On Netflix I watched Boots, which was based on the 2016 memoir The Pink Marine by Greg Cope White:

Cameron Cope, a closeted gay American teenager, impulsively follows his best friend Ray McAffey into the United States Marine Corps.

Set in 1990, when the military excluded gay people from service, the story depicts their boot camp training.

It was very powerful. I guess if they're training kids to fight and kill in a war the process has to be brutal and dehumanising …

Almost worse: it seemed kids whose fathers had been in the military were treated as junior versions of the recruits.

@Miraz I became a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.
For that, I was cordially invited to shut up or leave a fundamentalist sort of “university” in the American South.

A year after I left, I ran into a former classmate, in uniform but on leave. “You were right”, he said. “The Army is the most godless place I’ve ever been,” going on to describe the dehumanizing chants they had to chant during drill (at least during basic training)/

@ReaderJohn If I’d been in that kind of basic training I suspect I would have broken down in the first 5 minutes… Thanks for this personal experience.

@Miraz it was one of those shows that was both good and not entirely enjoyable.

@peternlewis True. I’ve kept thinking about aspects of it, even a day after finishing.

@Miraz Adolescent was like that as well.

@peternlewis Ah, I haven’t watched that.

@Miraz fair warning. I definitely wouldn't call it enjoyable. But good and thought provoking in the way Boots was.

@peternlewis Ah, thanks.