I know the director is sending a message with James looking at all the endless choices of cereal, but look at how many boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch there are. There like 7 rows of them! I've never been to a store that has that many boxes of one kind of cereal.
Have you?
Mother is the name for God on the lips & hearts of all children -Eric D. Raven
I got the message of the grocery store, being in a land of plenty but not being able to find what you are looking for. Sort of like cable TV; 400+ channels and nothing to watch.
He's career military, so he's probably shopping at the base commissary (military grocery store). Overseas, sometimes the shipments of consumer goods to base exchanges (like a Walmart) and commissaries is interrupted due to higher priority cargo. So it is possible to end up with massive amounts of the same item or similar items (perhaps Kelloggs arrived on time, but Post or General Mills cereals didn't).
You get used to it. For instance, if your preferred brand of toothpaste is in stock, you grab two in case it's out the next time you need it.
Interestingly, I came upon a Nytimes.com article http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/health/veterans-iraq-afghanistan-psychology-therapy.html which seemed to echo this film - a military man who served multiple tours having difficulty adjusting to civilian life. While reading the article, I was thinking about the grocery shopping scene.
There isn't a way to leave a comment on the article, but if someone related to the article happens to be reading this post, my own suggestion is that "Team Rubicon", a disaster-relief organization for veterans, may be a fit for others who may be in a similar situation.