I've read prior comments concerning the character development, the musical score, and more good reasons to kill time with this movie.
I heartily disagree.
The music is good, but it's sometimes overwhelming and unnecessarily hard. The characters, apart from the investigating sergeant, are cardboard characters, deprived of intelligence. I found it really hard to care about any of them, and I was continuously hoping that they would all end up in freakish accidents. Even the newbies deserved to get it up the rear end. I especially consider here the staff sergeant who goes AWOL. This guy is giving orders, and he's a total basket case. If this is an accurate description of the American army, then by God, the world is in peril. The pace of the movie is slow, to say the least, the dialogues are simple (suitable for a redneck military audience), and did I mention that the characters are despicable?
I suffered through the movie, and wish all the people who think this is good and realistic all the best. I fear a society where this is your standard drama, and I advise military leaders to also select their officers based on a psychological profile, and not only on the badass crazy percentage.