US Army jungle warfare expert rates 10 jungle warfare scenes in movies

• Sgt. 1st Class Steven Mason is a jungle-warfare instructor for the 25th Infantry "Tropic Lightning" Division in Hawaii.

• The Jungle Operations Training Course in Hawaii is a 12-day program for US Army regiments that covers mobility training, waterborne operations, combat tracking, jungle tactics, and survival training.

• Here, he reacts to 10 memorable scenes from jungle-warfare movies and rates them based on their accuracy.

Below is a transcript of the video.

- [gun banging] Steven Mason: He probably should've had some camouflage on there and not just a giant white bald head.

My name is Sergeant First Class Steven Mason. I'm the senior jungle instructor for Jungle Operation Training course at the Lightning Academy in the 25th Infantry Division. I've currently been the senior instructor for two-plus years out there, and I specialize in tracking and survival. Today we're gonna be going over some jungle-warfare movies to determine whether or not they're real.

"Rambo: First Blood Part II" (1985)

[soldier moaning]

This movie is ridiculous. That guy has the inability to talk just because he's being pulled into something. He's like, "Oh, oh, oh, oh!"

[laughs]

[dramatic music]

I would say that the only time that that would ever happen is, uh, never. A camouflage top would be better. He would have been leaving dinosaur-size tracks. So, a lot of people, when they think about tracking, they just think about, like, a footprint on the ground, but that's actually one of the last things we look for. Everything is so thick that you're actually leaving most of your imprints from, like, your knee to your shoulder. And that's where you're kind of maneuvering around and bending leaves and turning leaves and leaving scratches. So, I mean, he would have done a significant amount of that kind of stuff walking in and out of there.

[man yelling]

We teach a lot about water sources and the way to move about them and use them to your advantage. I don't know that we teach coming out of the water and shooting people with a bow and arrow that makes noise. So, we like to use waterways to traverse them. So instead of having to walk through, for example, that jungle in the background, that would be very taxing on the body if you had to walk a significant amount of distance through that, where we just teach you to get in that waterway and move until you think you can get out again and start walking, like they're doing. But I would never say that there's a scenario where you'd have to, like, hide in the water. So if I was Rambo in this situation, I would probably be in the rocks where he was, and that way if they do start shooting, you at least have cover. But once they come to you, then that's it. That's game over. I've been put in situations in the jungle where they give you a couple days or a week worth of classroom environment, and then they load you up in the back of a truck and they drop you off in the jungle by yourself, and you have nothing besides a knife and a machete for the next 10 to 14 days. Survival isn't what people think it is whenever they watch, like, Bear Grylls. You know, like, he's excellent at it, but he had to have gotten to that point. But you just can't go into the woods and be like, "I'm gonna survive!" and then crush it.

I'm gonna say a two out of 10, 10 out of 10 for awesome.

Rating: 2/10

"Rescue Dawn" (2006)

Spook: Is this a double feature?

[soldiers laughing]

For God's sake, just lean your head back and open your mouth!

Steven: That's pretty outdated. I mean, we all chuckle through all of them, but when stuff actually hits the fan, your brain reverts back to, like, "Oh, my gosh, I saw this stupid video, and that might save my life." So, we do teach how to collect rainwater in different types of leaves or bamboos. If you were to just tilt your head back and open your mouth, you wouldn't get enough water to do anything. So, everyone talks about the rule of three. So you can go three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. But that's a good thing about the jungle, there's water everywhere. There's a lot of vines inside of jungles that just are filled with water for that tree. And if you can find those, just cut that in half and you have a couple quarts of water. The rule of thumb for soldiers is a quart of water an hour if you're under a heavy workload.

Narrator: Your best friend is your knife.

Spook: Look at that, it's getting serious.

Steven: A knife is absolutely the most important tool. And knives are used for everything, from building your shelter with it, just using it to sharpen things, to slash things, to cut things. It has to be durable. That's why we talk about full-tang blades, meaning that the knife is the full length of the handle instead of just being the blade and then a little bit goes into the handle. 'Cause you need to be able to put that into trees and then bang a rock on it to split wood. It just needs to be used for everything.

