Armed Forces Day is actually the final day of a week long celebration recognizing the men and women who serve this great country we live in. It falls on the third Saturday of May (Armed Forces Week begins on the second Saturday of May) and includes a variety of different events. There are a number of movies that have been made that are perfect for watching to celebrate Armed Forces Day, and here are just a few of them.
Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun is the story of a 13 year old boy living in pre-World War II Shanghai with his well-to-do family. He is your average spoiled brat of a rich British boy living in a world where he is not expected to lift a finger to do a thing for himself, but all of that is about to change. Christian Bale stars is a young boy separated from his family when the area is invaded by the Japanese. It is only with the help of a soldier-of-fortune, played by John Malkovich, that the boy escapes capture. During his time with Malkovich the boy learns to do things for himself, but more importantly how to survive, and just in time to deal with being captured and placed in a Japanese prison camp. Bale takes the imprisonment as an adventure which is what keeps him alive until the story ends with the 1945 liberation. The once spoiled little boy emerges a young man.
Platoon
Charlie Sheen is Chris Taylor, a college student who decides to quit school so that he can join the army. The time is the late 1960s and the setting is the Vietnam war. Taylor has just joined the army and is shipped right off to Vietnam. This is where the reality of the war sets in as he is placed in a platoon consisting of a very diverse group of soldiers, and is ordered to the front lines where the real war exists. Leading the platoon is Sgt. Barnes played by Tom Berrenger and Sgt. Elias played by Willem Dafoe. Barnes and Elias have two distinctly different personalities which is shown in the way that they lead their platoon. Taylor’s view of the war changes even more after his platoon is ordered to search for enemy troops, and the search evolves into a scene of murder and rape. Platoon will give you a view of the Vietnam war from the perspective of the soldiers. It is one of the most realistic views of the war that you will ever get.
Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan brings the present and the past together into one amazing war movie. The movie opens up with a war veteran and his family visiting an American cemetery at Normandy. It immediately flashes back to the middle of the D-day invasion during World War II, and to a specific watercraft landing at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. The landing is lead by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and is met with intense German artillery fire which results in the deaths of an unimaginable number of American soldiers. Miller’s group of soldiers manages to make it to a concrete structure on the beach where the story really begins. You see, the beach is now filled with more dead bodies than it is sand, with the exception of a single backpack with the name “Ryan” on it. Coincidentally, Capt. Miller receives orders that he must search for and retrieve a soldier by the name of Private James Ryan (Matt Darmon), the last living son of 4 sons who fought and died in a single week period during the very same war. Ryan is to be brought back home to his family in the United States, and Capt. Miller must make it happen. With the help of Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davis), Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore), and privates Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Caparzo (Vin Diesel), Reiben (Edward Burns), and Jackson (Barry Pepper), Miller sets out to accomplish the task at hand. But will he succeed before losing too many more men in the process? This question can be answered by watching the movie Saving Private Ryan to celebrate Armed Forces Day.
Black Hawk Down
Black Hawk Down is based on true events that occurred on October 3rd, 1993 during a mission to kidnap two top lieutenants serving under a crime lord by the name of Mohamed Farah Aidid in civil war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. The mission involves a team of Army Rangers, Delta Force soldiers, and other various United Nations forces who are to be dropped into the area, complete the mission, and return home successful but something goes terribly wrong right from the start. Two of the Black Hawk helicopters involved in transporting the team are shot down by enemy fire, and the American portion of the team sticks around to help out their fellow soldiers. The only problem is that they take longer than expected and are surrounded by the enemy. The next 15 hours require the team of American soldiers to fight a battle that leads to 70 injured and 18 dead, and that is only on the American side. Hundreds of Somalis die in a ground battle that is the longest fought by American soldiers since Vietnam.
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker is a fictional story that is based on true events experienced by journalist Mark Boal during the conflict in the Middle East. The story surrounds a group of Army Explosives Ordnance Disposal experts, and the elite team is tasked with the job of making the streets of Iraq safer for both Americans and Iraqis alike. Their job is simple; stay alive in the dangerous streets of Iraq while dismantling IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The job is actually much more difficult than it might sound since a single mistake could mean not just their own deaths but the deaths of innocent Americans and Iraqis in the city. But the team understands that every bomb taken off of the streets means a life (or lives) saved and that is what keeps them going each and every day. It is also what keeps them focused on staying out of “the hurt locker”.
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