I remember passing by a movie theater that had a poster like the one above...outside by the entrance. The movie theater stuck a banner to the poster that stretched across the soldier's hands...the banner said "Now Playing."
Posted on 05/10/2007 8:19:21 PM PDT by Philistone
So I'm watching Platoon on demand for about the 15th time.
I saw it the first time in a theater when it first came out with a former army grunt. The fact that I was a snot nosed, 24 year-old white boy who'd never been in the service and he was a 50 year-old black engineer had nothing to do with it. He told me he used to go out on patrol with no food or water so he could carry more guns and ammo. He wasn't going down without a fight.
Walking out, he told me "that's EXACTLY what it was like."
All I could think about was how HOLLYWOOD the whole film was (the guy who reads the letter from his mom only to get blown up in the next scene, The good vs evil Sargeants, etc.)
I'd be interested in hearing from some other vets as to their reaction to this film.
Bassoonists always feel left out of some great compositions. Just about the only glory the insturment sees is in several of Beethoven's Symphonies and Bach's first Brandenburg. Other than that, you pine to be a violist in the Adagio or a horn player William Tell. Now I couldn't care less about the Barber.
That idiot movie ruined a perfectly beautiful piece of music for me.
Well, bed time.
LOL!
It was that film that turned me onto Barber.
It is now my signature ending to all my radio shows (OK, without the rockets going off...)
“That, I think we can handle. Just shoot them first.’
The problem is that a guy with a bomb belt can walk into virtually any place in the US and detonate it. You can’t predict or stop it, without infiltrating every Moslem group in the country. Good luck with that.
Not to mention torpedos that didn’t work for the first two years of WWII.
As an armchair General, what I can vouch is that the strength of the US soldier lies in what makes America strong: the ability to take command and control of the situation, even in the absence of commanders.
The average US Corporal has more leeway and authority than the average Colonel of any other armed forces in the world.
And this is not something that you can teach in Basic. It has to be inculcated from birth...
The most important thing to understand about Vietnam is that left-wing dirty hate-America-first rotten commie b@stards undermined our military while it was trying to win the war. They’re doing the same thing today.
I was there for a year (1966). There may have been heavy drug use, but I never saw it. It would have been difficult to obtain in the field and, unlike the experience of a previous poster, NCOs and junior officers were always around. I never heard the word “fragged” until I was back in the states and out of the Army. Perhaps things changed as the war dragged on and the culture and the Army which it reflects also changed. The poster with a friend who says he opted to go out on operations without water should take that friend’s story with a huge grain of salt.
I’ve always found one urban legend that is now received truth about the war particularly annoying: the fact that returning GIs were spit upon and reviled. In January 1967, when I went into the bar of Seattle’s airport to await a civilian flight after having landed and “processed”, I could not buy a drink—I was wearing a light summer uniform and the decorations and very dark skin made it clear where I was coming from. Bar patrons competed to buy drinks for me and three or four other GIs. When I finally boarded the flight to Chicago, a pretty stewardess moved me to first class and offered food and drink. It was a red-eye and , with most of the cabin asleep, I wined and dined across the dark American homeland. Only the desire to be clean and sober for mom and dad kept me from getting completely snockered. In the weeks that followed, as I readjusted to the “world”, I don’t think I ever met one person who was hostile. Curious yes. Too much so. I wanted to get on and forget it. And the persistent “what was it like?” questions were annoying. But that’s all. Once again, that may have changed in subsequent years as the media and public turned against the war.
You had me up until this last line. FMJ was Stanley’s little war cliche and wet-dream. Hated it.
I am too young to really remember the Vietnam war, but I have thought that Forrest Gump, of all movies, had a pretty good portrayal of the war and the turmoil at home.
The problem is that a guy with a bomb belt can walk into virtually any place in the US and detonate it. You can’t predict or stop it, without infiltrating every Moslem group in the country. Good luck with that.
“”
Except that once they start doing it, any muslim (or muslim look alike) in sight likely will be shot (or deported/herded off somewhere). I would not want to be a muslim if/when that reality comes to pass. Politicos who try to interfere will see the end of their careers one way or another. The neo-liberals themselves will bleat the loudest for ‘measures to be taken’ to save them from the threat they have tried so hard to deny.
AMEN! I could not have said it better myself!
Stone was a guy who quit (and/or was thrown out of) Yale to join as a grunt. Everything you need to know about the guy is about Vietnam and where he came from.
EXACTLY my impression as well. I was there from November of 66 to December of 67 and your experience parallels mine exactly.
“The Deer Hunter” - The entire movie is a metaphor for the stupidity that was Vietnam.
“Apocalypse Now” - Nothing in it that actually happened in Vietnam, but an excellent movie for Vietnam Vets who want to be reminded of their individual stories.
“Platoon” - The night fire fight scene depicts the chaos and confusion as close to reality as anything I can imagine. The killing of the old man is a metaphor for My Lai.
“Forrest Gump” - The ambush scene is on par with the night fire fight scene in “Platoon.”
“Full Metal Jacket” - What happened in the first half of the movie in Basic Training is believable. When the story jumps to Vietnam, you can learn more by walking out of the theater.
“Go Tell the Spartans” - Takes place in 64 and the message to me was, we should have seen it coming. Good simple movie.
My first tour was during all of 67 and what you wrote reminds me of coming through Seattle on my way to Detroit in Jan 68.
When I went back in Nov 69 drugs were everywhere. As Forrest would have said, “It’s a whole ‘nother country.”
I think O. Stone made his movies, enhancing true war life for his commie party's political propaganda.
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