[helicopter whirring]

[Dieter yelling and laughing]

Even though it's right above you, you probably would forget about security and running back into the woods until it actually was time to get picked up. And at this point he's just trying to live. He did exactly what we teach soldiers to do. If you need to get found in a jungle environment, you'd find a big open area and try to try to create something that's larger than yourself so that you could be signaled. You could light a fire and then put a lot of green leaves on it. It'll create a big plume of white smoke.

[helicopter whirring]

[Dieter yelling]

That's a jungle penetrator. We actually use that here at jungle school. Same technology from Vietnam. We're still using it today 'cause it's effective.

Soldier: What's your authenticator? What's your authenticator?

Dieter: Rescue Dawn!

Soldier: Louder!

Dieter: Rescue Dawn!

Steven: That's very realistic. So, whenever you deploy, you have to fill out some forms, and there's a sequence of questions that you have to answer in case this scenario does happen. You even have to put, like, where your tattoos are on your body, so when you do get caught, they, you know, they're making sure they're picking up the right person and not someone they don't want to be picking up. That's the thing about the jungle is that it can start breaking you down physically within 24 hours. And you can look like this within a week, and it all depends on your skill set and how long you can survive. Like, me, I think I could survive pretty much indefinitely. I would say that the last scene, that's probably a 10 out of 10.

Rating: 10/10

"Platoon" (1986)

Chris: A fake human being. Maybe I can see something I don't yet see or learn something I don't yet know.

Steven: This is my absolute favorite jungle scene in any movie that's ever been produced, because this sums up what it's like to be in the jungle, 1,000%. You are just wet and miserable, and you're wondering the entire time why you made this life choice. Oliver Stone, the guy that made this movie, he was actually in the 25th Infantry and deployed with them to Vietnam. It's usually pretty dark inside of there. I've been in a lot of jungles where you can't even see your hand in front of your face during night operations. Kind of looks like, you know, they have a spotlight on top of him.

[mosquito buzzing]

You just have to be good at being uncomfortable. There's no trick to that trade. So, actually, the 25th, we were the first ones to field the new jungle uniforms, a little bit lighter weight that dry out faster. We have jungle boots that dry out quicker.

[patting]

Soldier: Junior, hey!

Steven: I'm gonna be up scanning for every little movement or sound I can. So that keeps me up, and I think that just the fear of everything that's crawling around on the ground while you're down there on it also keeps you up. 50% of everything is trying to kill you, whether it be the plant life or animals. In Vietnam, they have, like, 15 different poisonous snakes, double that in poisonous spiders. And then they have tarantulas. So, yeah, you're just constantly on the lookout for what you don't want to step on, sleep on, or grab. And another thing is there's only one person up on guard on this patrol, and that would never happen.

[guns blasting]

So, in Vietnam, the average gunfight, firefight was within 5 to 10 meters. So the enemy was able to get very close to us, but we were also able to get very close to the enemy. Stealth in the jungle is paramount to probably anything else. You actually use the same things today as you did back then. So, technology has advanced a lot. So the jungle really doesn't give you that capability, because satellites can't penetrate through it. The night vision can't get through there. 'Cause I was talking about how it's dark, so, night vision actually needs ambient light to work. So you need a little bit of light to make night vision work.

[wounded soldier screaming]

So, when you get shot, if you're still in that type of environment and you haven't won the battle yet, you have to figure out kinda how to deal with the pain, like he said, so that you're not giving away your position. 'Cause you don't know if the enemy has left the area yet. Actually a lot of people, when they get hit, they don't even realize they got hit, 'cause their adrenaline's just pumping and they're just so ready for it. And then someone actually has to tell them, like, "Hey, man, you know you got shot?" I've personally seen that, absolutely. I would give this a 10 out of 10 just because this reminds me of every squad I've ever been in.

Rating: 10/10

"Tears of the Sun" (2003)

[gun blasting]

He probably should've had some camouflage on there and not just a giant white bald head.

Soldier: Keep your eye on the package.

Flea: Roger that. Holding.

