I miss the realism, that characterized the WWII movies

Many of them were difficult to watch, evoking much angst in the viewer by character development, followed by death or maiming. The classic, was Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny got his gun" in which the central character, was a young soldier, cringing in a fox hole, in which a large artillery shell landed.

The result, no arms, no legs, no eyes, no ears, no mouth, tongue or teeth. Most of his head was gone, as was everything from his ribcage down. Yet we are told the story from both the people around him as well as his point of view.

The movie came out in 1971, the year I started med school. Two years after my discharge from the U.S. army. We were still fighting in Nam, and the movie was so powerful, the night I saw it, about 5-10% walked out in the first 15 minutes, several sobbing audibly.

I think war movies ought to be gruesome. Obviously, not all of them, in that we need some comedies, and some dramas. But war is a gruesome anachronism, and one of these days it has to stop. If movies can speed up that day, then hooray for Hollywood!

IMHO, the last 20 years of our fighting in the middle east, was a horrible waste of life. Poorly planned, and ill conceived waste of thousands of our bravest young men. Who died and were maimed for our failed energy policy. Young men like "Johnny"

What if we could wind the clock back to day 1, before we set foot in Iraq or Afghanistan, and instead of 15 yrs of 100 million dollars a day, we spent that money or 10% of it on a full court press, a Manhattan project level of commitment, a moon race level of commitment, to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, and global warming.

Or maybe we take another 10% (while we are dreaming big) and repeat a works project aimed at prioritizing and beginning to address our rotting infrastructure. The power grid, bridges, highways, dams, educational buildings are all closing in on 80-100 yrs old. If not now, when?

And yet, we are hemorrhaging money on a fighter thats 8 yrs overdo and 175 billion over budget. We have no enemies likely to take us to war in the near future, and no enemies with an airforce far superior to what we have. Yet the defense folks trot out Russia and China. Sorry neither is all that scary.

Heres a thought. Lets bail on this fighter. Just toss it out. Go with what we have now. Go back to the drawing board, and spend those dollars on the bridges, power grid etc. Lets make education a priority. Then in 15 or 20 yrs, when we have done testing, and when we have a realistic threat, lets build the new fighter. Instead, the defense folks like spoiled children everywhere, want both. This one AND a new one in 10 or 15 years.

Sorry, our real world threats are not the type where fighter planes factor in.

One of these days, we'll have a dam fail, followed by a few bridges collapsing and a large city lose its power, only to be told it will be 1-2 years to get it back, massive loss of life......you know Katrina x 1000, then once we get it..........where will we start. Oh, and all of these catastrophes are the type where fixing costs 1/100th of what complete replacement costs.

The future is grim folks. Lets drop the defense teat, and start facing up to the other stuff, like grown ups.