Badmovies.org Forum

Just curious on this. Noticing a fairly strong military presence here and wondering if there is some kind of correlation here. A follow up question: If you are/were in the military: Did being in the military enhance your appreciation for bad movies or did watching bad movies make you feel like enlisting?

I'm just an average fella.
No armed services for me.  :smile:

there was Steven Segull movie last week in which he was an ex S.E.A.L. officer.

I was going to join, for college money, but I was physically unfit (too short, poor eyesight, severe asthma, lousy heart).

Four years in the U.S. Navy, 1982-1986.
Those were the glory days!

And, when I got out, they paid for my college.  It was truly a great chance to see the world, grow up, and do some serious living.

I still dream about being aboard the Lockwood, even though she has been scrap for 10 years now.

If you're feeling like a bit of nostalgia, you could always pick up this ol gal for the right price:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/9090583/rule-the-waves-one-used-aircraft-carrier-for-sale/ (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/9090583/rule-the-waves-one-used-aircraft-carrier-for-sale/)

I mean, who wouldn't want to buy an aircraft carrier?

7 1/2 years in the Army, but if I had it to do over again, I would have gone into the Marines instead.

Civilian. My Grandfather was in the US Army, some of my friends were US Marines.

I also salute and support all the brave soldiers here. (http://i52.tinypic.com/14v1szq.gif)

6 years in the U.S. Navy. There was good and bad about it, but I don't regret it for a second. I never had a problem with the "ultimate sacrifice" end of the bargain, but I'm just too independent-minded to have made it a career.

I'm trying to think of how bad movies may have influenced my military service or been influenced by it, but I can't really come up with anything. I've always made fun of the absurd situations, which is probably why I love bad movies. The military has no shortage of absurd situations, so maybe that has something to do with it.

why?

Executive Decision ?  Or was it Under Siege 2?

I tried to enlist as a Marine aviator after Top Gun came out but I had abysmal apptitude scores. They told me I'd be lucky to fly a desk. However they did ask me to enlist as a cryptologist/code breaker which looking back might have been pretty cool. I was a lunkhead though and told them I wanted aviation or nothing. I got nothing.

I'm a civilian, however I do have great respect for those who have served their county.

People love to romanticize being in the military. You did what you did. I served six years. I'm not asking for recognition, and have no interest in anybody patting me on the shoulder and expressing their gratitude. This is supposed to be a free country, meaning no compulsory service. This means that no person's life is more important or more meaningful because they made the decision to serve. I got my college paid for and some other useful benefits out of the situation, so I was compensated. I don't need anybody to suck my dick because I enlisted, and I don't expect it, and I definitely don't share the attitude of many of my fellow veterans that somehow I am a better American than somebody who didn't serve. f**k that.

But anyway, may experience in the military was pretty cool and I definitely am glad I did it.

U.S. Army Reserve.  I spent the summer of 1982 in boot camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey.  As a reservist I was a Scout-Observer.  The best part of the job was when we went on patrols and I got to man the M60 machine gun mounted on the jeep.

Thank God that weapon is out of our inventory.  I never really enjoyed the M60 in operation and hated, hated, hated cleaning it.  The M240G that replaced it is ten times better in every respect.

Cleaning it was certainly no fun.  I'm not familiar with the M240G . . . the M60 was all the rage in my day . . .  :bluesad:

The more I talk to people that were in either, the more I believe all around the Marines would have been more satisfying. I had a TON of great times in the Army, but there was so much stupid crap that the Army should be embarrassed about it's not even remotely funny. I probably would have stayed in longer also, because the stupid crap is largely why I got out. I know that stupid crap happens everywhere, but the Army seems to take it to a whole new level.

I liked the M60, but the 249 was much more enjoyable IMO, mainly due to the reliability and cleaning. The 240 sounds like a hell of a weapon though.

A little off-subject, but what do you think of Marine Force Recon vs Army Special Forces. There's a guy I work with the is former Recon, and he says that their school is much tougher than Army Special Forces school. I have no idea from my own experience (lack thereof), but I had never heard of that, I know Recon were tough guys, but I didn't think they were on THAT level. It's not exactly what is talked about when Specops is concerned, it's usually Rangers, SF, Seals, Delta.

I spent four years active army.  Most of that was stateside except for a handful of months over in Kuwait.

After that I went into the National Guard for another four years.  The first year of that I worked security at an Airforce base.  I also ended up doing several months work (not all at once) or disaster relief in areas that had been hit by tornadoes. 

Marine Recon gets a lot of training, and are among the best of what people call special forces.  Along with the Marine Corps Infantry course they go through Basic Recon, SERE, and jump school.  From there they can go on to various other schools to develop them.  Those schools include Marine Combat Diver and Ranger school (yes, Marines in Ranger school).

Something to remember is that Marine Recon is a different animal than something like the Rangers.  Recon usually works in smaller units and will operate behind enemy lines.  Their job is usually intelligence vice straight combat operations.

I just screened and put a Marine into a Recon unit.  He starts the Basic Recon Course on Monday, I believe. 

I'm a civilian and never really had any desire to join the armed forces.  It just never occurred to me to do it.  Although in my younger days I flatted with a few army guys and made some wonderful friends out of it.

