Todd Decker, professor of musicology in Arts & Sciences
At the most basic level, prestige combat films, or PCFs, tell stories of U.S. soldiers fighting abroad in actual historical conflicts.
Nearly every PCF presents the battlefield from the point of view of the individual soldier, frequently from the lowest rank: the grunt. Central characters in these films seldom rise above lieutenant. The PCF is generally not about officers and never about famous figures of military history—as were many war films made during the 1960s.
Read the full piece at HistoryNet.