When it comes to pop-culture allure and romanticized brutality, Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” is arguably the most influential of all Vietnam War movies. R. Lee Ermey’s iconic portrayal of the sadistic Gunnery Sgt. Hartman has served as a de facto recruiting mechanism for the Marines since the film’s release in 1987. I remember watching the same VHS copy of “Full Metal Jacket” about a hundred times before I enlisted as a Marine combat correspondent, choosing the same military specialty as Private Joker. During the 10 years I served in the Corps, it was a rare occasion to find a Marine who didn’t love the film. Despite FMJ’s widespread popularity, there is a crap-ton of behind-the-scenes drama and literary awesomeness from the original novel that gets missed if you’ve never looked into the film’s backstory. Consider this list the enthralling special-features bonus DVD you never saw. 1. The book is better. Okay, yes, this is an opinion, but hear me out. FMJ is based on the novel “The Short Timers” by the late Gustav Hasford, aka, the real Joker. Hasford drew from his experience in Vietnam as a Marine correspondent with the 1st Marine Division to develop the novel. After the book’s release in 1978, Newsweek’s Walter Clemons called it “the best work of fiction about the Vietnam War.” The film is brilliant, yes, but Kubrick — beholden to studio execs at Warner Bros. — had to cater to mainstream sensibilities, which is why the brutally macabre third and final
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