Although, I do looooove me a man in uniform :teddyr:

Just a civilian.  I remember back in the '80s I had to register for the draft.  That was as close to military service as I want to come.  Just ain't my thing, but I have tremendous respect for those who serve. 

Civie.
Tara Sue's son Jim (Raatz) was in Iraq.
Her son Tooie (Micheal Chick) is still in the Army. He drove supply trucks in Iraq.
Her daughter Angel is in the Army.
My dad was in the Navy. He got kicked out for being a drunk.
I almost joined the Army when I got out of High School. I regret that I didnt. I hitchhiked to New York City instead. A differnt kind of war zone-the Bronx.

My Dad was in the army in the then Rhodesia and in the later stages of that war was seconded to the Police Reserve of the British South African Police or the BSAP.  :cheers:

Same, though I grew up and spend most my life on U.S. military bases here in Europe. My father was in the Army and fought in Vietnam, and he still works for the U.S. armed forces.

Civilian.

Came mighty close to joining the Marines back in '01/'02, right as I was graduating.  I was a senior in high school, a pretty bright guy who did well in school, but just couldn't afford college.  I had great respect for the people in the armed forces, and remember vividly 9/11 at the age of 17 affecting me someway.  Talked to a recruiter several times, even took some aptitude test.  Scored very highly.  But when we entered serious discussions, a family situation came up and I never did enlist.  I sometimes regret it, sometimes don't.  I have had some discussions recently about maybe joining the Navy or some branch, but I'm still uncertain.  I'm older now, so it doesn't seem like I should. 

Main things holding me back from joining are: 1.) I'm very much 'anti-authority' and know I'll not be up to having commanding officers yelling at me to tow the line.  2.) I'm supporting my mom right now.  I don't know how much I'd make, but with the job I have now, I am just barely squeaking by.  I don't know how much I'd make, but can't see doing 4 years and walking with nothing in the bank.

Civilian but have had a family member in every branch.  Was going to join before I got Diabetes at a young age, kind of a right of passage in the family. 

Never served. Now I'm an old man, so I'm not going to enlist ever.

If I went back to my fresh out of high school years, I would enlist. Not because I'm patriotic or anything, but because that there is experience you can get in the armed services that you can not get anywhere else. Plus, I would have liked to get other people to pay for my education. I was fairly aggressively "counter-cultural" at the time, so my teenage mind wouldn't countenance it.

A friend of mine signed up for the army a few years ago. He was about 30 at the time and signed up because the job market was so bad. He's now a chef for the army, don't know where he is at the present time. More power to him, got to make a living somehow.

I actually tried to get back into the military when I was in my 30s.  I went to a recruiter and he said I had something like a month to get to boot camp, otherwise I would be too old.  It just wasn't enough time to quit my job, figure out my finances (it would have been a significant pay cut), and drop everything in my life to rush off to boot camp.  Now I'm definitely too old and my understanding is the military doesn't make exceptions.  I would love to get back in somehow and specialize in something technical like radar.  I'm surprised they don't open up more opportunities, even if it's just in the reserves, for us older guys who have something to contribute.  I also looked into becoming a warrant officer but that seems to be a no-go as well.

 

The military is quite picky these days. It's not like when I joined the Navy, when recruiters would do whatever they could to overlook disqualifying issues and even encourage potential recruits to lie about those items on their paperwork. I admitted to pot use and was honest in that I had smoked pot about a week before going in to the recruiter. He took me to an independent testing facility to do a pee test, I popped positive, and he told me to go home, take lots of niacin, drink lots of water, and exercise as much as I could and come back in a few days. Upon going to the testing facility again, I came up negative, and only then did he take me down to go through the official enlistment process.

Nowadays they're actually trying to find reasons to reject applicants because the economy is so bad and people flocking to recruiters and trying to join.

Army brat here. No interest in joining, though; even if I could be bothered to get in good enough physical shape, I seriously doubt I'd ever be mentally fit for that kind of stress. I have plenty of respect for the men and women in uniform, as well as their families. It takes a special kind of person to marry and stick with a man or a woman in uniform, after all.

I am myself a civie though I do have great respect for those in the military.

A follow-up question that I've always wandered about. The M16? It's strange is that everyone I've ever talked with about this rifle has either decided that it is a piece of junk that got mass produced for political/monetary gain or that it was (and in many ways still is) one of the most innovative weapons on the field. I have personally fired both a (semi-automatic) AK47 and the civilian version of the M16(AR15) and noticed that although the AR15 was a little bit harder for a novice to operate (cocking it is not the standard bolt on the right hand side of the stock as expected, though easy to learn if you ignore what you think you know about assault rifles) it was much more accurate and although eventually the AK47 did jam (in fairness to the AK47, we kept removing the clip when we weren't shooting it because we didn't trust the tinker-toy "safety" feature of having a swing-down arm against the cocking mechanism) the AR15 did not.

So how about those who have actually relied on the M16, thoughts?

Before this gets pointed out by someone else
1. we were firing off the last chambered round out of the AK47 after removing the clip
2. I know the M16 has undergone some evolution over the years, so just asking about the M16 used by those in the military when they were in it.