If you have, say, four people discussing a war movie they've seen, three of them will mention whether it moved or frightened them, and the one veteran in the group will talk about how inaccurate it was. That's what military veterans do, because they are trained for precision and proper procedures, while most moviemakers consider themselves artists. So when I saw an article titled "10 Most Inaccurate Military Movies Ever Made," I said to myself, this had better be written by a veteran. And apparently it was.
There are many flawed Vietnam War movies, but none are quite as out of touch as John Wayne’s The Green Berets. Essentially, the film was a propaganda movie meant to counter the burgeoning anti-war movement. It was grossly misleading, both in military details and in terms of capturing the mood of the time.
The supposedly highly trained Green Beret Colonel was played by Wayne – who actually holds his rifle upside down in some scenes. The actor was 60 years old and overweight when The Green Berets was filmed. He wouldn’t have been allowed a field posting outside of the movies.
But it's not just the details that make war movies inaccurate -some take serious liberties with historical facts in order to sell tickets, or even worse, to make the home team look better. Link -via the Presurfer