Full Metal Jacket dismantles the romanticized image of military training, portraying a grim and intense boot camp experience. The movie challenges the notion of heroism in war. The soldiers' collective singing of the Mickey Mouse March provides a stark contrast between extreme violence and a cutesy song, capturing the banality of killings in the film. It represents a desire to return to innocence and a nostalgia for childhood. Joker's final line about being alive in a world of s*** reflects the profound trauma experienced by soldiers in Vietnam. The visuals of the burnt-out cities emphasize the idea that surviving in such a world can be worse than death itself.

In Full Metal Jacket, the final narration and the accompanying Mickey Mouse March singalong can seem somewhat inscrutable without further context. Director Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket arrived late in the helmer’s career and midway through the cycle of Vietnam War movies.