That was the gist of a recent post on the popular Army subreddit by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Blake Furman. In the post, Furman recounted what it was like to have the Army’s top enlisted leader as his drill sergeant, and did so in the time honored tradition of current and former service members: By telling a story from basic training about an instructor absolutely ruining lives because someone else screwed up.

About 24 years ago, in the winter of 1998, before his career with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or his current post at Training and Doctrine Command, where he teaches special victim courses for criminal investigations, Furman was a young private, sitting in a crowded classroom with 60 other soldiers with Echo Battery, 1-22 Field Artillery Battalion, and a furious Sgt. 1st Class Grinston.

The story takes place during one of those welcome breaks in basic training when soldiers file into a large auditorium for a traditional class with guest presenters. The respite took a turn, however, when one of the junior soldiers decided to whistle at the guest instructor as she walked to the stage.

Silence descended and hell was soon to follow, with Grinston as its herald. There would be only one chance to avoid mass punishment: Whoever whistled needed to step forward.

No one moved, presumably due to complete and utter fear — the kind that paralyzes entry-level trainees living under the iron fist of their instructors.

For the next 50 minutes, the class went on with the Army staff judge advocate lecturer running through the course material as if nothing was amiss. Meanwhile, the future sergeant major of the Army loomed over his charges, eyes roving the seats, searching for the one. By the end of the lecture, no one had come forward to take responsibility, and so responsibility would be shared by all.

“What makes it even worse is that you know he’s right,” Furman told Army Times. “It’s not fury over nonsense just to screw the privates for random stupid rule violations that they made up. You know he is 100% justified in that absolute rage.”

Once the class was finished, Grinston ordered the battery to exit the auditorium. The soldiers headed back toward their building, made their way past it and formed up near the unit’s laundry facilities and bathrooms.

Then, as many have before and since, they endured a gauntlet of physical exercises. Corrective training, as it’s called, is a rite of passage for all who serve and a common training technique, wherein drill sergeants use physical training as a disciplinary tool, but with the added benefit of soldiers getting some more PT in during the day.

“It was constant and continuous,” Furman said, adding, “they would give us breaks, but the breaks would be the exercises where you don’t move, like putting your arms out and just holding them there. Like, ‘We know you’re at muscle failure for push-ups, so we’re going to give you a break. Stand up and put your arms out.’ That kind of stuff.”

And so it continued.

“They just rotated through each one, changing muscle failure to a different group, so eventually in a half-hour you could get back to that group again, and muscle fail it again,” Furman said.

With the caveat that some of the details are hazy, given the gap in time, Furman noted that throughout it all, Grinston, who was the unit’s senior drill sergeant, hammered home the why behind the training: “Reinstilling Army values, talking about how harassment is not tolerated, this type of behavior is not tolerated, every soldier is equal, we don’t treat anybody different because of their race, gender, nationality and that type of behavior would not be tolerated in the military.”

Looking back on that day in 1998, Furman says it helped shape his view of service in the Army and “that harassment of that type would not and should not be tolerated in the military.”

Grinston, for his part, has not forgotten either, telling Army Times, “I remember that story very clearly,” he said. “I’ve never tolerated harassment in any form. I hope those soldiers understood that after our corrective training and continue to live by the values instilled at initial entry training.”

Based on the Reddit thread that surfaced nearly a quarter of a century later, it certainly seems at least one — and likely many more — remember the lesson well.

The original Reddit post has been edited lightly for style and clarity:

Picture this: A small, flat, auditorium style room, elevated stage up front. Chairs filled with baby soldiers, still with mama’s milk on their lip.

An easy training day, random classes by outside presenters. Get the instructors on stage, sit down somewhere, make sure the trainees don’t fall asleep. Try not to kill anyone.

Last class, then the drill sergeants get to go home. The end is almost here.

Ethics and EO, guest instructor, SJA Office.

1457: Stage is empty. A soft cacophony of voices from rebellious but terrified privates.

1458: CPT (random female SJA) walks onto the stage with SFC Grinston.

1458.03: A loud, crisp, clear, cat call whistle ...

1458.04: Pure … silence …

1458.05: Mid-stride, like a slow motion movie, SFC Grinston slows his gate and cocks his head toward the soldiers, with a “what the f*@k did I just hear” face. The face of a man who can’t comprehend what just happened. The face of a man that knew right from wrong … and he just heard the voice of evil call out across the aether. A face of a future SMA, that WOULD see justice.

But who would pay? No one would (or did) admit to the crime. Who would pay? That face said they would all pay. Everyone will pay.

50. Long. Minutes... of EO training. CPT (SJA) taught slide by slide, as though all was right in the world. Meanwhile, SFC Grinston stood at the edge of the stage, arms crossed, burning eyes.

50 minutes knowing it was coming. Would he find the offender? Or would we all …

40.

30. Those eyes ...

20. He can’t actually … kill one of us … can he?

10. Please, it wasn’t me.

0.

CPT (random): ‘Thank you for the wonderful presentation.’ Turns to the soldiers.

[Grinston]: “Battery … ATTENTION! Formation OUTSIDE! You have 2 minutes to fill your canteen.”

That was the first of 3 times we filled our canteens that evening…

For one particular member of the class of 2023, graduation marks an occasion of both momentous joy and excitement about the future, but also profound reflection about the things he wishes he’d known when he began Plebe year — a West Point cadet’s first year at the academy.

As such, Spencer Gillis penned a heartfelt letter to his younger self, which ultimately holds a lot of advice for future service academy attendees.

“West Point is not what you think it is,” Gillis opens. “The vision you have of what it means to be a cadet, and what it means to be an officer, are incorrect. You are painfully naïve as to what the daily life of a cadet looks like. You will more often be unprepared than you will be prepared, and confidence will quickly become a valuable commodity. At this point in your life, you are probably thinking you ‘know’ a lot...”

He goes on to state, essentially, that no one in their first year knows much of anything. Attending West Point is as much a re-education as it is an academic experience.

What each graduate gets out of attendance at this storied institution, Gillis posits, is not a book of military stratagems or a leg up in the Army. Ultimately, like with any battalion or platoon, you benefit primarily from building relationships with a team that shares common goals.

