Quoted:
I don't understand why everyone loves this film. Other than Joker and Cowboy, every other Marine is shown as a tyrant, crazy, or a scumbag. The door gunner is shooting women and children for shits and giggles. Rafterman is a weasly little fuck. The Colonel jumps down Joker's throat for a pin on his vest. Animal Mother is a psychopath. By the end Cowboy is dead and Joker is one of them.
The FACT is it is an anti-war movie. An anti-military movie, in fact. The Marines are referred to as either "phony tough" or "crazy brave". But the thing is that the boot camp stuff, the first half of the movie, is so accurate every Marine can watch that and feel at home and reminisce about that time in their lives. A normal person watches that and thinks, "Holy shit!" Marines just think, "Ah, good times!" And even the Hue stuff, the second half, while anti-war to people predisposed to be anti-war, is a pretty good war movie. My only complaint with the film is the scene where the DI gives Joker three minutes to talk about his atheism. No DI gives a recruit that much time to say anything.