Oh, I saw them alright. The point you can’t comprehend is that in all of the movies about Vietnam, we are portrayed as cartoons, nothing even remotely resembling who we really were or how we operated. The depiction of us as dope-smoking, whining incompetents or as an over-the-top weirdo that “loves the smell of napalm in the morning” was meant to satisfy the masses who either avoided the war for their own cowardly reasons or actively supported the enemy.
During the war, we had nothing but a stream of garbage about us - there were scores of TV serials with Vietnam Vets going crazy and of course imbecilic movies with us as either blundering, blubbering dopers and/or crazed war criminals. The whole point was to convince the public that we were somehow completely unworthy of support.
The reality was that we were the best our country had to offer. We were well-led, competent and we didn’t wear costumes, like Rambo. Nobody in any previous or subsequent war ever had to put up junk like that.
Apocalypse Now was an idiotic cartoon from start to finish and even a non-serving civilian should understand the difference.
The end result was that when we came home and as we tried to blend back in with society, we were often shunned. I had a waitress refuse to wait on me and my family because I was in uniform - and many more incidents.
Your research is faulty: Robert Duvall was in the army between Korea and Vietnam, advancing to PFC in the process.
The films we’re talking about were made after the war was over and had been for years. During the American involvement in SE Asia, there were hardly any films about it at all actually. ‘The Green Berets’ is the only one I can think of.
If by cartoon you mean ‘unrealistic’ and ‘heightened’ then yes. Realism isn’t always the goal. It certainly wasn’t in these films. I’m guessing you dislike ‘First Blood’ and ‘Full Metal Jacket’ too. These aren’t ‘Time-Life Books’ coffee table tomes or ‘The World At War’ style documentaries. AN, which is an adaptation of ‘Heart of Darkness’, taps into all sorts of mythic archetypes about quests and the human psyche. The Deer Hunter is about what an external force (war) does to a tight knit community. No one involved with those films set out to slander Vietnam Vets.