“As graduation gets closer, you will recognize that none of the coursework you completed, shots you took, or formations you had matter at all,” he adds. “The greatest leadership lessons will be learned from those around you, and you will love and cherish them for the rest of your life. To be blunt, you will be nothing without these relationships. Everything else pales in comparison.”

He also waxes, as does Vitamin C — the musical group that sang about graduation in 2000 — about the passage of time and how funny it is the things you remember when school ends.

“Although you’ll be very excited for what’s next, you’ll recognize that as you had been hoping all along, time has in fact passed and despite your best efforts it will only continue to do so,” Gillis says. “In fact, by the time graduation comes around, you will find that you are not as ready to leave as you thought, and when you do, you might actually look back.”

And while all that may seem cliché, what Gillis says in closing may come as a shock to the academically rigorous students that typically apply and are granted acceptance into the highly-ranked military academies.

“If there’s one thing I hope you’d do differently, it’s spend less time caring about school.”

While it may be too late for those graduating this year, these lessons are certainly valuable reading for anyone thinking of applying to a service academy. But for all those departing and commissioning, consider these words from Vitamin C:

As we go on, we remember

All the times we had together

And as our lives change, come whatever

We will still be friends forever

Semper BFFs.

And though books abound, there have been a surprisingly limited number of attempts to tackle the mythic Virginian’s story in film — at least beyond the documentary space. As such, it’s difficult to discern which actor played the best Washington.

“I don’t know that Mount Vernon could fairly rank but we certainly have some modern day favorites,” Matt Briney, vice president of media and communications for Mount Vernon, told Military Times.

Those, Briney said, include portrayals by Barry Bostwick from the 1984 miniseries “George Washington,” Jeff Daniels in “The Crossing,” and Ian Kahn from “TURN: Washington’s Spies.”

Two major motion pictures about the life or military career of Washington — “The General” and “The Virginian” — were rumored during the mid-to-late 2010s, but their status remains unclear.

Briney notes, however, that in the experience of the historians, the life of George Washington — or the other Founding Fathers, for that matter — does not need the Hollywood treatment to be compelling.

“I think some directors want to [view] them in a more superhuman, mythical [lens] — unrealistic portrayals of one-liner action heroes, but a good director with proper consultation from historians can create a story of their lives that would be very relatable to most people today.”

A treatment such as HBO’s “John Adams,” starring Paul Giamatti as the title character, would be a particularly good way to tackle the life of America’s most influential man, Briney adds.

“It’s my opinion, having produced several short films about Washington, that his life is a complicated and very full story to tell. That’s difficult to do in a 90- to 120-minute film,” he said. “Washington would likely be better served as a mini-series.”

Whether something of that nature is in store remains to be seen. For now, though it’s not historically accurate, there’s at least something to be said for the Dodge commercial in which Washington advances on the Redcoats behind the wheel of a Challenger. Talk about legendary.

That isn’t enough money to repair the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” replica that crashed (again) Monday — with no serious injuries — at a Kentucky National Guard training center, but it’s certainly 15 cents more than we expected to have.

The 1917 model plane, one of six — er, five — airworthy Jennies left in the world, crash-landed at the Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center near Greenville, Kentucky, early Monday evening, according to a Kentucky National Guard press release. Spokesperson Capt. Cody Stagner told Military Times that the plane was returning from an airshow at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, when its engine suddenly lost power, causing the pilot to make a controlled crash-landing.

The plane is the same Jenny built by the Friends of Jenny, a historical non-profit that aims to educate the public about early American military aviation. The organization reportedly invested 10,000 technician hours into building the plane, which mostly aligned with the original manufacturer’s specifications.

And it’s the same Jenny that crashed on a Bowling Green, Kentucky, golf course in 2017, according to the Bowling Green Daily News. The pilot survived with minor injuries.

Its owner, Dorian Walker, wasn’t at the controls for that crash. He spearheaded a fundraising effort to get the plane back into the air while also overseeing the group’s other WWI-era restoration project — the world’s last airworthy de Havilland DH-4 biplane.

But Walker was at the sticks when the DH-4 crashed in May 2020.

After walking away from the 2020 crash unscathed, Walker told local reporters that his survival was “a testimony to how well-built this plane is.”

Walker was one of two pilots involved in Monday’s crash as well.

His biplane flying days may be over, though.

Walker’s wife, Elaine Walker, told the Bowling Green Daily News that the wreckage could “easily” be restored for a museum display after the Federal Aviation Administration completes its investigation of the crash. But getting it back into the air again?

“To restore it to fly again would be a little more complex.”

Sydney Sweeney (”Euphoria”) will portray the 25-year-old whistleblower who leaked classified documents to The Intercept about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Winner was formally charged under the Espionage Act and sentenced to five years and three months in jail in 2018.

The docudrama, set to debut on May 29, focuses on the investigation into Winner’s motivations behind printing and sharing the documents.

“I’m trying to deploy, I’m not trying to be a whistleblower. That’s crazy,” she says in one scene.

Winner is portrayed in the beginning of the trailer as a quirky, but ordinary person, but as the serious nature of her actions begin to close in the walls around her, her unflappable demeanor slowly dissolves.

In 2019, Tina Satter put together a play, titled “This is a Room,” based on the transcript of Winner’s FBI interview. The play served as the basis for the HBO treatment.

Ultimately, Winner pleaded guilty and served a prison term until 2021, when she was moved to a halfway house.

“Reality” premieres May 29 on Max.

Numerous documentaries have ventured to convey the seemingly insurmountable odds confronted by ground, air and naval forces, and the immense sacrifices that resulted.

As such, we compiled a list of five comprehensive World World II documentaries that best tell these harrowing stories.

World War II in HD

Released by the History Channel in 2009, this 10-episode series narrated by Gary Sinise (”Forrest Gump”) uses stunning footage from both the European and Pacific fronts, much of which was shot in color, to illustrate the horrors and triumphs of war.

The producers sourced first-hand stories from journalists, medics and soldiers, and used voice overs by professional actors to bring them to life.

Inside World War II

Released in 2012, this three-part documentary from National Geographic features personal stories of World War II from troops who lived it. According to its synopsis, the series “takes an intimate look at personal wartime experiences from the perspective of a wide array of veterans and citizens who endured ... bloody conflicts day by day, hour by hour, and second by second.”

Episodes feature both black-and-white and color footage that move chronologically though the war’s defining moments.

