Posted on 01/25/2015 8:49:11 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
There has been renewed interest in combat and warfare in general lately, since we always seem to be forced into situations as a nation where we have to send more of our young people to nasty places to risk their lives and their bodies for our own needs. In the last couple of weeks, the movies American Sniper and Sole Survivor have generated interest and vigorous discussion among us.
The movies represent a sincere attempt by filmmakers to get away from the usual morbid voyeurism of combat and the self-debasing, anti-American propaganda and try to reach what is true, as much as possible. Thankfully they are at least not two ridiculous cartoons about war like Apocalypse Now and Platoon.
The reality will probably never be something that could be presented in a movie because it is too personal, too individual and in reality too horrible for any normal person to watch. Warfare is about death; in general terms, it’s about killing more of them than they kill of us. Nothing has changed about that ugly piece of math since the beginning of time yet we seem to think that war can be reduced to antiseptic little encounters where just about anybody at all can just push a button and all the nasty stuff is all over. Good Lord, we’re even seriously discussing putting girls into direct combat when most of us still don’t have any real idea what that means, no matter how many movies we’ve watched.
Combat is putting 18, 19 and 20 year old kids–usually fresh out of high school and after a short piece of training–into situations in which they will kill other people or be killed themselves or more often, have parts of their bodies irrevocably ruined. These kids come from the lower...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
These kids come from the lower financial strata of our country ..................
Platoon is two very different movies, most people only see one or the other. The first movie is about the scenes of life in a rifle company including the combat scenes and these are well done. The second movie is the storyline surrounding the key characters. This part is Hollywood fantasy built on their assumptions of what happens to people engaged in combat. That part is pretty much nonsense.
“Sole Survivor”? Missed that one.
He's also a total POS. It's too bad Charlie wasn't a better shot.
Oh yeah, Oliver Stone. Nothing weird going on inside that little brain.
Once out there, no amount of truth can kill a lie that serves the political agenda of the Left...
People who ARE interested can look at a number of sources for the truth...
A good place to start is “Stolen valor” by B. G. Burkett...
There are numerous sites for truth about Vietnam; one of the better sites:
http://www.lzcenter.com/Myths%20and%20Facts.html
Since WWII the real source of our military “failures” around the globe has been the “leaders” who embroil us, and the elected “representatives” who fail our troops, and those back home who support our adversaries and malign our troops...
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan...So it goes...
You and I have discussed things before and I’m surprised that you liked “Platoon”. It depicted us a weird, drugged-out screwballs ( which may have been the case in Stone’s part of the army). But in my considerable experience in combat in Vietnam, nothing resembled Oliver Stone’s non-stop cliche-fest. Did we really run around shooting and raping civilians? Were our NCOs really the screaming nutcases Platoon had all through it? The movie almost couldn’t have crammed more antiVietnam war lies and propaganda if Jane Fonda had directed it.
It was a ridiculous movie and I’m amazed that you’re defending it.
Really. So while you were in Vietnam, do you remember any rich kids? Sons of politicians?
I don’t
I know hundreds of combat veterans, including those that I served with in combat. Not a nutter amongst them. Stone is proof that they do exist, but those like him are not a very reliable source if you are looking for insights.
"Platoon" was an extension of Stone's politics and the American soldiers were portrayed to match every leftist cliche imaginable: drunk, drugged, racists, rapists, cowards, and murderers of civilians, when they weren't busy practicing fratricide.
Benedict Arnold was wounded and helped save the American Revolution at Saratoga, but he was still a traitor. I have as much use for Oliver Stone as I do for Leni Riefenstahl.
Write a book
My results differed.
Smearing all the rest of us with My Lai’s a bit low, isn’t? I’m disappointed in you.
In the summer of 1950 I had a job in a steel mill, between years in college. This was an open-hearth mill (now obsolete) in which the steel was made in an open-hearth furnace. At the back bottom of the furnace was an opening that was sealed with clay before the molten iron from the blast furnace was poured in. Of course that baked the clay hard. When the melt was done, a guy with a shaped charge on the end of a long pole blasted the clay loose and the steel poured out into an ingot mold. The hot ingot would go to the rolling mill.
One day one of the regular workers and I were standing by watching the operation. When the clay was blasted, he dropped to the floor like he'd been shot. As he got up he gave me a sheepish grin and said, "That's the way the German 88s sounded." It had been at least five years, and he still had the startle reaction.
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