they're tearing you down to absolutely nothing at the start, then slowly rebuilding you back up.
The first part of basic is basically a game, where the only rule is that you ALWAYS lose. You're wrong, even when you're right, so that you stop caring about being right, and instead focus on being proficient. After you finally get to that point, that's when they start giving you some credit, some responsibility, and start building you back up as a soldier/marine rather than as whoever you were before.
In a way, Hartman was really doing his best with Gomer Pyle. He started with yelling, like everyone else. When that didn't work, he turned him over to Joker, whom he probably knew would give a more soft touch, as well as giving Joker the chance at a leadership role. When it STILL didn't work, he turned the platoon against him, in the hopes that maybe peer pressure would sort him out. Some people really aren't cut out for military service, and the only real flaw here was failing to identify Pyle as one of those people.
War is hell, and the goal of a Drill Instructor is to make Basic Training a memory that soldiers/marines can look back on as being even worse than war.
As for the hard shifts on the music and everything, the film does a great job of sort of displaying the absurdity of war. At the end of the day, war is FUN, and TERRIFYING, and HORRIBLE, and JOYOUS and so many other emotions all mixed and mingled in this cocktail of insanity.
The hair is also for hygiene. Due to the different lifestyles and economic conditions of every recruit means things like lice are a real likelihood.
Yeah, and it worked. The US won the Vietnam War. Well, that didn't happen, but they dropped a ton of napalm and dioxin on Vietnam so that counts as something.
My grandfather was a professional soldier, I was a soldier (drafted) and a good friend of the family retired as a general (they made him a general the day before his retirement), and I never understood this mentality of breaking people down. There is no evidence that it actually works.
"The first part of basic is basically a game, where the only rule is that you ALWAYS lose."
The first morning of basic training, our drill sergeants burst into the bay yelling and screaming to get up for PT, then smoked the hell out of us when we didn't jump out of our bunks quickly enough. That night, we all got together and agreed to have our fire guards wake everybody up 10 minutes before actual wake-up, and so where proudly standing at parade rest at the foot of our bunks when the drill sergeants came in for the second morning.
Then they smoked the hell out of us for being out of bed before wake-up.
Your description of basic and the purpose of Sgt. Hartman's approach is spot on. With Pyle it also didn't help that unlike traditional recruit/cadet/draftee, Pyle was probably part of "Project 100,000" which was a program by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, it was nicknamed "McNamara's Morons". The project took soldiers that would normally not be allowed into the military due to mental or physical factors and pushed them through. Look it up, crazy how bad it failed.
@@quintoblanco8746 It's not so much _breaking people down_ as it is breaking habits we all get into as young civilians, as well as teaching recruits how to perform under extreme stress. You have to get out of the habit of thinking of yourself first, or always wanting to know the why of your instructions, or of trying to do things _your_ way instead of the way they need to be done, for example. As far as the stress goes, if you can't perform to standard with a couple of people screaming at you, then you certainly aren't going to be able to do so with artillery & rifle rounds flying through the air.
That's not to say that they're trying to break your individuality or stifle independent thinking; rather, they're trying to steer your personality into the right direction. The US military in particular highly values individual initiative where it can make the unit more efficient. They just need to be sure that all soldiers/Marines/etc. are instinctively working toward the correct goals first.
The Tet Offensive came as something of a surprise, but it shouldn't have. The Communist forces had used cease fires and holidays to not only move troops and equipment and prepare for attacks but to launch them too. It also happened in the Korean War. There was also intelligence that it was coming.
On the other hand, it was a major military defeat for the NVA and VC. The VC were all but destroyed as a fighting force and the NVA took heavy losses. However, they won the propaganda war in that Americans in particular didn't hear much about the aftermath, or not enough to overcome the shock.
It has been theorized that North Vietnam carried out Tet also in part to destroy the VC. This was similar to what Stalin did in Poland when he encouraged the Polish resistance groups to rise up, and then halted his armies for a while while the Germans killed them off. Those were people shown to be willing to fight and why risk having them turn around and fight the new bosses too?