The World at War

Released in 1973, this 26-part, British-produced series is one of the most comprehensive World War II documentaries ever made.

Narrated by Oscar-winner Laurence Olivier, the series focuses on 15 of the war’s most significant military campaigns as well as the conflict’s profound impact on the individuals enduring its horrors.

Producer Jeremy Isaacs told The Guardian, “I wanted to hear not just the voices of people who dropped the bombs, but also those they targeted.”

World War II: The Last Heroes

This six-part series, which focuses on the ordinary boys who became heroes, begins with D-Day and ends at the war’s conclusion. The crux of this particular documentary is a story of war as told by its foot soldiers — rather than through a lens of historians or high-ranking decision makers.

The series is currently available to view on Amazon Prime.

World War 2: The Complete History

“The Complete History” is a slightly older series designed to appeal to the well-versed history and military buffs interested in oft overlooked details of the conflict.

Produced in 2000 and narrated by Peter Dickson (”Britain’s Got Talent”), the documentary begins with pre-WWII discussions surrounding the Treaty of Versailles and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and concludes with the Nuremberg trials and the Cold War.

Apocalypse: The Second World War

This six-part French documentary is perhaps one of the best international films on the conflict. U.S. viewers, meanwhile, can enjoy a National Geographic-treated version narrated by Martin Sheen. The series can be easily digested by a WWII novice wanting to understand the high points of the war.

The documentary comprises footage — shot by regular citizens, journalists, and troops on the ground — that has been colorized and digitally remastered.

Lt. Col. John “Tosh” Lancaster, program manager for U.S. Special Operations Command’s lethality acquisitions, ran down the list of needs — from machine guns to suppressors and bullets — on Tuesday at the SOF Week conference in Florida.

“Toe to toe with an enemy weapons system, does our weapons system outrange it? Is it more accurate?” Lancaster said. “If you look at what we have on the battlefield right now, we can’t say that in every category.”

The lightweight medium machine gun, a .338 Norma Magnum weapon, is scheduled to field in fiscal 2026, Lancaster said. But users still need accessories and a new suite of ammo for the weapon. The machine gun itself will need a dedicated optic to see far-off targets.

Without disclosing specifics, Lancaster also pushed for nighttime range finders for snipers.

The lightweight machine gun-assault — a lighter version of the lightweight medium machine gun still under development — is meant to replace the legacy 5.56mm Squad Automatic Weapon, which has been in service for decades. The caliber hasn’t yet been selected, but Lancaster hinted that 6.5mm is leading the chase.

The command is also seeking new suppressors for machine guns and rifle/carbine small arms. There must be a reduction in flash, sound, heat and round disturbance for all suppressors, he said.

But those straight-line bullets can’t arc over berms, walls or hills the way mortars do. What’s more, mortars and low-flying, dedicated drones are not always an option; when they are, they’re an expensive way to destroy a target, he noted.

“We have all kinds of things to kill behind berms,” Lancaster said. “We don’t have a squad-level, low-cost option.”

He specified a need for a weapon that can be carried comfortably on a three-day foot patrol and still get the job done.

But sometimes a different kind of boom is on the menu. While special operators are at the top of their craft for breaching obstacles, they need something even better. The command wants to update its breaching and demolition kits with new remote firing devices and slap charges — strips of explosive that can be quickly “slapped” on an obstacle to penetrate in one blast.

Essentially, the command wants explosives that are more effective and have higher yield.

And while the toll was incalculable, the cost of developing the bomb resulted in even deeper consequences for humanity, an idea explored in Christopher Nolan’s (“Dark Knight,” “Inception,” “Dunkirk”) upcoming movie “Oppenheimer.”

The trailer for the film, in 186 seconds, manages to showcase both the brilliance and seeming arrogance of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) in the race to build a devastating weapon to compete with Axis forces.

“Our work here will ensure a peace mankind has never seen,” Oppenheimer says in the trailer.

But, as history tells us, the creation of the bomb did not bring about complete peace, and the arms race and Cold War that followed have continued to radiate global repercussions ever since.

As the countdown to the first atomic bomb test rolls in the background of the trailer, an unnamed character played by Kenneth Branagh gravely professes, “You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves, and the world is not prepared.”

“Oppenheimer” hits theaters on July 21.

The dish may sound rather luxurious, buts its origin story traces its roots to something more of a garbage meal used to feed hungry soldiers during World War II.

Carbonara, as it’s known today, is a pasta dish including eggs, pecorino cheese, black pepper, and guanciale — an Italian cured meat product akin to bacon. The noodle of choice varies, but typically stringy varieties like spaghetti, tagliatelle, linguine or bucatini are used.

It’s not certain exactly when Carbonara came to be, but according to Italian pasta archives — yes, these are real, hallowed texts — no official mention was made until the 1950s.

However, according to an Italian newspaper called “La Stampa,” the dish made its first appearance in 1944.

A translation reads: “The initial ingredients, brought by the United States troops, were sure: eggs and bacon. And obviously the pasta, because the raw material is American, but the genius is Italian.”

Rumor has it that when Allied troops moved through Rome, Carbonara was born.

An author and gastronomist named Marco Guarnaschelli Gotti surmised that “when Rome was liberated, food shortages were extreme, and one of the few resources were military rations, distributed by allied troops; these included eggs (powdered) and bacon (smoked bacon), which some unknown genius would have had the idea of mixing while seasoning the pasta.”

Popular theories suggest that a Bolognese chef named Renato Gualandi, who, according to some accounts was serving in the Italian Army at the time, was responsible for the dish’s origin. Gualandi was reportedly commissioned by U.S. and British troops to cook for them during the liberation of Rome.

“The recipe was born in Rome, almost by chance, again in 1944, when Gualandi was a fellow soldier and found himself having to fulfill the request of two generals, an American and an Englishman, who wanted to eat,” Italian magazine Gambero Rosso recounts.

In his memoir, Gualandi said the dish was developed to cook for mass amounts of soldiers using what was available in ration form.

According to one translation, Gualandi wrote, “The Americans had fantastic bacon, delicious milk cream, cheese, and egg red [dried?] powder. I put it all together and served this pasta to the generals and officers for dinner. At the last moment, I decided to put black pepper which gave off an excellent flavor.”

