Sounds like Clint's personal fantasy to me

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2006)

Looking back at the movie, I wonder sometimes if this was a case of Clint acting out his own personal fantasies. In this movie he gets to be the tough as nails Gunny Highway, who has been in action in both Korea and Vietnam. There is plenty of patriotic imagery to be found throughout the film, and the film feels like a recruiting poster for the USMC. And of course there's the heavy combat towards the end of the film.
I did enjoy the film, but did not take it too seriously. The reason I didn't is because Heartbreak Ridge runs into problems when it comes to realism. As others have said, recon units are elite units with members who hold themselves to the highest standards at all times. Members of recon units are not the shoddy, lazy, poorly disciplined men seen in this film. They are consummate professionals, and would have undergone so much training and weeding out to make the accidental firing on the range unbelievable, as well as the general undisciplined behavior of the unit at the beginning.