# Military vs Zombies **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 23, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180 "2012-07-23T23:06:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![toofs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@toofs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toofs)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/21 "2012-07-25T13:21:17Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > True, but as we found out later that wasn’t the end of the zombie menace. > > This is because George Romero basically invented what we call zombies. They don’t have the folkoric history vampires or ghosts do. **Return of the Living Dead** plays around with this. In that universe NotLD was made, but Romero got the idea for it from seeing an Army experiment gone wrong and had to change a few key details so the government would allow him to make the film. > > And of course RotLD operage very differently from most other zombies. A major plot point of Return is had headshots _don’t_ kill zombies, severed limbs remain moble, they only eat brains & not other flesh, and even long dead corpses reanimate if exposed to Trioxin. Oh, and some zombies are still capable of speech and rational thought/planning. “Send more cops!” ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/22 "2012-07-25T18:43:22Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Yes, the desire to make sequels will trump all. But the end of Night was pretty clear, the menace was over and we had won (except for Ben, that is). I disagree with that. I think what we saw was a cleanup happening in a rural, low population area. Certainly possible for local containment. However, as indicated by the events at the beginning of Dawn, zombies continued to be a problem in areas of higher population, growing in number as people refused to let their loved ones be turned in for proper disposal. It’s been a while since I saw the original Dawn, but I seem to recall them seeing what looked like “clean up” scenes on the ground as they went over the rural areas in their attempt to flee the city. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/23 "2012-07-25T20:00:55Z")
How easily would the Army be zombified? I mean, does kevlar stop human teeth? I know they aren’t made to protect people from being stabbed, but human teeth aren’t the longest or sharpest teeth by a long shot. I think a leather jacket would be fine. Find a riot helmet to cover your face and head and you’re pretty set. A soldier in some kind of full combat protective gear (there’s an acronym for it I can’t remember) would be a tough nut to crack, for a zombie’s wimpy mouth anyway. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/24 "2012-07-25T22:52:11Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Again, I don’t follow the zombie entertainment genre much, so help fight my ignorance some more. > > What would be so bad if the zombies win, and we all end up becoming zombies? Is it said or implied anywhere that there’s anything so wrong with being a zombie? Is it much different than being absorbed by the Borg? While I agree with what everyone else said above regarding zombifying humanity, this was my question regarding the vampire movie Blade, in which the villain’s big plot was to turn all humans into vampires. My reaction was “And?!” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/25 "2012-07-25T22:59:12Z")
It’s a general weakness of lots of “genre” fiction that the military/police are never useful, often for fairly weak or unexplained reasons. For instance, in the Buffyverse, it’s generally accepted that police/military would, if unprepared, be totally helpless against just about anything supernatural, but at the same time one of the most utterly super-top unstoppable supernatural creatures, pretty-much supposedly unkillable, gets totally wasted by a rocket launcher. Which is FAR from the most powerful weapon the military can lay its hands on. Similarly, why is the military so useless against, say, Godzilla, or the monster from Cloverfield? In neither case is the baddie depicted as magical, and I don’t care how big and ugly you are, modern military weapons do SO MUCH damage that, purely from a physics perspective, big nasty monsters should not be shrugging them off. But when there’s a story in which Our Heroes (not meant sarcastically) are the protagonists, it’s generally essential that the authorities not save the day. ---
**Author:** ![gunnergoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e95f7d/32.png) [@gunnergoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gunnergoz)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/26 "2012-07-25T22:59:35Z")
What I don’t get is the whole zombie fetish thing. Let alone how to fight them off. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/27 "2012-07-26T00:21:10Z")
> [@gunnergoz](#): > > What I don’t get is the whole zombie fetish thing. Let alone how to fight them off. Weird. FINE. Good luck with the zombie apocalypse. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180/28 "2012-07-26T22:53:02Z")
My biggest objection to the zombie apocalypse is that very few people should be converted to _functional_ zombies. Many/most that fall to the horde will be completely or mostly consumed. I would expect a limited number to get bitten, then escape and convert to something actually dangerous. Of course in the original NOTLD it was radiation, so there’s that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-vs-zombies/629180.md?page=1)