General filthiness of American soldiers

The movie wanted to show realistic tank warfare, but gave characterizations straight out of the hokiest of Clint Eastwood movies. The battle with the German Tiger tank is undeniably a great scene. But the characters as you pointed out, were overly filthy, ridiculous video game scars, and too stylized. That's fine, and it fits when the end devolves ito a video game. But there is part of me that wishes the movie stuck more to the Tiger tank scene and the scene with the captured German soldier. Jon bernthal character written differently could have made the film a lot better. And they could have shown us the entire story of this tank the fury, all across Africa, instead of the stylized big message thing they tried to make. With the girl scene and the mysterious scars on brad Pitt. They missed a huge opportunity with this film. It seemed to want to say a message instead of do what it did best. Thanks obama?

Speaking as a 39 year old who grew up doing manual labor, the filth and the scars are normal. As a farmer, every day I was soaked in fuel, grease, sweat, and blood. If given the chance, I would try to clean off a bit, but, without a shower, you just go with the minimum. I was always covered in cuts and bruises that I couldn't remember the origin of. My socks would get soaked in diesel when fueling because I didn't have time to do anything about it. When you're balls to the wall, you get filthy. When hunting in the mountains, you can't properly shower so you just run your canteen over your groin and call it good. Once you're good and dirty, it doesn't matter any more.

Look at Willy and Joe from Bill Mauldin's comics from the war. Everyone looks like crap. A hot shower is a rare com oddity on the front.

I rewatched the movie today and indeed, they went a bit overboard with the mud and filth and strange rags on their helmets. Sure some of these soldiers sometimes went for a long time without a shower and their uniforms became dirty, but soldiers are very intuitive when it came to survival, they were taught in basic training to keep their gear and them self clean, as this would keep their weapons working in perfect condition and they won't be in risk them self for any deceases. They would either wash in a spring (and seeing this took place in a rainy season, water was everywhere) or went to a farm. Improvised rags on their helmets and such were not a thing back than, as they had to stay identifiable for friendly troops from long distances or you would get a friendly fire "issue". I can imagine tank crew being covered in grease and dirt as they had to fix their tank, but would clean up or the grease would be inside the tank as well.

"One item that sticks with me as unique to this film is the general filthiness and slovenliness of the American soldiers, both enlisted as well as officer"

When I joined the US Army one of the things the preventive medicine docs told us, was how some D day soldiers went 9 months before they got to take a shower.

The army has learned the value of personal hygiene.

The filth was absolutely beyond understated if anything