None of this, unfortunately, can be corroborated with any certainty. The New York Times did note that one food journalist wrote an account of the delicious “Pasta alla Carbonara” in 1954 in the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere.

However it was invented, Carbonara certainly blows most modern-day DFAC food out of the water.

A handful of devil dogs, who were crossing off the final item on their training checklists before the class’ May 12 graduation, took certification a step further by volunteering for a before-and-after portrait series depicting the impacts of oleoresin capsicum.

The images came out as one would expect.

Nothing quite prepares participants for the trauma of OC spray, a tool used in select training scenarios “to understand the psychological and physiological effects the chemical agent has on a person,” the MSG Duty Facebook account wrote in a post Sunday. “Could you manage to keep smiling through the pain?”

During the process, Marines awaiting the spray stand on line in front of instructors who each hold an aluminum canister. With arms resting at their sides and eyes sealed, Marines hear the dreaded command, “OC! OC! OC!”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” is a phrase that often follows. The sprayed are then thrust into action, ordered to perform a series of non-lethal takedowns and detainment exercises as every inch of what was once an untarnished cranium becomes engulfed in invisible flame.

Marines eventually get hosed down, but the misery, many times, persists, resurfacing even when lingering remnants wash away during a subsequent shower.

A terrible experience. We salute these Marines for not only getting through it, but doing so with a little motivation — false motivation is better than none at all — along the way.

In the distance, a pair of AH-64 Apache helicopters could be seen orbiting above the ridgeline. Somewhere in the forest below, 220 soldiers from the elite 101st Airborne Division, who had been airlifted to three onsite landing zones, were taking part in a training scenario. Their mission: Locate and destroy an enemy’s air defense system.

DIRT Days 23 was in full swing April 20 at the Fola Experimentation Facility, a former Consol Energy surface mine complex that produced 105 million tons of coal before closing in 2012. Later repurposed as a military training site by the West Virginia National Guard, the site is now operated in partnership with the Civil-Military Innovation Institute, or CMI2, a nonprofit based in Morgantown.

The weeklong Driving Innovation in Realistic Training event aimed to involve soldiers in developing and field-testing new tactics and technology while taking part in challenging, realistic training exercises. An initial DIRT Days event took place at the Fola site last summer.

“DIRT Days is all about soldier-driven innovation,” said Mitch Kusmier, a vice president at CMI2 and a colonel in the Army Reserve.

“We curate the problems soldiers encounter with equipment in the field and then team up with WVU, the Army Research Laboratory and other partners to come up with solutions that are field-tested and proven to work,” he said.

The idea is to avoid sending newly designed technology and equipment into the field without input from the people who will be using it.

“When I was in Iraq, sometimes a container would show up full of gear designed to solve problems we didn’t know we had,” Kusmier said.

Retired Maj. Gen. Buff Blount, who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division when it led the three-week charge to capture Baghdad in 2003, was on hand to observe the activity at Fola.

“You don’t want to send experimental gear into the field,” he said. “We owe it to our soldiers to provide them with proven technology.”

Among gear being field tested at Fola last week was Saab’s Force-on-Force Training System-Next, in which soldiers wear laser-activated, sensor-equipped vests during simulated enemy actions to allow their movements and actions to be monitored and recorded for post-exercise critiquing.

“We love Fola,” said David Rees, director of training at Saab’s defense and security division. “You have a huge, open piece of terrain as well all these steep slopes and wooded areas. It’s a very unique and challenging site for training and testing.”

Other gear being tested last week included:

♦ An Advanced Dynamic Spectrum Reconnaissance system, developed at Vanderbilt University, that integrates and automatically tunes legacy Army radios to accommodate the operation of remote sensor networks for detecting enemy presence.

♦ A Mobile Immediate Need Engineering Resource, or MINER, unit — a containerized, self-powered shop structure equipped with 3-D printers and assorted tools to repair gear in the field.

♦ A new soldier-created machine gun ammunition bag system designed to replace the practice of cramming belts of ammo into standard rucksacks, often making them difficult to balance and slow to unload.

The new ammo bag, designed to serve M240 machine guns and nearing the production stage, may be low-tech, but it “can almost cut in half the time it takes to get a gun on a tripod and ready to fire,” said Lt. Col. Dale Marrou, a battalion commander with the 101st Airborne. “And it all came from one captain with an idea.”

How 101st Airborne soldiers are using EagleWerx makerspace to innovate

Demonstrations of new technology also included using an unarmed aerial vehicle to make 150-pound resupply drops of MREs and ammunition.

Marrou said the DIRT Days event provided “a fabulous opportunity to work with newly developed technology and identify technology we want to be developed.” As a site for training exercises, Fola provides a terrain mix that “can’t be replicated at Fort Campbell,” the 101st Airborne’s home base in Kentucky, he said.

In addition to the 220 soldiers from the 101st Airborne, an additional 80 or so troops from the 82nd Airborne Division took part in DIRT Days.

The name may be both amusing and an impressive epithet, but Cannon’s accomplishments during his short time in the U.S. Marine Corps vastly exceeded his swine-artillery surname.

As the Japanese bombed Sand Island in the Midway Atoll on Dec. 7, 1941, Cannon was injured by enemy shellfire, according to his citation. Serving as Battery Commander of Battery H, 6th Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, Cannon declined medical treatment until his wounded men were moved to safety.

“As a result of his utter disregard of his own condition he died from loss of blood,” the citation notes.

For actions, Cannon was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Cannon originally commissioned as an officer in the Army in 1938 after graduating from ROTC at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He resigned shortly thereafter and was appointed instead to the Marine Corps. The Missouri native was just 26 years old when he died.

In 1943, the USS Cannon (DE-99) was named after him. It served the U.S. Navy for a little over a year before being decommissioned and given to the Brazilian Navy, which she served until 1960.

Semper Ham Cannon.

As Americans turned citizen-soldier, the Army found themselves in a quandary — how could the service turn the youth of America into fierce, trained soldiers?

Part of the solution? Training films.

“Training films were used during World War I, but became even more popular during World War II. Career soldiers, however, found the films unhelpful, and young recruits found them boring,” according to the National Archives.

Enter Geisel, who, before the war, worked as a writer and illustrator. Under the direction of Frank Capra (“It’s A Wonderful Life”), Geisel offered up his services to the U.S. Army’s Information and Education Division.

