Before I left for basic training, the last movie I watched was Forest Gump.
See, when you leave for basic, you have to show up at MEPS, the Military Entrance Processing Station. The day I got there to leave for basic, well, there was a lot going on. Lot's of people joining, leaving for various schools, doing every little thing that a person can do at MEPS. The place was swamped.
So there I was with a group of young men who were about to head out to our training base. Some folks were excited. They'd never ridden a plain before. It was a big deal for them.
But everything was taking forever. Some sergeant there decided that we couldn't be left to our own devices, so he pulled out a television on a rolling cart and turned on a movie to keep us pacified.
That's how I saw Forest Gump for the last time before basic.
Over the never couple of months, I thought back to that movie often. I had a hard time at basic. I bumbled a lot. I tripped up. I made mistakes. But something about the memory of Gump saying, "Because you tols me to, Drill Ser-geant," I don't know, it helped.
That movie connects history to character, forces it to make some sense.
And that helped me some.
Now, Watchmen tries to be the same sort of movie. Both films try to explain what it means to be American through the adventures of odd-balls through time. Both talk about Vietnam and what it meant to America. Both ask questions about what it means to be a hero. Both a little sad and a little hopeful. Sure, there's a whole lot more sex and violence in Watchmen, but what can you do? Zach Snyder didn't direct Gump.
Now I'm standing on the edge of another cliff, about to be tossed into another big adventure with the military. A much bigger adventure than any I've yet been on.
I wonder if it's going to look more like Gump, sweet and meaningful, or like Watchmen, angry and heavy-handed.
I think that the biggest difference between Gump and Watchmen is that the newer movie is surer of itself than the older one. Gump never claims to have the answers. He's just a dim witted, oddly kind person who happens to along for the ride. The characters in Watchmen, they act like they know the deal, they know the solution. Maybe the points the same, that nobody has all the answers, and that anyone who thinks they do is dangerous, but... I don't know, I think Gump might make the case a little bit better.
So, am I going to Iraq because I think I know how fix the world, or am I participating in something beyond my reckoning? Beyond my horizons?
I wish I knew.
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