Navy hopes “Act of Valor” attracts recruits
This is pretty ridiculous. While thousands of sailors got their pink slips in the last few months, the Navy says they hope that the release of the SEAL movie “Act of Valor” will attract new recruits says the Associated Press;
“It was initially started as a recruiting film so we could help recruit minorities into the teams,” [Adm. Bill McRaven] explained. He said he didn’t think the film gave anything away to the enemy, nor would it put in danger the SEALs who starred in it.
McRaven told a Washington audience recently that he’d signed up for special operations forces after seeing the 1968 John Wayne film, “The Green Berets,” and that he had worked on the movie “Raise the Titanic” as a young ensign, also to drive recruitment.
Yeah, with the military drawing down to pre-World War II levels, I don’t know how much the SEALs will need a recruiting video. The only ranks I think it will swell are the ranks of phonies who don’t want to bother with all of that bullshit qualification stuff and will go straight to Ranger Joe’s to buy the badges. Maybe the Navy should get a piece of that action instead of hoping for the flood of supermen in recruiting offices.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be watching the movie as soon as it gets near the TAH mountain retreat, but I don’t think it’ll attract the people to the military that they’re hoping for.
Meanwhile, in a link sent to us by Tman from the Montreal Gazette, SEALs seem to approve of the movie;
“We first set out make an action movie with actors, but once we were immersed inside the SEALs community, we realized how deep the brotherhood goes,” said McCoy. “The only way to pay tribute to these guys was to use real SEALs doing what they do.”
Actors Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano and Emilio Rivera star in the movie, while several SEALs veterans – who are not named in the credits – played themselves.
Old Trooper sent us a link yesterday which quoted Roslyn Sanchez, one of my little brown girl crushes, on working with the SEALs in the movie;
“What surprised me was how unaffected and cool they were,” Sanchez told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column of the SEALs. “Here they were doing a Hollywood movie and it wasn’t a big deal, they went along for the ride, they did their thing and they were incredible. I didn’t see any diva behavior. It was new for me to work with guys that even if they were waiting around for eight hours and didn’t have a trailer, they were content. It was refreshing.”
Big surprise, huh? Working with real people is easier than working with those homos in Hollywood.
Category: Military issues
Surprised they didn’t get Joel Lambert (former SEAL) to go in on this project as well, but whatevs.
And frankly, who isn’t surprised they’re using this as a recruiting tool? I remember coming out of the movies after watching Top Gun and seeing Navy recruiters then too.
Uh… no shit.
Its strange that we need a recruiting tool right now. Don’t get me wrong I would love to see a million kids see this movie and start chomping at the bit to go be snake eaters, but now?
Still it’s incredibly refreshing to see real troops telling real stories.
I’m kind of surprised that not many people are talking about how this movie is hot on the heels of the killing of Bin Laden. Regardless of whether this movie was in the works long before that, which I’m not sure is true, I feel like this was Hollywood saying, “We need to jump on this Navy SEAL train while it’s hot and make some damn money!!!” And the Navy responded positively because they know every high school senior is going to walk into the Navy office talking about SEALs and they’ll have the pick of the litter.
That being said, I’m definitely going to see this movie. It looks badass.
They NEED a recruiting tool for SEALs, not Big Navy, but then again, that 80 percent who wash out of BUD/S can fill slots on a destroyer or carrier somewhere.
To paraphrase Judge Smails, “The Navy needs deck chippers, too!”
Bring on the posers too.
Haven’t seen it yet, and dunno if I will (don’t see too many movies). But I certainly hope that the Navy’s agreement with the filmmakers included right to pull scenes – and that someone gave the final a thorough OPSEC scrub before release to ensure we’re not giving away the farm re: current TTPs.
John, I attended a presentation recently by George Galdorisi (former Navy helicopter pilot), who co-wrote the novelization with Dick Couch (a former SEAL).
The movie originally started as a documentary about SEAL training. The production company shot 1,800 hours of footage; only after the SEALS winnowed down the footage to what they were willing to have in public did the producers start thinking of hanging a storyline around it.
Now, why did they get access to make the documentary? The Navy SEALs are probably the only branch of the Navy outside of cyber security that’s going to see any growth. This is apparently a semi-serious crisis; supposedly, the Pentagon wants 500 more SEALs on the TO, and NAVSPECWAR doesn’t want to sacrifice quality to get there. So that means they’ll need a LOT more BUD/S accessions over the next few years, and to do that, you need to get people interested in the job.
Yes NHSparky, I also remember those days of Top Gun.
