Fregatte,

Sorry for hi-jacking your post like that, but I did think Volker brought up a good point and I wanted to continue the thought.

I'm afraid I don't have the answer to your specific question, but I thought it was a good one, and hopefully someone here knows the answer (as well as mine).

The odds are that most of the Boot crew were not from the military and that's why the "basic training" becomes so important. It allowed civilian actors to give probably the most realistic depiction of the crews to date (and possibly ever, but let's hope not). On the other hand, prior military service is not always enough. Exhibit A: Audie Murphy. A war hero to be sure, but a horribly wooden performance re-inacting his own amazing deeds.

You are also correct in that many US actors that made movies in the post war years had served, however that didn't seem to prevent them from making one unrealistic movie after the other during the Fifties, Sixties, and so on. It was as if they flipped a switch and forgot thier experience and were civilian actors without a clue again.

Idealy I guess it would be nice to have a veteran that can act too, but in lieu of that a good actor that is run through an proper orientation course is probably a better fit than a veteran that can't act to save his soul.

I'll have to pay special attention to Mr. Sanders performance the next time I watch to see if I can see a difference.

Eric