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.
POS (plural) is an appropriate description of the biased and politicized work of Oliver Stone!
There is a book called “Platoon: Bravo Company” written by Robert Hemphill, the commanding officer at the time. It has a forward by Joe Galloway
http://rosedogbooks-store.stores.yahoo.net/plbrco.html
Here’s what cover blurb says:
“The unit in the movie Platoon is identified at the beginning and end of the film as Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. That unit was commanded at the time by Captain Robert Hemphill, now Lieutenant Colonel, Retired. Colonel Hemphill considers Platoon to be its director’s own artistic interpretation of events that occurred in his Infantry company. Since the line infantryman is not normally privy to the thoughts and actions of the commander or of the overall scheme of combat activities, however, much of his story is speculation or sheer imagination. Nevertheless, this film, and other sensationalist movies like it, have been very influential in shaping American — and world — public opinion concerning the conduct and accomplishments of the American soldier in Vietnam. Based on Platoon and his other Vietnam-related movies, this director apparently views the average American soldier in Vietnam as a cruel, racist, pot-headed malcontent.
Hemphill says this is a serious misinterpretation. He found the Vietnam combat infantrymen to be like American combat soldiers everywhere: some were very good, some not so good, but most took their jobs and service seriously and did the best they could with what they were given to do. While isolated incidents of indiscretion did occur and were voraciously reported in the media, the vast majority of frontline infantrymen were not habitual dopers, did not commit atrocities, did not hunt down their fellow soldiers, and were not psychotic killers. In contrast to many depictions of the Vietnam combat soldier, this book represents him as he really was, particularly during the time of Colonel Hemphill’s tour of duty as Bravo 6: profane, yes, but honorable in the performance of his duty.”
My favorites both as a 40s movie and a recent hstory channel documentary, The story of “Wake Island”. I’d like to see them remake it. Second “Bataan”
It’s a portrait of a left wring journalist as a total jerk
It’s a toned down portrait of an actual guy.
Also the real thing: It’s night, it’s raining off and on; one man for every radio is awake, or trying to stay awake; he can’t see two feet in front of his face, but he keeps thinking that he sees and hears something moving out there in the dark. He keeps his rifle trained on a shape than appears to get closer and closer, unwilling to fire and give his position away without being sure of his target, and finally, as the sky begins to lighten in the hours before dawn, he can make out what he has been aiming at all night...a bush!
USMC - Viet Nam - ‘66 to ‘68 Chu Lai, 1st Marines
The tactics employed in “Platoon” were Hollywood...the drama was an exaggeration of reality. Of course the Army lost a much higher percentage of infantry than the USMC did over there. ;-)
The most accurate Viet Nam Era film, in my opinion, was “Full Metal Jacket”
Don’t you mean Heaven and Earth?
I’ve actually talked to Le Ly Hayslip on AIM before (the woman whose story was the foundation of Heaven and Earth.)
Charlie Mopic was the movie my father loved. I saw it and didn’t think too much of it but I was young and probably had simpler tastes.
My dad DID like Platoon, though and didn’t find it off-the-mark. He was over there in 70-71, so perhaps the pessimism of that film was more reflected during his tour of duty than someone in 67-68.
Oh, there were incidents of abuse of GIs coming home but you came home much earlier in the deal than guys after Tet. That and you may have been lucky.
Sorry ~ I pass on most of Stone’s. Wait a minute, I may have seen on one of movie channels ~ I must have not been too impressed. >:-}
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