There, alongside other talented artists such as Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) and Chuck Jones (animator on the “Looney Tunes”), Geisel set to work to create the beloved character the trio dubbed Private Snafu.

Doing away with the basic, often cheesy films of 1917-18, the Private Snafu cartoon took on the war with slapstick, often raunchy humor.

Per the National Archives, the Army-Navy Screen Magazine (ANSM) was a biweekly production that featured a variety of short segments including propaganda, entertainment and training films.

Snafu, an acronym for Situation Normal: All Fouled (or F--ked) Up, was the Army’s attempt to relate to the non-career soldier. And by 1943 standards, scantily clad women (albeit in cartoon form), profanity and sexual innuendos were deemed just the ticket.

From Snafu’s premiere in 1943 until the end of its run in 1946, 28 cartoons tackled myriad problems these young soldiers might face — from breaches of security and malaria to spreading rumors and letting loose lips sink ships in order to impress members of the opposite sex.

And while Geisel made most of his war contributions from the safety of “Fort Fox” in California, he did briefly experience life on the front lines.

In November 1944, Geisel was sent to Europe to screen “Your Job in Germany” to top American generals in the Western Theater. Although six months before the German capitulation, the film short was, according to the Archives, “an orientation film for United States Army personnel who would occupy Germany after the war was over.”

Geisel later recalled that he managed to play it for every high-ranking general in the theater except for one: Gen. George Patton.

“Somebody else took the film and played it for Patton,” Geisel told his biographers, Judith and Neil Morgan. “I was told he said ‘Bullshit!’ and walked out of the room.”

The film advised Army personnel to avoid fraternization with the Germans post-war, with Geisel writing in his script:

“They cannot come back into the civilized fold just by sticking out their hand and saying ‘sorry’. Sorry? Not sorry they caused the war; they’re only sorry they lost it. That is the hand that heiled Hitler; that is the hand that dropped the bombs on defenseless Rotterdam, Brussels, Belgrade. Don’t clasp that hand. It’s not the kind of a hand you can clasp in friendship.”

It was during this time, while traveling around the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Belgium, that Geisel found himself trapped 10 miles behind enemy lines on Dec. 16, 1944, during Germany’s last counteroffensive in Bastogne.

Geisel reportedly wanted to go to the front to “see what was what,” according to Capt. Wentworth Eldredge’s account.

Maj. “Ralph [Ingersoll] and I talked it over,” Eldredge wrote, “and concluded that the ‘safest’ place would be the 106th Division front — a very calm sector. There won’t be much action because we’ve just done an intelligence sweep of the area.”

Exactly what occurred next remains somewhat of a mystery, Rick Beyer wrote in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine.

“Geisel’s crisply typed ‘Overseas Itinerary,’ submitted upon his return, offers little information,” Beyer wrote. “It baldly states that he drove from Luxembourg to Aachen, Germany, on December 16; from Aachen to Verviers, Belgium, on December 17; and from Verviers to the safety of Brussels on December 18.”

It would take three days before the British could break through and rescue Geisel and his military police escort.

“Nobody came along and put up a sign saying, ‘This is the Battle of the Bulge,’” Geisel later told a New Yorker reporter. “How was I supposed to know? I thought the fact that we didn’t seem to be able to find any friendly troops in any direction was just one of the normal occurrences of combat.”

In typical Dr. Seussian flare, Geisel added, “The retreat we beat, was accomplished with a speed that will never be beaten.”

Geisel was honorably discharged by war’s end, having attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. But it wouldn’t be his last foray with the military.

Geisel’s “Your Job in Germany” was later expanded into a 1945 American short documentary film, winning an Oscar the following year for Documentary Short Subject.

The following year, according to the Archives, Geisel adapted his short companion piece, “Our Job in Japan,” which was largely suppressed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, into a feature-length documentary — “Design for Death” — that won the 1947 Academy Award.

Talk about the places you’ll go. A real Uncle Sam-I-am.

This story originally appeared on HistoryNet.com.

However, at least for now, it remains fun to use services like OpenAI’s DALL•E to create fanstastical pieces of art.

As such, we commissioned it to reimagine some of the most famous pantings in history — but with tanks.

These are our favorites.

Edvard Munch’s “The Screaming Tank”

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa Rides Shotgun on a Sherman”

Johannes Vermeer’s “Tank Girl with a Pearl Earring”

Katsushika Hokusai’s “Abrams Tank Rides The Great Wave off Kanagawa”

Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawk’s Ride Home from the Diner”

Salvador Dalí’s “The Persistence of Tanks”

Gustav Klimt’s “Kissing a Tank”

Vincent Van Gogh’s “Tank Outside a Starry Night Café”

Tanks for stopping by!

While most Americans may be familiar with story of Anne Frank, whose diary shed light on the deplorable treatment of Jewish people under Nazi rule, the story of the brave woman who hid Frank and her family is lesser known. Miep Gies, an ordinary woman, performed an extraordinary act of courage in hiding the Frank family from the Gestapo.

The eight-part series, produced by National Geographic, tells the story of Gies (Bel Powley) and her husband Jan (Joe Cole), who worked quietly to resist the Nazis in Amsterdam.

Gies, who was not Jewish, is unemployed and living with her adoptive Dutch family as the series begins. That is until Otto Frank, played by Liev Schreiber, hires her as a secretary.

At the outset of the show, Holland appears to be a bastion, but as the Nazis seize control, Jewish life in Amsterdam becomes tenuous seemingly overnight. As a result, Gies works to hide her boss’ family in a hideaway known famously as the annex in their former office.

For two years, the Frank family, Van Pels family and a man named Fritz Pfeffer survived there. Nazis eventually raided the building in August 1944 and sent the eight residents to concentration camps.

Gies, meanwhile, was left with the wreckage from the raid, picking up remnants of what the families left behind, including the renowned diary of Anne Frank, which she returned to Otto — the sole surviving member of the Frank family — after Allied Forces liberated the concentration camps.

The series is a testament to the increasing danger Gies and her husband put themselves through to protect their wards following the swift Nazi takeover. The show derives its title from a quote from Gies, which said, “Even a regular secretary, a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room,” according to the New York Times.

Gies published her own memoir in 1987.

“I am not a hero,” she wrote. “I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more — much more — during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the heart of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then.”

The first two episodes of “A Small Light” are available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.