Steven: What was accurate about this is that they put a guy, a sniper, up top who was kind of like their topside security overwatch, who was watching this scenario unfold, who had coms with them, who could say, "Hey, the situation has changed. Don't go in." The fact that you have to get all the way up to the village very stealthily and then try to work your way in one building at a time, that's pretty accurate. If you were gonna go do something like that, an operation like that, you would be camo-ed head to toe. But also them using suppressors, that's pretty accurate.

[suspenseful music]

You would use hand and arm signals a lot moving around the jungle. A lot of them is just kind of like the, you know, halt, stop, keep moving, standard stuff. You know, these, these, stuff like that. That's about it. Using rally points and pointing places saying, you know, like, "Hey, this is something significant." You're gonna have communication on you. So, they have this cool-guy stuff, with an earpiece. They even have stuff -- this, like, throat mic, so you can just press on your throat and you can whisper and it still comes across on the other end just as loud. So, yeah, everything's pretty accurate, other than the face paint. I would give this a nine out of 10.

Rating: 9/10

"Forrest Gump" (1994)

[guns blasting]

As soon as they made contact, they immediately rolled into the ditch and then returned fire. They got behind the nearest cover and just started returning fire. What was funny is that they were just walking kind of in a straight line across this open danger area, which wouldn't have happened. You could have done another number of methods. You could have bounded across it, or you could have, we call it hand railing, where you just kind of stay on the wood line and go through, and then that way you wouldn't have been an open target. It is funny that he gets on the radio and just starts calling in and then rounds just start dropping. Doesn't even give a grid. Doesn't tell them where he's at. Just says, "Tree line." You're in the woods, and someone's like, "We're in the tree line, let's go!"

[laughs]

Dan: Pull back! Pull back!

Steven: I'm not sure that the term "pull back" is an Army term. We would say "break contact." We'd have somebody covering our fire while another group gets out of town. And then once they get to where they're gonna go, they'll turn around and start shooting, and then the next group leaves. I don't think I've ever seen a situation where someone yells, "Pull back!" and then everyone just starts running in the opposite direction. So, the responsibility of the leader is to command and control the entire situation. At no point, unless it's, like, worst-case scenario, should the leader of the entire patrol be picking people up and running with them. He should be delegating those tasks and then relaying all the information to higher and giving out guidance. I would give this a six out of 10.

Rating: 6/10

"Predator" (1987)

Blain: Come on in. Ol' Painless is waiting.

[sighs]

Steven: After you've been in there awhile, you can start to tell that the weight of a, let's say a tiger isn't the weight of a human. So you'll be able to distinguish the two. Plus, a tiger knows how to step, and a human doesn't. Any snap or crack you hear, you're gonna automatically be on high alert, especially if you think the enemy's in the area.

[machine gun blasting]

If I had a Minigun in the jungle, I would be doing that with it. So that's about as accurate as this scene. Someone might have an M16, and they're just blasting off rounds and it's just coming out as fast as the trigger can go, and they would never do a magazine change, and he'll be in this firefight for, like, 20 minutes. Yeah, some of weaponry was correct, but you would definitely not be lugging around this Gatling gun in the middle of the jungle. Those rounds that he had, for the amount of firepower that he put down, that would have been, like, hundreds of pounds. So, the goal is to be as light as you can for the longest period that you can. You need to be very aerodynamic and nimble. I would rate this a two out of 10, but a 10 out of 10 for awesome.

Rating: 2/10

"The Thin Red Line" (1998)

[guns blasting]

This movie is based on one of the battalions here in the 25th. It's based off 1/27 Infantry, the Wolfhounds, from their Charlie Company. And this was when they had to be deployed to Guadalcanal. This is the type of terrain you'd see when you're coming out of a jungle and getting into kind of the mountainous terrain, where it's just, like, a bunch of overgrown grass. But they're trying to do a frontal assault up a hill, which was dumb in the first place.

[grenade pin pings]

[grenade exploding]

Probably wouldn't have happened. Not really sure why he had a grenade taped to his belt. Yeah, normally you won't be able to just pull the pin itself and the grenade still be on your body. The distance was right, the scenario was right, just the way that it was executed probably wouldn't happen in real life.

Keck: I blew my butt off! I blew my butt off!

Steven: This is a pretty realistic war movie. I mean, even all the way down to the way that soldiers act whenever someone gets hurt. It's still just a bunch of guys trying to figure it out. I would give the scene a seven out of 10 for realism.

