In 1980, the United States launched a new army recruitment drive. It was five years after the end of the Vietnam War, a conflict that had collapsed public confidence in its military. “Be All You Can Be” read the famous slogan, often held up as one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. Capitalising on Americans’ voracious appetite for self-improvement, it reimagined a military career as something smart and sexy, and not just an appointment that would cart you off to die in some foreign war. And “Be All You Can Be” carried US military recruitment right through until the advent of video games like Call of Duty, which taught a generation that war is a fun puzzle to be solved through violent heroism. It is in this vein that the latest recruitment initiative for American imperialism arrives on our screens, in the form of new Amazon thriller, The Terminal List.
Chris Pratt, the square-jawed, dead-eyed star of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, is Navy Seal Commander James Reece (“One rowdy motherf***er,” Pratt says, on the blurb to one of Jack Carr’s novels that has been adapted for this series). The show opens with Reece on a mission in Syria that goes FUBAR, resulting in the deaths of his entire unit. Reece himself is severely concussed and returns to the United States a blurry mess; his memories of what happened in the submerged crypt in Syria do not align with those presented to him by the authorities. “I know what it’s like when war follows you home,” Jeanne Tripplehorn’s shady politician tells him. “But I hope you’ll be able to find peace knowing this mission is over.” Fat chance.
