A female marine fixes the nose of one of her male counterparts during one of their training exercises. Also, fun fact, this particular training session that Marines are doing is happening in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But thankfully, I suppose, the titular servicemen aren’t just doing training exercises while waiting to fight wars. Good for them. Anyway, they’re in their bunks, reading books I’ve never read, talking to each other, punctuating sentences with obligatory curses. Then they’re back to training sessions, different ones where they speak about inefficiencies like they’re working for corporations. But we all read the news about wars breaking out everywhere, and these mostly men stand ready for anything.

This is a miniseries, potentially the first of a two season documentary that’s propagating typical rah rah Americana. Men who were born when I was in university have big muscles, giving me the typical ambivalent feelings. Which I think is the point, as well as its depiction of these man children in their bunks reading books. Of course the books they’re reading depict the Old West, these men absorbing each word on face value. I may or may not write about whether this documentary series questions the belief systems of its subjects. For the most part, Marines leave their subjects alone, observing them up close, for better or maybe for worse.

Marines is in contrast to Netflix’ other series about the military, Boots, in theory, a better show than this. Even if Boots is better, the iconography there is more archetypal, fulfilling the jock-y jarhead images in our heads. In fairness to this documentary series, it depicts its titular servicemen against the grain, as smart people. The men even speak to women as equals and there’s respect between the two mainstream genders working here. It probably takes a lot of intelligence to even get out of bed without an injury, much less an armed conflict. And preparation for armed conflict apparently means inventory and acronyms, but there’s something missing.

That missing element in Marines becomes more apparent the more interview segments it includes of the titular servicemen here. And it’s not just them getting the screen time here as their family members get some camera time as well. Marines, they’re just like us, the lessons they learn can translate the same way all skills are transferable. But one of the last interviews makes for some infuriating television with one of the young marines. This specific marine thinks about what he’ll do during peacetime, with ICE as an option to fill time. I get not interrogating one’s subject for access, but its use of someone mentioning ICE blankly is unforgivable.

Marines is available to stream on Netflix.