• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Recruitment. They were sponsors so that people think it’s cool to be in the army.

    Same reason they do flybys and giant flag-things and shit at sporting events.

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      We have a literal propaganda division that helps with movies like transformers as long as they have a say in how the military is portrayed in them.

      • DABDA@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And rarely you get to see gems like this from the movie Sgt. Bilko (1996):

          • DABDA@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Maybe if the US Army had cooperated it wouldn’t have been so terrible! At least it provides a chance to see Phil Hartman.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              The only way to make that film not terrible would be to not make it at all.

              Or, I suppose, blow up every copy before it was distributed. The Army could definitely have helped with that.

        • ours@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Generation Kill also didn’t have support from the US Army. All the US military gear show was either Jordanian or CGI.

          • DABDA@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Thanks for the reminder to watch that series. I liked The Wire and We Own This City by David Simon so I’m assuming it is a more thoughtful show than the title and imagery suggests.

            • ours@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              It’s real good and let’s just say there is a reason the Pentagon isn’t sponsoring this one.

              • DABDA@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I actually just finished it, wish there were more episodes. There was a lot more humor than I was expecting which really helped to offset the depressing aspects. Yeah, I really can’t imagine the government supporting the show aside from it portraying the US as an absolutely dominating force.

                From a casting angle I think it’s kinda funny Jarhead had a Sarsgaard and Generation Kill had a Skarsgård. I also kept thinking the Rolling Stone writer (Lee Tergesen) looked like a relative of John Michael Higgins.

    • BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The actually cool way of increasing recruitment would be to pay higher salaries and increase the work place safety, with tax money taken from crying billionaires.

        • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          It makes me want to become an army recruiter for video game armies, instead of trying to sleazily recruit high school kids to go get murdered or maimed across the planet I use all the same rhetoric army recruiters use to make the the military seem cool but I recruit kids to play video games while dressed up in camo instead.

          My pamphlets are of video games where you can do cool military stuff without actually killing anybody or getting hurt. Hey check out Arma 3, you can use all those cool looking jets and tanks to nerd out and blow stuff up and THEN when you are done you can just turn it off and go do something else because it’s a fantasy.

          Framed on my table is a picture of Iraq after 20 years of brutal occupation and war with stats on the amount of civilians dead, infrastructure destroyed and American servicemen killed. Next to it is a framed picture of Blood Gulch after 20 years of brutal multiplayer matches with a bunch of zeros next to all the same stats.

          I also have a “But I Want To Serve My Country” pamphlet which suggests types of jobs and careers that actually serve the country and local community like teacher, nurse, tradesman, social worker etc…

          The poster behind my recruiting table says “Just Go Play A Video Game, Joining The Military Is Lame”.

          This would be hilarious to do in character as a recruiter from Helldivers 2.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        There’s no way you can make fighting for the interests of American oligarchs “safe”, though. Even as advanced as our military is; it still ultimately comes down to putting boots on the ground.

        And being the boots on the ground is to walk into a meat grinder.