“Many’s the time I’ve turned on the nightly news and seen Taliban or ISIS militants tooling around in mini-trucks, mostly Toyotas, with machine guns bolted to the bed ‘Rat Patrol’ style,” wrote Dion Lefler, opinion editor for The Wichita Eagle.

“Every time I see that, I say to myself (or anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot), ‘There, that’s the truck I want’ — minus the machine gun, which I’d only need if I were driving [Kansas Attorney General] Kris Kobach in a parade.”

The author of the piece goes on to state that “profits and politics” are the reasons why the average Joe can’t purchase a tiny Toyota with desert sand damage, a free-flying flag and gun turret.

“Profits, because car manufacturers make way more per unit selling jumbo trucks,” Lefler notes. “And politics because of an antiquated trade policy levying a 25% tariff on imported light trucks, in retaliation for a European tariff on U.S. chicken.”

For those not familiar, “The Chicken Tax” was initiated under President Lyndon B. Johnson as a tariff on several grocery items as well as light trucks imported into the U.S. The move, designed to slow the import of these items, was modeled — and appropriately named — after a similar European tariff that sought to limit chicken imports from America.

This tariff, however, has been around since 1963, and many automakers have since found loopholes to continue the sale of trendy vehicles. According to AutoTrends, Japanese manufacturers were the first to do so, making Lefler’s argument something of a stretch.

But on the “profits” side of the argument, one has to think it’s because most Americans ascribe to the notion that “bigger is better.” And manufacturers know that.

However, Lefler continues, “Ditching the Chicken Tax might break the big-truck stranglehold on the market. If smaller import trucks sell, as I suspect they would, our domestic manufacturers might be led to retool and compete. And then, when it comes to buying a pickup truck, we might once again be as free as the Taliban.”

We should all be so lucky...

Nothing, however, is quite as offensive as Teixeira’s repulsive bedroom, the photos of which reveal a space oozing with revolting decorative touches that seemingly cry out for the help of any who possess interior design taste that exceeds that of a fourth grader.

Let’s get to work.

Starting with the walls

The curdled cream yellow color forming the foundation of the haphazardly placed brown and green camouflage wall stickers is putrid. No one, to our knowledge, has ever willingly dwelled amid blister pus-colored walls — until now.

We suggest swapping in an elegant sage green, sans camo, that could still convey a sense of military pride while implying at least a modicum of taste that suggests to visitors, “Hey, I’m an adult.”

Speaking of wall stickers...

If the camouflage stickers plastered over every square foot of vertical space weren’t enough to rob any unfortunate visitor of their eyesight, Teixeira made sure to seal the vision depriving deal by inexplicably adorning a space normally reserved for a bed’s headboard with a peel-and-stick Abrams tank.

Much like the subject of the sticker, the idea tanks Teixeira’s room. To harmonize with the sage walls, we recommend installing a bamboo colored bed. Realistically, however, any bed and headboard — a poorly assembled model constructed with grocery store shipping crates, for example — would provide a significant upgrade.

Also, a mattress on the floor? Gross. One might as well just opt for a full tank bed — much like this gun turret-equipped model seen on Etsy.

Fabrics

The choice of sky blue bedding does not mesh with ... well, anything, especially not the window-blocking camouflage netting Teixeira installed for vampirical UV protection.

Dark green curtains would continue Teixeira’s patriotic theme while contrasting delightfully with the sage green and bamboo.

Of course, anything that emits natural light is a step in the right direction, unless Teixeira’s goal was to craft an underground bunker where he can slowly transform into the cape-donning Orin from “Parks and Recreation.”

If a doomsday prepper bunker is the goal, the fan light fixture, at the very least, should be swapped for something a bit more thematic — perhaps outdoor wall sconces. These classics are all the rage in mine shafts and fallout shelters.

That shelving thing

The military often uses grey, green and brown filing cabinets to store its wares, and this cedar shelving unit simply cannot abide.

There’s just no stylish way to allegedly stash top secret documents in a storage space without proper drawers.

We suggest upgrading to a dresser, cabinet or even an armoire that could also house what is sure to be Teixeira’s expansive collection of camouflage clothing, shirts with comically aggressive messaging and Punisher stickers.

Do better.

Disclaimer: This is satire and not the perspective of a licensed interior decorator.

As a former professional football player and Army Ranger, he knows what rigorous training looks like, whether it’s preparing for military operations or primetime games. And, according to Villanueva, they aren’t all that different.

“It is very obvious when you join a football team, and you see the drills, that it looks a lot like basic training,” he said in a SOFCAST podcast interview. “The NFL has an incredible admiration for the military.”

The offensive tackle attended West Point and played football for the Black Knights until 2010 before fulfilling his service commitment and serving three tours in Afghanistan. During one deployment, Villanueva earned a Bronze Star with a “V” device for rescuing wounded soldiers while taking heavy enemy fire.

Villanueva went on to play in the NFL for seven years after getting out of the Army, six of which were with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“The origins of football stemmed from men at Harvard and Yale trying to increase their manhood by battling each other with strategy and honor and camaraderie and whatnot,” he added.

While strategizing in football is part of a game, Villanueva noted that both the sport and military training offer instructions on how to keep on the offensive without going too far. Ultimately, he said, there are lessons of how to harness and channel rage.

“You’re just pitted against each other,” he said. “[Coaches and instructors are] trying to develop the inner anger. They’re trying to develop things in you that are mean because you have to be mean and this is controlled aggression.”

Anthony Doerr’s historical novel centers on the closing days of World War II in a small coastal town in France.

The trailer for the four-episode miniseries by Steven Knight and Shawn Levy brilliantly contrasts the idyllic locale with the destruction and chaos of war, without any of the characters uttering a single word. The decision to exclude any dialog in favor of simple piano music is clearly designed to leave audiences speechless.

In the book, chapters alternate between the perspective of the Marie-Laure LeBlanc, played at different ages by Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton, and Werner Pfennig (Louis Hofmann) in what makes for an unorthodox love story that unfolds between two unlikely characters brought together while apart.

LeBlanc, who went blind at age six, lives with her father Daniel (Mark Ruffalo). They are being hunted by the Nazis because he has been assigned by the Natural History museum to protect a rare diamond from falling into German hands. As such, they flee to the seaside town of Saint-Malo to live with a reclusive uncle who broadcasts Resistance radio transmissions.

