Factual error: When Eleanor Shaw tries to convince other members of the senate to choose her son as a candidate for vice president, a map of the fifty states and their corresponding electoral votes can be seen. The map shows Colorado as having 3 electoral votes and Wyoming having 8. Wyoming should have 3 and Colorado 9.
Factual error: Major Marco's uniform in early shots has a Special Forces tab on the left breast pocket. This doesn't appear later. Also, this tab should only appear on the dress blues, where shoulder insignia are not worn.
Factual error: One of the Gulf War scenes shows Marco and Shaw's armored vehicles in the Kuwaiti desert with a skyline of burning oil wells in the background. We later hear that this sequence is set during a reconnaissance in Iraqi-controlled territory just before Desert Storm. Saddam's troops only set fire to oil fields during the end of Desert Storm as they were retreating from Kuwait.
Chosen answer: Perhaps the piece-of-plastic killing was a "test run" by the brainwashers to see if Raymond would actually react to their commands. You can see other soldiers lying down wearing "halos", hinting that this happened at a different time and place than the observation room choking.