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Military Myths Hollywood Taught Us to Believe

If you ask us, these are the worst military myths Hollywood taught us to believe—and keep getting away with teaching us.

By Iggy PaulsenPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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For centuries, poets and other entertainers have discussed military tales at length. Before the advent of television, we had great books like Homer's Illiad and Ajax by Sophocles. Plays have shown war to be valiant and heroic—and at the same time, tragic.

When Hollywood came onto the scene, they really amped up the stories of war. Unfortunately, in the process of making hit anti-war movies alongside top-rated war films, Hollywood warped a lot of truths about life in the military.

At times, what Hollywood has taught mainstream audiences about war is just plain wrong. Here are the most laughably wrong military myths Hollywood taught us to believe about both the past and present of military history.

All Vietnam veterans are psycho.

Perhaps one of the most damaging military myths Hollywood taught us is that Vietnam veterans all have PTSD and may end up having a psychotic break where they see themselves back at war. This myth has led to a huge stigma that's not even accurate—and also has led to veterans having harder times finding jobs as a result.

Yes, PTSD from war and military enlistment is a real issue. In fact, veterans have a sky-high suicide rate because of the oft-untreated issues that veterans face.

However, believe it or not, not all veterans are crazy. In fact, of all the people who served in Vietnam, only 30 percent were diagnosed with PTSD. So, it's far from all vets. Similarly, only around 11 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD.

Those who do end up going into the military often use their time serving as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

A good example of one of the more innocuous military myths Hollywood promotes is the idea that you throw clean covers post-graduation. Those covers are hard to clean. Why would you do that to bleach-white clothing?

That one quiet guy in your platoon can save everyone.

The fastest lesson you learn in the military is that one guy is not going to fix everything. When you're in war, it's always a team effort. Hot dogging can and will get you killed.

Yes, one person can save someone else in the middle of a battle. That actually happens fairly frequently. Seeing someone somehow upend an entire squadron while his buddies are losing the fight, though, does not.

To a point, it's hard to explain why this is one of the more toxic military myths Hollywood has helped perpetuate. War is not cinematic, nor is it poetic.

One of the most disturbing documentaries about war ever created was literally just footage of soldiers fighting in World War II. Cinematic deaths like the ones in Platoon do not really happen on the battlefield.

There's no musical orchestra, and at times, there's not even a warning. One minute, someone is next to you, the next, they're not. It's jarring, and the "hero's death" you expect to see never really happens in real life.

People quickly recover from head injuries in the war.

For some reason, a lot of the biggest movies about military training seem to think people are made of steel. The bad guys get blown to bits, but when a "hero" soldier ends up getting whacked in the head with shrapnel, they just brush it off like nothing happened.

In reality, head trauma is a serious issue among veterans. A single head injury can cause memory loss, violent tendencies, tinnitus, and other auditory hallucinatons—not to mention aneurysms.

Head trauma is considered to be the "trademark injury" of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. So, no, they don't just somehow "brush it off."

Sorry, Michael Bay. This is one of the military myths Hollywood made up simpy because it's cheaper to have fireworks than to actually explode stuff. They don't look like fireworks or CGI blobs. They look like fireballs, giant clouds of dust, or buildings suddenly disappearing.

Also, you don't really walk away from an explosion. Chances are that the sheer shockwave from the explosion would make you fall flat on your face if you tried to walk away. Moreover, a shockwave can also stop your heart, so you might die regardless.

If you do manage to run and cover, you would also probably be terrified because you don't want burning objects falling on your head.

Yeah, Hollywood got explosions all wrong.

Tanks were amazing in WWI and WWII.

If you look at every single 80s action movie ever made, you'd assume that all war heroes had to do in order to take on the world was to just get into a tank. In defense of tanks, these thick vehicles were a lot safer than using cars.

However, tanks were not safe by any means of the word. In fact, they were death traps up until recently.

In World War I, tanks had the nasty habit of flipping over. Unfortunately, due to their ungainly size and build, this often meant that they would stay flipped over like a turtle on its back—trapping everyone inside to their deaths.

Certain kinds of bullets actually were capable of going through tank armor, then ricocheting through the tank. This would often cause everyone in the tank to get killed.

During both World War I and World War II, some tanks didn't even have equipment saying where the enemy was. No reconnaissance and no signaling meant that people were literally just aimlessly firing away in tanks.

Admittedly, this is one of the most understandable military myths Hollywood created. After all, no one on the outside really knows much about tanks and the fact is that showing a tank flipping on its back would probably kick the steam out of a lot of storylines.

Confirmed kills are real.

Of all the military myths Hollywood has created, confirmed kills is one of the most laughable. (Yes, we all saw that Navy SEAL movie with "confirmed kills." It wasn't legit.)

Neither the Department of Defense nor the US Army doesn't keep a record of how many people their soldiers kill—and confirming it would be laughably hard to do in the middle of a war zone.

Could you imagine what that'd look like? A soldier walking up to a guy who just tried to kill him two seconds ago, taking his pulse to see if he's dead, then adding a little tally of it to a clipboard would probably be the only way that could happen.

When soldiers do report deaths to the higher ups, they have no way to actually back it up. So, the "confirmation" is literally a soldier shrugging, saying, "I dunno, I think I shot two or three guys?"

You can shoot almost anyone during war without issue.

Perhaps one of the most subtle military myths Hollywood pushes is the idea that soldiers are allowed to shoot anyone and everyone during war. Every scene out there has soldiers going in, guns blazing, in hopes that they can save the day.

Reality check: there are rules on who you can and cannot shoot. Failure to do so can mean that you're going against the Geneva Convention—and that would make you a war criminal.

Even if you keep in line with the Geneva Convention, the US military has a guidebook about the "rules of engagement" that's about 24 pages long. This is something that all soldiers have to read and abide by.

Yes, there's a lot of camaraderie, but by no means are soldiers all friends. We've seen this trope done to death in Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. Realistically, there's a lot of understanding between veterans and many vets claim that they did meet their best friends during a war.

However, this isn't always the case. Giving a bunch of random people guns and an oath to protect each other doesn't mean you'll have a great bond. In fact, many vets can't stand some of the people in their platoon. At times, you might not even know who's really on your side.

A lot of friendly fire happens—and at times, serious physical fights between soldiers can break out in high-stress situations. There have even been cases in which soldiers killed each other during these moments.

So, while this may be one of the more positive military myths Hollywood made, it's not 100 percent factual and can be damaging if you were thinking that enlisting would give you friends for life.

fact or fiction
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About the Creator

Iggy Paulsen

Iggy Paulsen is a fan of anything and everything wholesome. He loves his two dogs, hiking in the woods, traveling to Aruba, building DIY projects that better humanity, and listening to motivational speakers. He hopes to eventually become a motivational speaker himself.

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