The U.S. military, already plagued by budget shortfalls, declining enlistments, “don’t ask, don’t tell” issues and dilapidated equipment, is being handed a whole new bunch of trouble.
It’s called Hollywood.
Amazing as it may seem — but what really is amazing anymore? — the Pentagon is actually going to spend $45 million (I think the cost of an entire wing on the new B-2 bomber) to create a war-fighting training enhancement called the Institute for Creative Technologies, in Southern California.
The ICT is to tap Hollywood’s expertise in creating movie special effects, video games and theme-park thrill rides. The Army wants to use this expertise, such as was employed in the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” in making more realistic training films and combat simulations.
I suppose we should have seen this daffiness coming after Defense Secretary William Cohen this month awarded, in high Pentagon ceremonies, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service to director Steven Spielberg for making “Saving Private Ryan” — a noble, self-sacrificing Hollywood effort with a box-office gross doubtless surpassing the cost of a B-2 bomber.
Certainly Cohen, who writes spy thrillers and is married to a TV personality, is more Hollywood-minded a military man than, say, Gen. Curtis LeMay.
And, as a former corporal with the 8th Army in Korea and the 82nd Airborne Division, I’d agree that military training needs to be more realistic.
I recall that during basic training we were made to undergo a “simulated atomic weapon detonation.” While we stood cowering in the scrub outside Ft. Ord, Calif., some mope set fire to a can of gasoline or something that gave forth a column of flame about 4 feet high and a mushroom cloud of smoke about 6 feet high. Wow.
But, as a veteran of these two legendary fighting outfits, I wonder if Secretary Cohen hasn’t lost a noodle here.
This is Hollywood — the same cultural institution that gave us the Denzel Washington/Meg Ryan Persian Gulf War epic “Courage Under Fire,” in which U.S. tanks were arrayed about 20 feet apart in a battle — a combat no-no that would have had 3rd Armor Corps commanders pulling out their short hairs in apoplexy.
This is the same Hollywood (with which the Pentagon then refused to cooperate) that produced Demi Moore’s classic “G.I. Jane,” in which rugged Navy SEALS were depicted savagely punching and kicking a diminutive, masochistic, exhibitionist, bald and nearly naked female junior officer.
That might have been accurate in my day, but I’m sure it is no longer. Indeed, though Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” gave us a first 20 minutes of blood-chilling authentic combat gore, the rest of it was nonsense that included Tom Hanks leading his squad, all bunched together, on an ambling stroll behind enemy lines through territory crawling with Germans while Hanks chattered on amiably about philosophy.
Where Hollywood could really help out is not with “shoot the tank” video games or “Starship Troopers” special effects but with perhaps the greatest challenge every recruit will face coming into the military — and something Hollywood has evidenced in vast quantity:
Stupidity.
Examples:
1. During war game maneuvers in North Carolina a second lieutenant set off fireworks outside our tent one night to give us the feel of real combat. In the morning, he had us devote valuable time we could have better used peeling potatoes searching for the expended fireworks casings, which he had us paint in bright colors and mount in a hand-painted trophy box which he kept at his desk as a memento of this warrior experience.
2. The immediate response of an 82nd Airborne company commander, upon being informed that a rifle had not been returned after maneuvers to the weapons room, was to order the entire company out into the swamps and brambles to look for it, only to discover it was leaning against the wall of his very own orderly room.
3. At the mess halls of Ft. Monmouth, N.J. — doubtless to provide troops with more time to devote to painting used fireworks casings in bright colors — the army installed gigantic potato-peeling machines into which one merely dumped unpeeled potatoes. The machines worked fine, removing every inch of peel, but in the process reduced the size of the potato by about half.
4. After one field maneuver in which I participated, any 50-gallon fuel drum less than completely full was ordered poured out onto the ground because the fuel depot records made no allowance for fractions of barrels.
5. And then there was the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, which many critics said didn’t belong on the battlefield. The military used it in the Gulf War anyway, losing 17 to friendly fire.
But then that was the plot line of “Courage Under Fire,” wasn’t it?
