Trivia Inaccuracies

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2005)

In the "Trivia" section, there are two inaccuracies. The first one mentioned is "Prior to going after Elias, Sgt. Barnes threatens to "article 15" Taylor unless they return to the base camp. Article 15 refers to U.S. military punishment for serious insubordination." Actually, an Article 15 is non judicial punishment, usually handed out by an executive officer, or sometimes a first sergeant. Serious insubordination would be a courts martial offense.
The second is "At the end of the film, when the GI's are tossing the enemy dead into a mass grave, a stack of captured AK-47s can be seen piled up. American soldiers actually preferred the AK-47 over the M-16, because the AK-47 could be easily retooled to fire either U.S., or Vietnamese ammunition." GIs did prefer the AK-47 over the M-16 because it was a more rugged gun with a more powerful punch than the M-16, and it held up better in jungle climate of Viet Nam. Also the Ak-47 fires 7.62 mm round and the M-16 fires a 5.56 mm, so it would be impossible to "retool" an AK-47 to fire the 5.56 round, let alone to fire either round as stated.