Rating: 7/10

"We Were Soldiers" (2002)

Soldier: I want you to get me all the air support you can get me on that mountain.

[helicopters whirring]

Steven: That was pretty convenient that they had two helicopters and an airplane on station within, like, a second of the phone call going out, or the radio transmission. And they didn't even have the grid out yet. They were, like, still talking and they were starting to shoot. So, the reason that they're using helicopters and we decided to use helicopters during Vietnam is 'cause one of the only methods to truly infill and exfill from that type of environment is to find that one little clearing and then try to get as many troops rallied to the same point so that you can push from there. The Vietnamese clearly knew that that was gonna be a point that they would try to infill, and then they were dug into the side of the jungle mountain and then just decided to fight down from there.

[guns blasting]

[soldiers yelling]

Everything is pretty accurate. As soon as they hit the ground, they just started running to the nearest cover, which was pretty far away, 'cause they got dropped in the middle of a large field. This is based off a real event, Col. Harold Moore and the 1st Cav.

[helicopter whirring]

So, when a helicopter is coming down, their entire body is spinning and then they're kind of oscillating all around. So you don't even know really where it's gonna land, so you just don't even, you hope that you would just run in the right direction. But as far as being in that helicopter, that's just kind of hold on and hope for the best. I would give this a 10 out of 10 because I can visualize what it would have been like to be in this scenario, and I just feel bad for everyone that had to go through this.

Rating: 10/10

"The Pacific" (2010)

[soldier yelling]

So, I love this scene a lot because they're about to shoot a mortar, and they're about to do it without a sight on it. And that's not the correct way that you do it. And then whenever they actually hang the round and then shoot it, it immediately blasts. You see the blast. So the time of flight would have been, like, the same as just a regular bullet. The way a mortar works, so, it has to come out, go in the air, and then come down and hit. That's not happening in this scene. Also, I think that they're giving corrections without a sight on there. So I'm not sure what they're exactly correcting, but that wouldn't happen. There's a little tank running around the battlefield. Somebody would have probably already tried to take that guy out.

[explosion blasting]

That's pretty accurate to what it is like to see a tank get shot by another tank. We had Shermans onshore at Guadalcanal, and they were just trying to reinforce the infantry. But that's kind of the role of a tank in this situation, is just to try to flush out all the larger targets, so the ground forces can continue to push forward. But actually, at this stage of the war, tanks weren't on ground yet. 'Cause we had just taken the beach.

[guns blasting]

That's also super accurate. All the weapons are pretty spot-on. The equipment was spot-on. They're shooting Thompsons, which is accurate for officers. And the officer in this scene has a Thompson. This is a good scene, other than the mortar. I would also rate this a seven out of 10.

Rating: 7/10

"Sniper" (1993)

Soldier: Got the cheap designer sunglasses.

Soldier: You sure that's him?

Steven: This looks like a Kodak camera zoom. I'm not sure what that is.

Soldier: He's moving.

Steven: You're always gonna have a spotter and then you're gonna have a sniper, and then they're gonna be talking back and forth about, you know, distance and wind correction. So, he just said, "Two people, go walk down a hill." Uh, [laughs] I'm not really sure why he did that, especially since five seconds ago they were talking to each other in normal voices, giving each other corrections. And then now they decide that they want to be stealthy and walk away. You never want to give up on stealth just because of distance.

[leaves rustling]

First things I tell people about the jungle, especially at nighttime, it's almost so loud that it's unbearable. So, the first night I spent inside of a jungle, this bird hadn't made this sound all day and I didn't know what it was, but at nighttime, I still didn't even know what type of bird it was. It just sounded like this man that was just, like, being stabbed or something. It was just like this, "Ah, ah!" And I couldn't, I was like, "What is happening?" And then all of the other animals start feeding off that. And then it's just, it's deafening, how loud the jungle is. I would give this a seven out of 10.

Rating: 7/10

The biggest thing that movies get wrong about the jungle is how long it actually takes to maneuver from one location to the next. You might watch a movie and it's like, they're just walking for days across the jungle. Depending on the type of environment, you might only move a football field's length, 100 meters.