What’s funny was that the Navy recruiters outside of theaters playing Top Gun were probably recruiting to fill their enlisted ranks, not pilots. Yet what excited these impressionable youngsters were the officers flying jets and that lifestyle, vastly different from the enlisted side.
Same thing with this. All these young-uns ooh’d and ah’d by the SEAL action scenes sign up and become….mess specialists.
Simultaneous downsizing plus new hiring has been SOP for private enterprise for nearly 20 years. It’s the easiest way to get rid of middle-management and reduce obsolete department staffing levels and then shoring up any gaps plus staffing other areas with lower-cost entry level personnel.
The alternative — firing the incompetent, reorganizing the capable to enable supporting new policies or tactical goals, and targeted hiring to meet actual skill or staffing requirements is just too hard.
In any case, you know the top of the org chart is safe.
I sat outside of a movie theater a couple of years ago for the premiere of GI Joe: Rise of Cobra. For those who haven’t seen it, it is a highly accurate portrayal of Army Special Operations that USAREC couldn’t let slip by unattended.
For some reason, USAREC directed that we couldn’t do anything for the release of Modern Warfare 3. According to them it was “too violent”. I’m done with recruiting now, but I can imagine that before long the Army will be promoting My Little Pony movies.
@9- That’s how the world works, bud. If the navy made a recruitment video for my job, they’d have a camera filming a never-moving voltage gauge, accompanied by smash-cuts to a guy struggling to stay awake staring at it, or bashing his head on the underside of a deckplate while turning wrenches in the bilge, all set to the usual Godsmack guitar riffs. Even with that guy from the Allstate commercials doing voiceover saying how awesome the nuclear power field is, I don’t think that would grab as many recruits as miniguns on a riverine craft and cool looking explosions.
AliceH: what’s SOP in private enterprise often doesn’t work particularly well in a military context. In private enterprise, making money is the primary objective. This places a premium on efficiency. In a military context, accomplishing the mission is paramount. This means that in a military context effectiveness takes precedence over efficiency.
The terms “efficiency” and “effectiveness” are not synonymous, nor are they interchangeable. It is entirely possible to have a highly cost-effective (e.g., efficient) organization that simply cannot get the job done (e.g., is not effective) when it hits the fan.
Sadly, IMO even many of our senior leaders within DoD have lost sight of this simple fact. But I also unfortunately have to agree with you about the top of the org chart being reasonably safe.
teddy–funny how they never had a huge bump in guys wanting to be bubbleheads and/or nukes after Hunt For Red October…
Shim for Jesus!
all set to the usual Godsmack guitar riffs
And something tells me they never listened to the lyrics from “Awake” before they used that as their music. I know the guys on the boat did–EVERY. FUCKING. DAY.
wait another minute
Can’t you see what this pain has fucking done to me
I’m alive and still kicking
What you see I can’t see and maybe you’ll think before you speak
I’m alive,
For you I’m awake
Because of you I’m alive
Told you I’m awake,
Swallowing you
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
Hondo: Oh, I agree that much (most?) Private Enterprise “best practices” would be um what’s the word? Stupid? Insane? if applied to Military. I happen to think this particular approach to personnel management is stupid for private enterprise as well – was just pointing out what might have been the “logic” of recruiting while downsizing.
I once made an official suggestion to my boss that instead of the then current system (having someone ignorant of how our department operated not only decide that 10% of staff must be let go but also select via some randomizer which employees would be in that 10%) that we allow a floor vote. My idea was we’d all get to submit 5 names of people we wanted to get rid of and at least half of the layoffs would come from the top vote getters.
I don’t think my boss passed that one up the chain, though.
Hondo, one of the newspaper articles I read, mentioned that the Navy had the right to do just as you say, go over the movie and take out anything they felt would be opsec.
So there’s nothing in this movie the Navy wouldn’t want in it.
“teddy–funny how they never had a huge bump in guys wanting to be bubbleheads and/or nukes after Hunt For Red October…”
Remember, that came out right when the Evil Empire was going down the tubes.
That said, I do know a couple guys who went into subs after seeing the movie.
well—-duh. Wish the Army would pay attention to this. Then maybe we’d get some actors with a HAIRCUT, CARRY A WEAPON, and KNOW HOW TO F#ing SALUTE!
I was so mad when the Army wouldn’t cooperate with “Heartbreak Ridge” because of the language in the movie and they had to rewrite it to make it about Marines instead.
Here’s a question. Why does the military have to cater to minorities when they recruit? Either you want the job or you don’t. Why does it matter if the ratio of minorities in the military is equal to America as a whole?
Any of you homos, touch me…and i’ll kill ya.