Hurt Locker does not work for Iraq vets

Lindsay Wise, Houston Chronicle:

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Everybody seems to love this movie. Except for Iraq war veterans. A lot of them hate it.

This week, Newsweek.com published a critical essay about The Hurt Locker by Iraq war veteran Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the non-profit group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America:

... those of us who have served in the military couldn't help but be distracted by a litany of inaccuracies that reveal not only a lack of research, but ultimately respect for the American military.

In the military, precision is critical. Take, for instance, the role of Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) units, a heroic and prestigious group, and the focus of the film. EOD is a specialized job in the military that does one thing exceptionally well: disposing of bombs. Members do not generally patrol looking for bad guys, kick in doors, or execute sniper missions. Yet there is a whole scene in The Hurt Locker when the two EOD characters clear a building to find a bomb inside a kid. Securing the area for the EOD specialists to come in is usually the role of infantry or military-police units. As Tom Tarantino, a former cavalry officer who led patrols in Baghdad told me, "EOD arriving on an unsecured scene alone to find ground forces huddled and hiding together in a courtyard stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. The portrayal of the ground forces was outright insulting."

Iraq war veteran Kate Hoit also ripped apart the film on Huffingtonpost.com:

This movie is a full-throttle adrenaline rush that is comprised of ditching common sense and the realities of war. The writers did not attempt to formulate a story based on the actual job of an EOD soldier. Instead, they created a war junky, sniper, commando guy who relied on no one (and no radios?) and stressed-out everyone around him, including those watching the movie.

In my own conversations with veterans about this movie, I hear many of the same complaints: The soldiers aren't in the right uniforms or they're shown doing things they wouldn't do. The tactics and security protocols portrayed are ridiculous.

One Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq said he was particularly disgusted by the scene in which an officer praises Jeremy Renner's character's courage after he takes off his protective gear during a bomb-disposal operation. The veteran said any leader worth his rank would have kicked a soldier's butt for doing such a stupid thing in the Red Zone. He said he had to stop watching the movie at that point. He just couldn't take it anymore.

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And then there's the Iraq veteran who joked that if Hollywood really wanted to make an "authentic" war movie, they'd have to show soldiers bored 80 percent of the time. For many veterans, boredom is as much a part of the war experience as fear or violence.

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I have not seen it. Based on the knowledgeable criticism of the vets, I probably would not like it either. I have a low BS tolerance when it comes to war movies. Even some that are fairly good will be ruined by ridiculous scenes of officers firing their rifles from the hip on full automatic.

While it is unlikely that anyone will ever make a movie about boredom, they should get the action right.