Pfennig, a genius German orphan, built his own radio to listen to a French professor talk about science when he was young. He is drafted into the Army underage for his brilliance and is tasked with tracking illegal broadcasts for the Nazis in the same small town.

Their paths eventually collide in the most unlikely of ways and show that, despite the most tragic of circumstances, there is always a light to be found in the dark.

“All the Light We Cannot See” is set to air on Netflix Nov. 2, 2023.

Though the board game “Risk” may lead the way in offering a simple means of understanding military war games, the Activision hit series is now looking to join the fun by taking its players back to basics via the “Call of Duty” board game.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Activision to bring the ‘Call of Duty’ franchise to the tabletop,” Arcane Wonders CEO and designer Bryan Pope told Variety. “As lifelong COD fans, we’ve worked hard to capture the scope, stakes, and sheer intensity of the video games in ways that COD fans and board gamers new and old will love. We’re looking forward to bringing the unforgettable fun and competitive frenzy of COD to game night for years to come.”

Interested players will be able to pre-order the game on Kickstarter in Fall 2023, with deliveries set for 2024.

It’s unclear how “Call of Duty” will differentiate itself from other tabletop strategy games like “Settlers of Catan,” “Blitzkrieg!” or the aforementioned “Risk,” but Variety notes it will be a tactical game that makes use of some of the franchise’s most popular maps and campaigns.

“Call of Duty” is not the first to make the jump from digital to the table top. The iconic 1971 “Oregon Trail” video game was recently made into a board game, which allows players to die of dysentery by candlelight if the PC game loses power — the way God intended.

Perhaps “COD” will do the same.

One film industry note that might be seen as “f—d up beyond all recognition” is that Arnold Schwarzenegger has never starred in a TV show during his 54-year acting career ... until now.

At 75 years old, the former body building champion, “Terminator” star and California governor has produced and starred in an upcoming Netflix series called “FUBAR,” a story about a CIA agent on the verge of retirement until one last mission pulls him back in.

The trailer is everything we could have wanted.

“Everywhere I go, people ask me when I’m going to do another big action comedy like ‘True Lies,’” Schwarzenegger said in the Netflix first look. “Well, here it is.”

In “FUBAR,” Schwarzenegger plays Luke Brunner, whose final mission before he rides off into the sunset to win his ex-wife back entails rescuing a fellow CIA operative who happens to be his daughter — played by Monica Barbaro (”Top Gun: Maverick”).

Much like the aforementioned 1994 action comedy, the series will test family dynamics as carefully held secrets become comically exposed through life and death situations. But unlike the movie, fans will get to enjoy a significantly longer story.

“‘FUBAR’ will kick your ass and make you laugh — and not just for two hours,” Schwarzenegger joked. “You get a whole season.”

“FUBAR” arrives on Netflix on May 25.

In reality, a military base or quarantine zone would be extremely safe. Slow, rotting corpses wouldn’t stand a chance against the sheer firepower of the U.S. military. However, that doesn’t make for compelling cinema.

As such, movies and TV shows have crafted stereotypical ways for troops to fail in their attempts to halt the hordes of dead. After all, such failures set the stage for the post-apocalyptic anarchy that surely follows.

Here are some of our favorite troops vs. zombie catastrophes.

1. The troops are overrun

Despite the military’s epic arsenal — including everything from pistols to nuclear bombs — there is nothing that can keep a platoon from being overcome by a horde of flesh-eating former civilians.

2. The single infected

It happens all the time. Someone among the rank-and-file becomes infected. And rather than admit they will soon start craving brains, the boot instead opts to keep quiet until it’s too late.

Sometimes it’s a lowly E-1 riddled with fear. Other times it’s an officer who would seemingly rather kill off an entire unit than relinquish power.

3. The militia man

The armed doomsday prepper with an arsenal accumulated specifically for the apocalypse is an enemy the U.S. military seems unable to repel in just about every zombie production.

Even though the military is overwhelmingly capable, troops always seem to fall to a group of conspiracy-enthused civilians with firearms who, inevitably, are conveniently skilled sharpshooters.

4. Breached gates

Similar to being overrun, a classic military-zombie failure is due to vulnerabilities in a base infrastructure — a convenient hole in the fence, a wall the undead can scale by piling body upon body, on and on.

Once the dead are inside, it’s game over for the unsuspecting soldiers.

5. The mad scientist

In searching for a cure, the military often sets up a highly protected lab that invariably falls when scientists who believe they’ve found the solution instead invent a bigger problem.

Whether through zombie mutations or another disease entirely, base personnel are wiped out from the inside. Either way, the military does not make out well, and humanity is, naturally, doomed.

Gerald Leonard Drake, 63, a former Civil War reenactor, was federally charged for mailing threatening letters and planting an explosive device at the Cedar Creek Battlefield in Middletown, Virginia, during a 2017 reenactment event.

He pleaded guilty April 17 for possession of the unregistered explosive device and for stalking, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia.

“This defendant sought to intimidate and harm innocent people, and further, he tried to sow discontent by falsely claiming that the attempted bombing was politically motivated,” U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said in the release.

Civil War artillery shell discovered at Gettysburg

The 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek, a Union victory, ended Confederate resistance in the Shenandoah Valley and helped propel President Abraham Lincoln to reelection, according to the National Park Service.

Court documents show Drake belonged to a group that participated in a yearly reenactment of the battle until he was removed from the cosplaying unit in 2014. It remains unclear whether his acting chops or his propensity for dangerous explosives led to his exit from the cohort.

Drake later volunteered with the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation, which hosts the event. Between September 2017 and December 2018, he sent the nonprofit and various newspapers disturbing mail while pretending to be a member of the left-leaning anti-fascist group antifa.

The ousted actor threatened violence if the event was not canceled.

“Several hundred of our supporters will attend and slash tires, block traffic, harass [p]atrons and [reenactors],” he said in one letter.

On October 14, 2017, as the annual reenactment came to an end, a pipe bomb was discovered at the battlefield. The explosive contained metal nuts, a mercury switch, a battery, ball bearings, black and red wires and powder, among other items. The very real device did not detonate but forced the conclusion of the very pretend activities.

Authorities responded to the scene to investigate and seize the explosive device, which was later rendered safe by Virginia State Police.

