American Sniper's message is of no help.

The running theme of PTSD in Elah warned that America's 'exceptionalism" was making self examination and possible self correction unlikely. Demanding a unipolar world (with the USA as the "uni" of course) is the quest of paranoid sadists not altruistic megalomaniacs. Americans don't dig deep enough into their psyches to see their corrputed ways.

Hank's sanitized Biblical folklore bedtime story of a boy facing and then slaying a giant was predatory and misguided. Hank's version of valor and glory in the Valley of Elah attempted to inspire and comfort a young boy but left out that the teenage novice warrior for the Israelites cut off the head of Golaith while Goliath was semi conscious and then took the head along on a campaign tour. Both the earlier David and Hank's son Michael were boys sent by their tribes into battle and both emerged as sadists. Older warriors often poison potential recruits with half truths.