What film best captures what being in the military is truly like?

" Taking Chance" was a real movie experience on escort of the fallen. Return of the dead has come a long way over the years.
As a civilian contractor Iraq became escort for a fallen comrade in 2004. The journey began on a C-130 BIAP AFB with unofficial notification from a caring U.S. Air Force captain that knew us. The Department of State woman from the embassy that was supposed to handle was one of the worst idiot bureaucrats in that long list of lousy DoS bureaucrats Iraq and completely did not care.
The U.S. Air Force was the very best all the long way back at each landing and should be always commended for this tough duty. Landing late at Dover AFB the U.S. Air Force was on the tarmac ready to receive with full honors. The trip from Dover to West Virginia was on contractor and up to me. God keep you Ray.

"No Time For Sergeants". It was a great comedy and it depicts what all of the movies about military life is like; pure entertainment for the audience. Wrap yourself in the American Flag, grab your popcorn and soda and have a good time. Hoorah!!!!!

I am a Vietnam veteran, served in an Engineer unit up in the Highlands. For the Vietnam era, "Platoon" ranks at the top on my Best List. The language, the mannerisms, the dress, everything really, made this film so realistic to me. All that was needed was the stench of the jungle. Number two on my Best List is "Saving Private Ryan". The first time I watched it...I bought the DVD and played it through my stereo system. Unreal! I have my big Sansui speakers arranged with one in each corner of the room. During the beach landing scenes the bullets were flying and it made feel I needed to duck. Again, unreal!

My active duty time was spent in the Navy, and I've yet to see a movie that actually portrays that experience. To be honest if there were a movie that portrayed that accurately I wouldn't want to watch it. My experience was that most of our time was spent maintaining equipment, and doing maintenance on the spaces on the ship assigned to us, and training for when we might have to put all that fire power to use. I'm not saying there was no action, and we did hit a lot of interesting ports of call, but the vast majority of our time was spent preparing for that small amount of actual action time. Portraying life in the military realistically wouldn't be a very exciting movie experience if you based it on my active duty military career. If it were a two hour movie it would be probably about 110 minutes of preparation work, like maintenance and training, and about 10 mins of actual action. All necessary and rewarding work, just not great entertainment value. I'm sure there are many other veterans who served in wartime whose experience would be much more interesting than mine was.

Saving PVT Ryan had me dodging bullets and the camaraderie in battle was about what we experienced. Blackhawk down was, as far as the battle and the Rangers side. But not so much as far as what the 10th MTN did to get them out of the pickle they got themselves into

No movie can ever describe, you have to experience it. Each man's experience is different.

Twelve O'Clock High is a movie that shows the psychological aspects of aerial combat. The Navy has used and maybe still uses the movie to discuss leadership theory. I was in a Navy Intermediate Leadership Management Education Training (ILMET) course in 1990 where it was used. Unfortunately the instructor continually stopped the film to discuss various aspects of leadership which kind of ruined the impact of the film at key moments.

Heartbreak Ridge, Taking Chance, Band of Brothers

Being a submariner, the movie “Das Boot” depicted life and death on a submarine very well

Let there be light.

Shows how Soldier deal with PTSD.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038687/