Court documents show Drake’s aggressive letter writing campaign continued after the incident, forcing the 2018 observance of the event to be canceled.

At sentencing, Drake faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

The next anniversary reenactment of the battle is scheduled for October 21 and 22, according to the nonprofit’s website.

Reading such titles makes it hard not to liken the naming pattern to the U.S. military’s own operation naming conventions, which are typically indistinct adjective-noun combinations that evoke anything from absurd patriotism to complete confusion.

As such, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite U.S. military operation monikers that could easily pass as Taylor Swift song titles.

1. Red Dawn

While Operation Red Dawn was the mission that led to the capture of Iraq’s ousted leader, Saddam Hussein, it carries a rather lyrical ring to it and evokes a poetic morning of sorts. Plus, it’s derived from the 1984 film of the same name, starring impossibly tight jean-wearer Patrick Swayze.

2. Acoustic Kitty

The CIA in the Cold War attempted (and failed) to turn cats into the ultimate spies by implanting listening devices into their ears. Swift, meanwhile, is a known cat mother of three named Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button. The idea that she might sing about them isn’t terribly far afield.

3. Casanova

In 2013, 12 men were arrested in Texas in connection “with a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.” However, given Swift’s history of writing about men in comically stereotypical roles and gender norms, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a Swiftian song about a seductive lead with many lovers.

4. Morning Light

Operation Morning Light involved a 1978 search for a Soviet nuclear-powered spy satellite — Cosmos 954 — that accidentally entered northern Canadian airspace before crashing. The American and Canadian militaries worked together to collect its debris. For Swift, it would perhaps be a song about the refreshing experience of waking up to a new day after a heartbreaking evening.

5. Evening Light

Another “Light” mission, this 1980 iteration was an epic failure of the American military to end the Iran hostage crisis and rescue the 52 Americans trapped at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. For Swift, it’s aligned with Morning Light, and everyone knows how much she loves a theme — hello, “Midnights.”

6. All-American Tiger

In 2003, troops in Iraq were sent to patrol around the Euphrates River near Al-Qaim, where they found 12 people of interest. This, however, also sounds like the name of a Swiftian anthem — her answer to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” in which she sings, “I’ve got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, ’cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar.”

7. Gothic Serpent

Unfortunately, this was the 1993 mission that led to the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, the subject of the film “Black Hawk Down.” Alas, it could also lend its name to a particularly angsty song about the vipers in the press that so often spew venom about Swift’s personal life.

8. Steel Curtain

This 2005 mission meant to create a blockade to tamp down on the flood of insurgents into Iraq from Syria. However, it’s also a great name for the walls a celebrity like Swift might put up to keep the conspiracy theory-hunting fans and ravenous tabloids from invading her privacy.

9. Just Cause

This is the name given to the 1989 U.S. mission to invade Panama and remove military dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega from power. For Swift, it could be about the deliverance of justice, or, with the addition of an apostrophe, a song about things she does “just ‘cause.”

If Taylor Swift’s got a blank space, baby, maybe she’ll write down some of these titles.

Since the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, stories about the evacuation and resettlement of interpreters have seemingly become vogue.

These tales of “eye for an eye” rescues between interpreters and their American counterparts have found their way of late into Hollywood as an increasingly covered genre of American heroism. Guy Ritchie’s latest film “The Covenant” is no exception.

The story follows U.S. Army Sgt. John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim) as they rather reluctantly save one another and become accidental heroes along the way.

“To me, it was a parable,” Gyllenhaal told Military Times. “It was about doing good reluctantly. I think selfless service is an idea that is really interesting.”

When Ahmed is introduced, Kinley remains wary of him despite the fact that Ahmed’s first act is to save his unit from an ambush that had been coordinated by another interpreter. Things take a turn, however, when a mission to uncover a substantial weapons cache goes awry, leaving Kinley shot by Taliban fighters in the process.

Ahmed, rather begrudgingly, attempts to save his life. The interpreter, who has a pregnant wife and lost a child at the hands of the Taliban, has a special immigrant visa, or SIV, for his family on the line. But as the story progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that altruism is the play.

“I love that there are two characters who don’t like each other very much,” Gyllenhaal added. “They do it out of a duty. They do it out of the sense of goodness that is inside of us.”

Because the Taliban is hunting the pair, Ahmed must avoid the main roads to get Kinley back to base. In doing so, he pushes the mostly unconscious American in a wagon up mountains and across unrelenting desert terrain.

The scenes, after some time, begin to feel reminiscent of Sisyphus, forced by Zeus to unsuccessfully push a boulder up a hill for all eternity.

From Kinley’s perspective, the sequence is an opium-induced fever dream, highlighted by hazy images and rhythmic music that seem to blur day and night. Eventually, the pair finally achieve salvation at the hands of another Army platoon.

Kinley is sent home to recover, but Ahmed is, predictably, left behind to fend for himself. Thousands of miles away, Kinley soon resolves to save Ahmed’s life.

In a booze-fueled sequence, Kinley attempts to navigate the legal channels necessary for securing Ahmed’s visa, spending brutal hours on the phone as the grating hold music plays on loop.

All the while, Ahmed, his wife, and his newborn son are forced to hide, moving every few days as the Taliban continues to hunt them.

The moral dilemma for Kinley becomes whether or not the debt of life that he owes Ahmed is worth risking everything to save him. He grapples with a creeping desire to push it out of his mind until his sense of duty — the idea of a covenant — overcomes him.

As audiences might expect with any action movie, all is well that ends well. A wild action sequence ensues that seemingly spells certain doom for both heroes, right up until the last moment when fate — also known as an outlandish American helicopter rescue — intervenes.

This film ultimately depicts a positive end for an Afghan interpreter or ally who manages to escape an oppressive regime hellbent on punishing anyone who helps coalition forces. In reality, many remain behind, hiding, waiting for SIVs and living in constant fear of retribution.

The U.S. military mantra of “no man left behind” is one that was proven to include significant grey area for numerous allies during the Vietnam War, and has similarly been critiqued in the wake of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in August 2021.

There are currently more than 150,000 Afghan SIV applicants — many of them allies, interpreters, and their families — hoping to escape the Taliban-run nation, the Biden administration estimated to Foreign Policy.

“Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” is in theaters on April 21.