How terrible. All my sympathy to those who suffer the loss of his passing.

I'm going to make a suggestion. I think that one of the reasons that some people are insisting that a war movie Must have a certain amount of moral ambiguity and soul searching is that they don't spend much time thinking about what military service means .

As an example: I was the lone conservative in a scriptwriting group and we were doing "pitches" to each other. My pitch got completely derailed when I said: "and the oldest daughter will leave for the Marines in three weeks. (The story was about people in a large family going their separate ways.... with aliens). Why, they wanted to know, does she want to be a Marine? It was the most interesting question EVAH. And frustrating to me because military service isn't exotic to me. It's a completely normal and entirely unremarkable thing to decide to do. Would they demand to know the reason if I'd given her some other ambition? Of course not. They never asked why the son was headed to a culinary institute.

So... my point (yes I have one.)

Leaving out the process of sorting through the moral questions doesn't bother people who have thought about the moral questions, who don't think that military service is exotic or strange. Leaving those questions out doesn't make something into propaganda. All it means is that there is a different focus that most interests that audience.

I agree. We get to have-write-support and try to persuade other people to our point of view. That someone else doesn't like that point of view is irrelevant.

"Isolationist" is a different thing than "conservative." Sometimes there have been overlaps, but it shouldn't be assumed. My own feeling is that isolationism is impossible in a world with a global economy and travel to the opposite side of the planet takes a single day.

I think that maybe because it's a movie some people think that if it didn't happen on screen it never happened at all. People with a greater conceptual separation from military service would be more likely to make those assumptions. So... there has to be all that angst showing the "reality" of war.___ I assume that the moral questions are pondered in depth in the years of training that came before.

It's like a Star Trek episode or something. All problem solving happens after the opening credits and you think, WTF??? They never ONCE trained for what to do if a hostile alien gets on the Ship? But of course they never did, because then they wouldn't have a show.

How does an unapologetic pro-American movie "polarize" people?

I do not understand this. For sake of argument assume all the other films were as great for everyone, as uniting, as you say. How does this SEAL movie "polarize" anyone? What about having our guys be good guys, professional, and the bad guys be bad guys *polarize* anyone?

I'm not arguing that people are not polarized, but saying that what they are polarized *over* is what *made* them that way is ridiculous.

Dare I say... evil.

Evil because it blames those excited about this movie for the emotions of the people mad about it.

I have a suggestion: Stop demanding that everyone toe an ideological line or they're going to be accused of being EVIL, and maybe the country would be less *polarized*.

Oh now, I did see Jarhead.

It wasn't bad, but it *was* from the POV of a guy who always felt like an outsider living among aliens.

Not having seen either of them... I wonder if people aren't confusing, just a little bit, what they heard about the Hurt Locker with Green Zone.

I know I do.

Saw a bumper sticker today. It said... "God Bless Our Troops" and then on the second line... "Especially the Snipers."

Made me smile.

It's not a role to carry lightly, and I admire those who carry it.

*sigh* technically, I'm a veteran. I'm just getting old and my memory is going and I was in the Air Force anyhow.

The proper response to "this is a Navy Recruitment poster" seemed to be a big "HooAhh!"

Except that I know it matters, doing it right, so I was making a joke so that the *other* people who care, knew that my motives were pure.

(I'll freely cop to the incoherence. )