There is always going to be a struggle between the military and the general population of the United States of America. Ultimately the civilians of the United States are the ones pulling the strings of the entire armed forces. This fact does not always make those serving in the military happy. This situation is explore in the movie A Few Good Men.

                Those that serve in the in the military do so in order to protect the freedoms and lives of the American population. However, what happens when those you are trying to protect are the ones that get in way of the course of action that you deem to be the most effective to do that job. This is the case that is faced in the A Few Good Men. In the film we see two marines facing life in prison for the unfortunate death of a fellow marine when they were acting on an order that would seem unethical and morally wrong to the general public. Instead of those in charge taking the hit and looking bad for demanding such an action to take place despite being told by superior powers that such action were not to be allowed, they pin murder on the two men that carried out the deed. This mess of a case is the result of struggle between the military and the civilian population.

There is no real way to understand the mindset and agendas of someone fighting for their country in the military other than actually joining the military itself. When put in the situation that those serving in the military are put in everyday, it is easy to see how you would begin to think differently than a common person and adopt a different set of values and morals to abide by. Those in the military can use methods and take action that would be looked down upon in everyday American society. They do not do these things to make lives worse. In reality they take these actions to ensure that they perform their jobs better and keep as many people alive as possible. If they didn’t see any benefit to an action I doubt they would even consider taking it. The civilians that watch from afar don’t understand the way that the individuals of the military think and feel. An action that is standard practice such as the “code red” talked about in the movie seem extreme and terrible to the civilians that aren’t there to see the true purpose. However, since the civilians hold the power over the military, they tell the military what and what not is acceptable and end up holding the military back from doing their jobs as they see fit.

There is not much we can do about this tension between civilians and the military. As I see it we could see it we could either allow the military to do things autonomously or we can have people be require to serve a minimum term in the military so that they can better understand the values and morals of the soldiers that serve on the front lines. For whatever reason I can’t see people being happy about being signed up for the military whether they like it or not. Then there is the fact that is the civilians withdrawal control of the military, there are no checks stopping them from splitting so far from the morals of the U.S. that they stop fighting for the country’s interests and start fighting for their own interests. The military has the chance to become its own organization that has no allegiance to any country.  So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and it doesn’t look like the tension between civilians and the military is going away anytime soon.

     Throughout this course, we have seen many different films about war. Our most recent film,Glory, is a very recent movie about cavalry men in Germany during the World War 2. From the first few minutes of the film, it is clear to see that this film is very different in style to all of the other films that we have watched in this class. When we really step back and look at the films we have watched so far, we can see that the way war has been portrayed in Hollywood has changed dramatically.

     Fury is a very dark and dirty take on a war movie. Throughout the entire movie we see some of the absolute worst qualities and parts about war. We see many civilians dying, brutal soldiers, and men fighting to stay alive constantly. We also see the innocence of a young man destroyed as he is forced to fight in tank with a group of war hardened tanker that do not flinch at the horrors of war. The whole tone of this movie is just depressing. Everything from music to the colors in each scene just leave the viewer with sense of hopelessness and desperation. The only glimpse of happiness comes towards the end of the movie when the team of soldiers in the tank are bonding together. However, this does not last long as soon after they are placed in the middle of an epic fight where only one man makes it out alive. There is no happy ending to this movie, only the bleak and terrible reality that is war.

     When we look at some of the older movies that we have watched, such as Patton and A Bridge Too Far, we see a much different picture of war than we do in Fury. These older movies seem to be much more patriotic than the war movie of today. Seriously, is there anything that screams America like General Patton standing on a stage in his decorated uniform in front of a gigantic American flag. If that isn’t patriotic I don’t  know what is. In Fury, there is no sense of patriotism at all. The soldiers don’t really have this strong bond to America like the soldiers portray in Patton and A Bridge Too Far. The soldiers in Glory have alliance to each other and don’t seem to care about the bigger picture.  These older movie seemed to be focused on war heroes. For most of these movies we are following Generals and other high ranking military. These are the men whose names would be all over the papers for helping to the the war. This is much different than in Fury. In Fury, we focus all our attention on the on the lower ranked soldier. In Fury, the highest ranked person in the main cast is only Sergeant. The last noticeable difference is that the older war movies seem to glory war. When the troops are going into battle in the older movies , we it is a triumphant and positive. The music playing in the background is very grand and upbeat making the viewer happier. This is definitely not the case in Fury. If anything all the sad music and terrible imagery in movie would make the viewer detest war. This change is most likely due to the fact that these older movies were created shortly after World War 2 and America was still proud of their military dominance. Modern day America sees mostly the downfall of war.

      We can see the transition from these glamorized war movies to these bleak war wars when we look at Saving Private Ryan. This movie came out somewhere in the middle of these two extremes and it shows. While Saving Private Ryan still calls upon some of the patriotic aspects of the older war movies, you can definitely see that the movie is trying to create a darker and realistic look at the front lines of war. Some of the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan get very intense and effect the emotions of the viewer. However, there is still a relatively positive ending to the movie that keeps the viewer from leaving the movie depressed.

     As you can see there has been a huge shift in the way that Hollywood portrays war in the movies. Although there is a huge difference in these war movies, they are all good and their own way and have valid points to make about war itself.