This was sooooo my boot camp in 1976. And yes, the running songs were catchy.
Most of the lines that the Drill instructor (R Lee Emery) used were actually written by him, he was brought in as an advisor and once they learned his history, they gave him the Drill Instructor role.
"How do they keep a straight face during that?" Bearing is actually a big part of boot camp. They teach you to control yourself in ridiculous situations. Just like with the yelling and insulting. One thing they didn't show much of was all the counting down and having recruits do tasks while making it super chaotic and intense, giving them unrealistically short amounts of time to do the tasks, etc. They make everything insane so that you condition yourself to be numb to it. By the time I got out of boot camp I was fine with people yelling and loud noises and all that stuff. It's been 16 years since boot camp for me and I still retain a lot of that control over myself in stressful situations. When I got to the fleet, people would still yell and get my face but it honestly just annoyed me more than anything and that's the point. You aren't phased by stupid shit like yelling and insults because your job might involve being in literal war. If you can't take boot camp, there's no way you're going to survive combat.
Edit: Yes, it's very culty. Marines fresh out of boot camp, or "boots," are pretty easy to distinguish from Marines that have been in for a while because they retain so much of the cultish behavior that was drilled into them for 3 months straight.
@@jkhoover Oh lol. Duh...Maybe it took a bunch of takes then?
Almost 40 years since Boot Camp for me, and yeah, the training is rooted deep. Here's another tidbit ... I was in JROTC in High School, and they took us to "Summer Camp" for two weeks, wherein between my junior and senior year I set and detonated a claymore mine, fired an M16-A1 rifle, a .45, and a grenade launcher, and jumped out of a 40 foot jump tower. It was, in fact, a full two weeks of Army basic training. After High School I joined the Navy and went to boot camp. My experience there was a little different than everyone else's, because I had already gone through the yelling and screaming and mind-fragging from the Army "camp". So I could see from the benefit of hindsight what was happening to the others in my company, and kind of help them all through the trauma.
The problem is that when you take away the "civilian personality" and replace it with a cultish "military" one, you simply get people who aren't phased by war crimes like rape, killing of civilians, pillaging, ... either. And there is _no_ way to maintain the level of control to at least minimize that over an army of people like that in an actual war. So basically, indoctrinating people like this is a recipe for creating potential war criminals who may pay lip service to some oath about protecting civilians, but who _actually_ care far more about their brothers in arms, taking out the enemy, and following orders than anything else. When the day to day reality doesn't "train" you how to react to illegal orders, but _does_ condition you to obey or else, what are the chances of people actually refusing to obey illegal orders, rather than obeying and hoping it'll get covered up if necessary?
@@drew1753 KNowing Stanley Kubrick, it was either a BUNCH of takes or they were so afraid of him that they got it right the first time.
@@jkhoover For me first phase was like that, sure, but after a while you get used to it and if you have a funny or clever DI it can be a real test of your bearing not to laugh. Our drill hat was particularly off his rocker and said some of the craziest, funniest shit ever and man it was hard not to laugh or even smile sometimes.
One of the most depressing parts in the first half is when Hartman congratulates Leonard with "ya'made it.".
He went through all that physical and mental torture, just for the privilege of being shipped to Vietnam to be likely shot or blown apart, and to be lucky (or unlucky) enough to survive it.
I went through Marine boot camp and yes all the insults and yelling is true
I read that Animal Mother is presented to show what Pyle would of been if he had lived passed the island. Crazy!
Woo you guys had a lot of questions for this one. To answer some of your questions
Yes, the yelling and insulting is real, and necessary in the military. It helps desensitize you to sudden and random bouts of panic. If you can get easily distracted or affected by insults and screaming, then you definitely cannot react with necessary calm and instinct when a firefight breaks out.
The reason the drill instructor accentuates certain lines of the Cadence (The singing you referred to) when they march is because everyone is supposed to move in unison, so on certain pitches and beats you are able to keep time and all step with the same foot.
