The Way it Was--Mostly

Rating: 10/10 (23 June 2013)

As a young man of 17, I entered Boot Camp at MCRD San Diego in July 1967. The Boot Camp segment of Full Metal Jacket is the most accurate portrayal of Marine Boot Camp ever committed to film.
The Boot Camp scenes are filled with dark humor, irony, and satire, but nonetheless, this is the way Boot Camp was.
Drill Instructors could be both brutal and comical, but God help you if you ever laughed in formation, no matter how comical a Drill Instructor might be while doing his best to correct a recruit's attitude.
Both Gustave Hasford, a former Marine and the author of the novel, "The Short Timers" from which the film was adapted, and Stanley Kubrick used some literary and cinematic license, which is to be expected, but were still true to the actual experience.
The accuracy was enhanced by Lee Ermey's performance as GySgt Hartman, as he was Marine Drill Instructor during his ten years in the Marine Corps.
Due to having been singled out for Vietnamese language training before going to Vietnam, I missed the 1968 Tet Offensive, which was depicted in the film.
While the film also takes some license with the Vietnam scenes and relied as heavily on stereotypes as in the Boot Camp scenes, those stereotypes like all stereotypes, being grounded in reality, illustrated war as it really is and remained true to the actual events of the 1968 Tet Offensive.
I arrived in Vietnam in August of 1968 and I guess a bit ironically, I was wounded during the 1969 Tet Offensive, which if you haven't heard of it, don't feel bad.
The Leftist media got what they wanted by depicting the 1968 Tet Offensive as a victory by the Communists, when it was actually a huge and costly failure for the Communists, and hardly mentioned the '69 offensive, which was as massive as the '68 offensive and an even more devastating defeat for the Communists.
"Full Metal Jacket" is a monumental film in the classic Kubrick style and even if Kubrick meant the film to be anti-war and anti-military, it is in truth a tribute to those who served their country during a time of war when the majority of that generation sided with the enemy, refused to serve, rioted in the streets and campuses and denigrated, disparaged, and ridiculed those who answered the call of duty.