Posted on 05/14/2022 11:13:14 PM PDT by pboyington
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Rambo (First Blood) one of the greatest action adventure movies of all time, but more than that, the quintessential film about PTSD and its traumatic effects on combat veterans.
The film stars Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Will Teasle and Richard Crenna as Colonel Sam Trautman. It was directed by Ted Kotcheff and the screenplay was written by Michael Kozoll & William Sackheim and Sylvester Stallone.
With the Ghosts of Vietnam haunting America in 1982, the film opens with John Rambo walking down a lonely road in the Pacific Northwest. Immediately, we feel Rambo is a man alone in the world; a man who appears to have no one to protect, love or count on. He smiles lightly as he trudges down a rural path wearing a worn US Army olive drab field jacket decorated solely with a US flag patch. He will soon see his buddy Delmar, who served with him on a Special Forces A- Team in Vietnam. Minutes later, he learns that Delmar died of cancer from exposure to Agent Orange. What would be sad to civilians is devastating to Rambo. His world is crumbling around him. Members of the A Team are all gone, except for Rambo. He has no one left in the world. He moves on down a highway towards a small town, where he hopes to find a meal.
Rambo is soon intercepted by Sheriff Will Teasle who views Rambo as just another homeless bum drifting into his town to panhandle and make trouble. He tells Rambo to get a haircut, a bath and to take off the army field jacket. After an altercation when Teasle arrests Rambo for trespassing and resisting arrest, he is taken to the local small town jail. It is there that things go downhill rapidly. The local cops harass Rambo with a firehose shower. They find his dog tags and seem to have no respect for the fact that Rambo was a soldier, although they do not know about his service record…yet. While trying to shave him for his court appearance, Rambo flashes back to time served in a Viet Cong POW camp. He goes ballistic, takes out several deputies and promptly escapes from the police station on a motorcycle.
Rambo leads Teasle and half a dozen deputies on a wild chase which culminates in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with Rambo escaping and evading with Special Forces aplomb. He uses a burlap tarp as a poncho and extracts a compass from his Randall knife. While chasing Rambo in a river gorge, Teasle and his men learn that Rambo is a highly decorated former Special Forces soldier and Vietnam veteran, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Teasle it means nothing. He labels Rambo a ‘psycho’ as they chase him into a dark forest filled with enough hastily made booby traps to fill a Viet Cong obstacle course. With dogs and deputies immobilized Rambo takes refuge in a cave.
At a nearby base camp, we are introduced to Colonel Sam Trautman, a Special Forces officer dispatched from the Pentagon. Trautman was Rambo’s commander in Nam and he’s there to ‘get his boy and bring him back to Fort Bragg.’ Crenna, who was a US Army WW2 veteran plays the role of Colonel Sam Trautman brilliantly, even though he is ten years too old for the role. With Trautman’s arrival and Teasle’s egocentric pomposity, we are forced to confront a sad reality; it’s the civilian world against the military, a military still haunted by the Ghosts of Vietnam. Sheriff Teasle himself is a decorated veteran, but of the Korean War and his complete lack of respect for those who served in Vietnam is a main component of the tension and generational conflict.
Trautman contacts Rambo, who’s hiding out in a cave on the radio and asks him to surrender himself to the authorities. After telling Trautman that every member of their SF team is now dead, Rambo informs him that there are no friendly civilians and that they drew first blood.
From this point, the film spirals into more violence as National Guard members nearly kill Rambo with a LAW. He escapes from the cave, steals a deuce and a half truck and heads towards the town with a M-60 machine gun in tow.
Upon hearing of Rambo’s death at the hands of the National Guard, Teasle tells Trautman that Rambo was nothing more than a drifter and a vagrant. Trautman responds, ‘That will look great on his tombstone at Arlington. Killed for vagrancy in Jerkwater, USA.”
By nightfall, Rambo begins to destroy the town and then after a final showdown, he wounds Teasle but spares his life. Surrounded by the police, Trautman tells Rambo he must surrender. It is then that Rambo begins to meltdown in front of the only person left whom he can trust. Rambo tells Trautman that when he came home to the world, “Maggots at the airport were spitting on him, calling him a baby killer, that civilian life is nothing, in the field there was a code of honor, back here’s there’s nothing. I could fly a gunship, drive a tank, handle millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. Back here I can’t even hold a job.”
Rambo continues to breakdown while mumbling incoherently about a buddy who was killed and who died in his hands. He is finally consoled by Trautman who embraces him and leads him outside to surrender to the police.
Upon its release, much of the American public viewed the movie simply as a high octane, action-adventure flick. But, veterans knew better. As the film opens, Jerry Goldsmith’s John Rambo theme plays. It is beautiful and haunting and immediately the audience realizes there is something more to this film than gunfire and explosions. This not a traditional action adventure soundtrack with heroes dispatching a myriad of NVA, VC, Hezbollah and Russians to the tune of overly synthesized 1980’s sounds.
More than anything, Rambo is a story about PTSD and its haunting effects on veterans of all conflicts. The film focuses on several facets of PTSD that Rambo is suffering from.
Rambo is a lonely figure, a man seemingly alienated mentally, spiritually and physically from civilian society who at the beginning of the movie searches for one of the last few friends he has in this world. Like many veterans he feels that he can only relate to and trust the men he served in combat with in Vietnam. He is not only searching for his buddy, but also for a meaning to his new life as he meanders through the civilian world in virtual darkness.
While the 1970’s cinematic anti-hero, ex Green Beret Billy Jack fought the external enemy of bigotry in the name of social justice, Rambo is a man battling internal enemies.
Forty years later, in 2022, America has long since vanquished the Ghosts of Vietnam. While only a small percentage of the nation serves in the military, the country embraces its veterans more openly, while the subject of PTSD is better understood by the medical community.
Still, 20% of all veterans from the Iraqi and Afghanistan War, 12% of veterans from the Gulf War and 15% of veterans from the Vietnam War suffer from PTSD. Those numbers represent reported cases. The fact remains that many veterans simply remain silent about any PTSD issues they may have.
As Memorial Day approaches, let us honor the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. But, let us also salute those who suffer every day from PTSD. May they, like John Rambo, find internal peace in a violent world.
It’s amazing how many Female Vets have PTSD and never served in a Infantry MOS.
I wish they had made a movie out of Elmer Kelton’s “The Year It Never Rained”. One of the characters was a Nam Vet.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.