The hair cuts, structure, ritual, and repetition of everything you do in basic training/boot camp is to strip you of individuality. You are not an individual, you are a part of the Army, or the Corp, or whatever you joined. You're a part of something bigger. The people around you are not different because of their race, religion, backgrounds, they are the same as you and so you treat them with mutual respect. Now once you graduate and prove that you can function as a part of something greater, they ease up on you and start treating you as a person again.
No, you can't just "leave" or quit. Up to a certain point you can back out of the military, but once you get on that bus the fastest way home is to graduate. If you try to quit you can get a less than honorable, or dishonorable discharge, which follows you back to your civilian life and can be worse than a criminal record. As harsh as that sounds, it's actually pretty liberating, because once you're there the only way on is forward, so you don't have time to waste looking back. If you're the kind of person that wants to serve but don't think you got the will, it's pretty much the shove in the right direction to get you through because when you put your foot through that door, you're in and you don't have to worry about choices or other options distracting you.
Yes, when Drill Sergeants/Instructors put on the hat, they become harsh and unwavering to properly train you. Once in a rare while, when shit gets too real or something goes wrong, they might pull you aside and take off the hat to talk to you like a normal person, but it's rare because they have to try and keep themselves detached so that they can effectively train you for war.
The term "Charlie" is from the nato phonetic alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet has an associated word that doesn't sound like any other word in english so when you spell something over the radio it can't be misheard as something else. A-Alpha, B-Bravo, C-Charlie, and so on. Vietcong was VC, or Victor Charlie. Over time it just got shortened to Charlie as a quick slang term the way Germans were called Gerys/Gerries in WWII.
When taking fire/contact, these days we lay down fire until we can back up and break engagement, or the enemy does. We focus on achieving fire supperiority to prevent the enemy from being able to act effectively, which is roughly a 3-1 firepower ratio. No idea what the method back in Vietnam was though, much less for Marines. These days they just suppress until they can yeet grenades at whatever they're pinning.
A lot of the harsh training that was deemed necessary to make the breed of Soldiers the US could produce was constantly lambasted by politicians and general population that thought they were "helping" us by trying to get it changed, and it's really weakened our core. Basic training sucked, but it was supposed to, and I'm glad it did. It's not supposed to be pleasant or easy. A lot of people see this film as crazy or harsh, but despite the gritty and miserable imagery it kept exposing viewers to, it became one of the most cited reasons why people decided to enlist. Duality of man, I guess.
This was an informative and interesting post. Thank you!
Nice Job!
How does the trio of standing rifles work? Is it to keep them ready for quick grab and to keep them away from dirt and water?
@@RideAcrossTheRiver yes, rifles are never supposed to touch the ground, so they get propped against each other while you eat, and someone is supposed to watch them.
Your mission was to obey orders without question and kill people without question... you need to be broken down and built back up in order to do that. Physically, and psychologically. It may seem harsh, but it's what creates unity, order, successful mission objectives, and avoids chaos on battlefields. My grandfather who was a Captain in WWII said his training is what kept him focused through life, and helped him be a successful businessman and build financial security for his family. I don't doubt it for a second.
To answer your question (as most people in the comment section already have I'm sure), all that screaming and yelling is real. They do that to the enlisted to break them down. It's exactly like that in a lot of cases, even worse in others. If you can't hack it in boot camp, you'll never be any good to anyone in real combat
To expound on that there is even a few channels here on TH-cam of former DI's and DS's. The best is this one: th-cam.com/users/AngryCopsMadatWork
This may have been mentioned before, but the intellectual character (Joker) who's interested in the duality of man and wears a peace symbol--along with a "Born to Kill" helmet--was being sarcastic when he said, "I wanted to be the first one on my block to get a confirmed kill."
20:07 they called Viet Cong Victor Charlie (then Charlie for short) because they don't say letters like VC over the radio. They say like Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc. It helps prevent mistakes from mishearing letters and as a habit they just say it like that in person too.