Still one of the best war movies ever

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2013)

Like any philosophically accurate war movie, FMJ does show the excesses of preparation followed by the hopelessness and insanity of war generally. The boot camp portion of the movie is not unlike Army basic training. "Drop and give me twenty!" is an order I'll never forget. There were a couple times, I was so tired, I'd rather have given the drill sergeant twenty dollars...even though I was making $78 per MONTH at the time.
Also, for being shot entirely in England, the similarity to and feel of Vietnam was captured, as far as I'm concerned, better than movies shot in the Philippines.
However... 1987 isn't the 1950's, and the suspension of disbelief that worked so well with never empty western six-shooters and machine guns that would fire forever and soldiers walking around with their fingers on the rifle triggers, just won't work in modern times. The Leave it to Beaver generation demands historical and technical accuracy. So, here we go.
Head scene with "Gomer Pyle" shooting the DI. NO WAY he could have gotten that rifle and ammo in the barracks. No way. In a real training base, you couldn't walk off the firing range with an expended cartridge case (I know. I saw a guy try!), much less live ammo. And rifles were controlled to an extent that even Bloomberg would have approved.
At the mass grave scene in VN. Saluting an officer in a combat area. Not done. Also a colonel would not have shiny metal insignia. And the end of that scene, the colonel salutes first. That is not military courtesy. The lower ranked person salutes, then holds until returned by the officer or superior officer. But again, they wouldn't salute at all. Two major gaffes. Also in that scene, the colonel refers to Joker's peace symbol on his "body armor". I never heard a flak jacket called "body armor" in Vietnam. I'm pretty sure that's a Gulf War era term.
Rifles. All the M-16's in this move look like the early XM16E1 or the Air Force model M-16 (three prong open flash suppressor, no forward assist). By 1968, all front line units would have had M-16A1's with the closed front flash suppressor and the forward assist.
A lot of the actors seemed to have remembered their orientation to gun handling--they carried their rifles correctly with their trigger finger in register--along the side of the lower receiver, NOT inside the trigger guard. Many others though were probably handling guns and rifles for the first time and forgot. Looks bad.
At one point, Cowboy ejects a magazine and inserts a new one, and that's it. When a mag empties, the bolt carrier locks back, and when you insert a new magazine, you have to either press the bolt catch or pull back and release the charging handle to chamber a round. He doesn't, but a moment later he starts firing again. Others, during lulls in the action, hit their mag release and let the mags fall to the ground. You don't do that unless you have to due to circumstances. Of course they do that "in the movies" because it looks cool.
End of rant. Still a good movie. 9/10. Without the technical goofs, it would be a ten.