Spoiler Alert: Battleship–A Veteran’s Dream Movie

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U.S. Navy / Getty Images

The Battleship Missouri (Bb63) Nicknamed "Mighty Mo"

If you looked at the premise of Battleship–a summer blockbuster about an alien invasion that’s very loosely based on a board game–and came away with an “meh” feeling, you’d be forgiven. Based on this weekend’s box office returns, which saw The Avengers retaining the number one spot by pummeling the Navy flick, it appears that sentiment is more popular than the movie.

No sane person would have mistaken Battleship for high art. Source material aside, the film’s story is pretty tired: a talented, but recalcitrant bad boy naval officer squanders his gifts (and the love of the gorgeous admiral’s daughter) by constantly screwing up. Honestly, Tom Cruise played this role better, in that iconic flick back in 1986. Battleship has some pretty kick-ass action scenes, but the real reason to see the movie is for two subtle, but important looks at military history.

While the movie is basically a giant commercial for the coolness of the Navy, it’s an Army officer who steals the show. Col. Greg Gadson plays a retired Army lieutenant colonel struggling to overcome the emotional and physical limitations of losing both of his legs. A former linebacker for the West Point football team, Gadson served in every major conflict of the past 20 years. He was commanding a field artillery battalion in Baghdad in 2007 when an IED blew off both of his legs and damaged his arm. Gadson, who still serves on active duty as director of the Army’s Wounded Warrior program, has been a vocal advocate for wounded troops. He’s served as an honorary co-captain for the New York Giants (his character wears a Giants hat for much of the movie), and he puts his football skills to use battling aliens and playing a big part in saving the world.

(READ: Battleship: More Fun Than a Board Game Blockbuster Has Any Right to Be)

But the most important value Gadson brings to the movie is his portrayal of a veteran struggling with finding a new normal after horrendous injuries. Brooklyn Decker (the admiral’s daughter) works as a physical therapist, helping amputees learn to walk and be active with their prosthetic limbs, and Gadson plays her patient. As an Army officer and as a journalist I’ve had the pleasure to get to know dozens of amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are some of the most positive, driven people I’ve had the honor to meet. But they have tough days, and Col. Gadson portrays one of the rough ones where he struggles to find the motivation to press forward. When Decker suggests they go for a hike, Gadson turns in a masterful performance as a driven athlete struggling with his new physical limitations. But when the aliens come, he proves that even on prosthetics, he’s a force to be reckoned with.

If that piece of recent history isn’t enough, Battleship takes us back a bit further and lets a Navy legend ride again. With the entire Pacific fleet trapped on the far side of an alien barrier, our protagonist, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) has to commandeer the USS Missouri. “The Mighty Mo” was one of the most decorated ships in the Pacific Theater in World War II, and it was on her deck that General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of the Japanese.

The USS Missouri is now a floating museum, and in order to get her back into action, Hopper and his crew have to enlist the services of some of her former crew, now decidedly in their twilight years. After dumping over concession machines, they light the boilers (yup kids, they used to run on steam), haul thousand-pound rounds of ammunition through the ship and take down the alien craft. It’s a cheesy, but ultimately inspiring plot twist that was met with some laughter and a lot of clapping at the Manhattan theater where I saw the movie.

So if you’re sick of The Avengers, then Battleship isn’t a bad choice for some excitement and to see a couple of living pieces of history–one from World War II and one from today’s wars–in action on the big screen.

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