G.I. Jane

Short pooper
O’Neil (Demi Moore) and the rest of the candidates, after the success of the rescue mission in Libya, are all approved into the Navy’s Combined Reconnaissance Team -CRT-, with Master Chief Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen) personally rewarding O’Neil with his own Navy Cross upon her graduation.
Longer version
O’Neil’s prevailing in the grueling program -particularly after the incident in which Urgayle, ostensibly to force her out, ties her to a chair and submits her to an ultimate physical and psychological torture, only for her to stand up and viciously defeat him- earns her the definitive respect of Urgayle himself and the rest of her peers. In turn, while the powers in the Navy grow concerned that she will not quit -as they were originally gloating about-, the media turns O’Neil into a public icon -complemented with epithets such as “G.I. JANE” and “JOAN OF ARC”-.

However, a sudden bunch of allegations of O’Neil “being homosexual”, complemented with pictures in which she is supposedly fraternizing in an inadequate way with women in and out of the Corps -in conflict with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy of those days-, threatens to derail her progress and undo everything she had so far achieved; as a condition to not be potentially court-martialed, she would have to agree to do a downplayed desk job during the course of the ensuing investigation and, when and if cleared of everything, restart the entire program from scratch. An enraged O’Neil announces that she would rather ring the symbolic bell of withdrawal 3 times before agreeing to this slander.

When O’Neil tries to reach out to Senator DeHaven (Anne Bancroft) -the prominent politician who vouched for her to be part of the program, in the first place-, she makes a shocking discovery: the pictures that were part of the allegations came directly from DeHaven’s office; moreover, it is revealed that DeHaven did not care about O’Neil successfully completing the program and was only using her as a token to, under the guise of “promoting more diversity in the Armed Forces”, prevent some military bases in her state of Texas to be defunded and shut down. O’Neil confronts DeHaven over this and announces her intention to expose her for her actions, which forces DeHaven to have all the charges thrown out and O’Neil restored into the program as she was.

During the final phase of the CRT program training, the trainees are summoned to assist in an unexpected Emergency that involves retrieving weapons-grade plutonium from a satellite lost in the Libyan Desert, which a platoon of Rangers was already sent to rescue and failed while evacuating. In the process of acquainting with the Rangers and helping them to seize the material and make a successful exit, they run into Libyan soldiers and Urgayle kills one of them, defending O’Neil, which then escalates into an open confrontation with the rest of the patrol.

At this point, O’Neil, using her previous experience as a topographical analyst, shines and shows true leadership when she figures out and discloses, upon interpreting the map, that Urgayle would not be using the escape route he had led everyone to believe in, and a new one would need to be decided upon, while also regrouping with the rest of both teams. Moreover, with the additional help of Ranger Lieutenant McCool (Morris Chestnut), she finds herself having to rescue a wounded Urgayle from an ambush area rigged with explosives. Gunship aircraft arrive in the area in defense of both teams and they are able to make a safe escape with the radioactive material, thus making the mission successful.

Once back, the entire CRT training team, in recognition for their actions, are formally accepted and graduated into the program. Urgayle reacquaints with O’Neill and, as an ultimate sign of admiration and respect as well as gratitude for saving his life, proudly rewards her with his own Navy Cross, as well as a poetry book by D.H. Lawrence that points out the song “Self-Pity” -known for the line “I NEVER SAW A WILD THING SORRY FOR ITSELF”-.