Goofs

Karen shoots more than 100 rounds from the M-16's 30 round magazine.

Boylar's insignia indicates he is a captain, yet he is referred to as a lieutenant.

During the confrontation on the train tracks, the distance of the approaching train visible over Sergeant Monfriez's shoulder varies greatly.

When taping a conversation, Col. Serling only depresses the "play" button, not the "record" button.

When Monfriez and Serling are driving in Monfriez's convertible, they are directly alongside the train, but when Monfriez pulls onto the tracks, the train is nowhere in sight. They did not drive far enough or fast enough to get that far ahead of the train.

The Medal of Honor is never placed around the neck of anyone but the recipient of the award.

U.S. Army Medivac Choppers marked with the Red Cross, are covered by the Geneva Convention, thereby allowing the aircrew to only carry personal weapons. So no M-16's or M-60 machine guns would have been allowed on "Dust off 3". The Red Cross marks the copter a non-combatant, medical vehicle. This would make it a war-crime for enemies to fire upon it. However, for Meg Ryan's character to take her Red Cross marked copter in to attack enemies would be considered a "perfidious act" -- a very serious war crime.

NOTE: Iraq was known (often unapologetically) to violate the Geneva Convention during the Desert Storm when the movie was set, so it wasn't unusual for the Iraqi forces to shoot down Walden's chopper which bore the Red Cross or even the other chopper bearing the same symbol. So this isn't necessarily a goof. The M16 however shouldn't have been on board nor should Monfriez have been firing his SAW from the helicopter, in fact the only weapons anyone should have had were their sidearms.

The Huey had long-range fuel tanks installed and they disconnected them to drop them on the tank to destroy it. In real life, it takes about an hour to uninstall the long-range tanks and if they are full of fuel you can not unhook them from the over head hook they are connected to. You have to drain all the fuel out to get enough slack to unhook them.

The crew that Capt. Walden is there to rescue is referred to as a Blackhawk crew. However, the downed aircraft that the crew are around is not a Blackhawk, but instead a Huey.

We see a locomotive skidding with its wheels locked in a shower of sparks. Locomotive wheels do not lock up when the emergency brakes are applied because, a) it won't stop the train any faster, and b) it would create flat spots on the wheels which are very expensive to repair.

While Dr. Mary E. Walker was the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor (in 1866, for bravery as a surgeon), Capt. Walden would have been, as stated, the first woman to be nominated for the medal "for performance under fire".

After Monfreeze shoots Walden, he says "Christ captain, I thought you were firing at me!", she then points the gun at him and cocks the hammer on her pistol after having fired at the Iraqis. This would not be necessary with a .45 as the slide automatically re-cocks the hammer when fired. Even if she had reloaded, the hammer would still remain in the rear position after having replaced the magazine and released the slide. The pistol was a Beretta 92 (military designation M-9) in 9mm, on which the hammer could be decocked, allowing it to be manually cocked. It's uncertain if an army pilot's training would have been to keep the pistol decocked and it will fire the first round without being cocked in any case.

During the last walk through of the events in Iraq, Walden cocks her M9 while pointing it at Monfriez. When she does so, it is obvious that the M9 is mounted on something below, just out of camera shot.

At the end of the last walk through of the events in Iraq, the napalm is dropped and it ignites. The pattern of the napalm is completely wrong and the fact that it ignites in all areas at the very same time indicates it is fake.

Serling is seen seeking out Monfriez who is fully aware that is to be questioned over the incident in the Gulf. In reality, it would be Monfriez seeking out Serling and most likely reporting to him in a conference room or an office. In such a situation, an O-5 does not seek out an E-6 for an interview.

After Walden's helicopter crashes, Ilario is tending to Rady who is injured and unconscious. When Ilario ask's Walden for a hook to hang the IV bag, Rady, still unconscious, opens his eyes for a second, then closes them.

When Lt. Col Serling is at the lake in camouflage uniform, he does not wear the blacked out Lt. Colonel insignia on his cover.

F/X mistake? During the Monfriez suicide scene, when he starts driving to the train you can see his reflection in the rear view mirror. Shots after that show what appears to be gray tape on the rear view mirror. His reflection is never shown again. This scene is currently on YouTube.

In one of the daytime shots, the camera's angle clearly shows inside the end of the M16's muzzle. It's been fitted with a flash suppressor which constricts the aperture at the front of the muzzle and would therefore make it too narrow for a standard 5.56 mm round to be fired. The flash suppressor is necessary because the blanks used in films don't supply enough compressed gas during the firing of a round for the M16 to cycle properly in automatic fire.

During one of the scenes of firefight, you can hear Captain Walden say, "Gimme the goddamn M16," but you can see that her mouth does not say "M16."

Just after Monfriez's car is hit by the train, you can see some sort of carriage that the car is mounted on. The rear rims of the car also look like train wheels (that belong to the carriage the car is mounted on).

When Capt. Walden's helicopter is circling the Iraqi tank and attempting to neutralize it, there is a quick split second where the tank is in the foreground and the helicopter behind it. At that exact moment, you can clearly see a man with dark brown hair in a blue shirt and khaki pants on or near the tank.

Reflected in the TV screen in the General's Office

When the two men are talking in what appears to be a park in Washington, D.C., an Austin, Texas, Capital Metro City Bus drives by in the background.

The Capitol dome cannot be seen from Bethesda, Maryland.

When Monfriez reprimands a recruit for leaving another recruit behind in the obstacle, he doesn't further reprimand him for calling him "sir". Drill sergeants are never called "sir" in the Army. They "work for a living".

Serling says that Boylar's Abrams tank was hit by "uranium depleted shells", which makes no sense. The correct term is "depleted uranium shells", meaning that the uranium used in their manufacture has had most of the radioactivity depleted out of it in a reactor, making it very heavy and therefore ideal for armour-piercing roles. As a tank officer himself, Serling would know this simple detail.

When the LtCol's tank is confronted by enemy infantry he uses his .50 Cal by using its butterfly trigger which would allow the weapon to fire, but by doing it that way he couldn't have aimed the weapon system, and it exposes himself to danger. Instead he should have used commander's control inside the tank which would have been safer for him and he could change the elevation and traverse the cupola.

Although Meg Ryan's character was supposed to be from Texas, her accent didn't come from anywhere near. At the time of filming she had been married to Dennis Quaid (who is from Houston, Texas) for several years but still couldn't pull off the accent. Ryan simply has no ear for accents.