[Dumpster Baby]

I'm not a vet, but I've read enough true accounts and novels to know that just about everything in Platoon actually happened over there. Most bush units weren't as screwed up internally as this one was, but a lot were. It's been said that the most dangerous thing on earth is a 19 year old boy with serious weapons and a license to kill.

I've read first-person accounts of combat where the guy being interviewed would say something like "it's hot, you're tired, you're pissed off, the gooks' eyes are slanty and you just don't like it, so you shoot them".

[Philistone]

I read, and remember to this day, Micheal Herr’s “Dispatches” which was part of the basis for “Apocalypse Now”.

My problem with Platoon is that it was advertised as “The Most Real Account of Fighting in ‘Nam”, which may have been true (at the time, we’d had Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter) but it all seems very contrived.

And since we’ve seen what Oliver Stone is capable of, I just wanted to know what real vets thought... then and now.

[ExtremeUnction]

It's been said that the most dangerous thing on earth is a 19 year old boy with serious weapons and a license to kill.

I don't think that I ever saw a senior NCO or officer after dark. They left us alone because of the fear of being fragged. The hootch scene was real, I lived it, with the dope and music. Platoon was a little overdone, but every scene in the movie happened, at least once. BTW, I arrived at age 18, had two birthdays and came home age 20. It was a war fought by teenagers, and we were good troops, but at times a little messed up. Remember, we had no phones to call home. We had no email. It pretty much sucked.