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

12 Strong. Captures one of the greatest military campaigns of recent times

I also loved the movie "Taking Chance" & also had the onion choppers around. Kevin Bacon was great & the part where they switched planes in Minneapolis/St. Paul hit me hard & then my allergy's kicked in along with the onion choppers moving real close to me. My Wife asked me why I was watching it & I told her I cant stop.

Saving Pvt. Ryan, my neighbor Fred was a 19 year old and was part of the D-Day landing. He said when he watched Saving Pvt Ryan. It was very accurate.
I think Fury was very accurate from a tank crew view.

The worst aspects of it show up in things like The Eagle and Waiting for Godot. I got into the habit of keeping a book that I knew I should have but hadn't in my rucksack, and when I found myself sitting on the gymnasium for at For Lewis for entirely too much time, I start wherever I had left off the last time until I was so sick of that I couldn't stand to ever open it again. The Fall of the Roman Empire lasted about four months before I was totally fed up with; Clauswewitz On War is still in my collection, but I think what I was observing and living through was all about Friction as Von C put it, and I passed on the rest of it tho I still revisit now and again. War and Peace turned off in a few months; I refuse to read anything that is compared to Tolstoy on general principles. Moby Dick was one I started when I knew I had only a few months left, and if I could it again, I might start reading it but I'm not buying another copy.
Films -- From Here to Eternity was a great film and novel and nothing like the world we have today. When did we ever have an actual peacetime Army since Task Force Smith? Stockade with Sheen Father and Son was interesting although it was overly dramatic; I think there were great portrayals in Band of Brothers, A Bridge Too Far, and the Sharpe's Rifles series both in the films and in the books. I often think of this exchange in the show, when Sean Bean as mustang LT Sharpe argues with his boss that "You expect me to ask men to die for a rag on a stick?" to which the officer replied, "That's what you do Richard." Camaraderie, small unit cohesion, brotherhood, insane bravery, and a refusal to compromise seemed idealized a bit but also entirely familiar. I often think back to one other film I unfortunately haven't seen that often -- What Price Glory?

My veterans organization and Patriot Guard group does honor guard at funerals. After I saw this movie I make copies in DVD and handed them out to families that want a copy and that have lost their fallen Warriors to show them the care and consideration that is been done for them.

Probably one of the most underrated and under watched unknown movies.

Tribes. MCRD at San Diego. Early 70s

Earl Holiman as the Lifer. Jan Michael Vincent as the Boot/Hippie. Darin McGavin as the DI AND Career Marine.

Best depiction of the depiction between a Career vs Lifer I’ve ever seen.

Anything R. Lee Ermey was in. I loved that guy for his real portrayal of DI's. Don't look to Hollywood for anything but hyperbole and nonsense.

Taking Chance was so real, ive started watching three times and have never finished it

Okay, a lot of great answers here covering serious to funny. But the madness of military life, showing the experience civilians simply will not understand... "3 Kings" with George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Ice Cube. Try to explain some of your experiences to those who have never stood in formation - you wind up saying, 'You had to be there.'