So…. I watched ‘Platoon’ today….

What a film. My knowledge of the Vietnam war is limited, I’ll admit, so I cannot comment on the authenticity of the film’s’ portrayal of what it was like to be there. But, if the actual war was anything like the movie….. I imagine it was much worse.

A few thoughts popped into my head. First, that there were people back home (the US) living their day to day lives while the war was going on. Some were hippies, dropping acid and smoking dope and living groovy lives. Others, like my parents, lived very buttoned-up and conservatively. I’ve never heard either of them mention the conflict much at all and I’m not sure what to make of that fact. Actually, my Mom did once say that the war ruined her generation and took some of its’ best men. Then there were folks who actually knew someone fighting overseas.

Great art came out of the war. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, one of my top 10 albums ever, focused partially on the conflict.

Back in the mid-2000’s I visited D.C. and the National Mall. The Vietnam Memorial left me speechless. All of those names, deceased young men…. and for what.

I’m sorry if this post is kind of rambling. I just wanted to write something about the film/war. The movie has definitely left an impression on me. Were you in Vietnam, or knew someone who was. What are your memories of that era? Is the war being forgotten? I rarely hear it discussed anymore. Could another draft for this kind of conflict take place? The film had me thinking on so many levels, like when “friendly fire” takes place between Sgt. Barnes and Sgt. Elias.

If you did serve, I thank you. You are not forgotten by me.

 

It is a powerful film, it always gets me how Willelm Dafoe gets it towards the end.

 

Me too. That was a powerful moment in the film.

 

Oliver Stone the director and writer of the film served over there so I imagine it's pretty close, though fictionalized. If you are curious about that time frame, Youtube has many videos about it, just type in "The 60s" and give some a watch. I think the country was about as divided as it is now actually (depending upon when one talks about it), it's just that we didn't have social media to amp up everything.

 

Yeah can you imagine Vietnam taking place with the existence of social media.

 

" The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes!"

 

no, I cannot imagine...what would it be like?

 

I liked i...t it was a gripping movie well done...

 

I imagine a lot of “fake news” and misinformation. Another aspect I hadn’t thought about was the racism that existed in the US and how that might trickle over into the military. An outsider might think it was the US vs the NVA but I am sure within the ranks of the US military there were members who hated one another for various reasons, including race. Still, when the bullets started flying….

 

He was really full of himself wasn’t he. Of course he was shot six times already so that has to give you a feeling of invincibility.

 

Interesting, thanks. : )
I think the war would have ended much sooner....

 

I knew a vet, my neighbor down the street, a college student, nicest most peaceful, most generous "hippie" you could ever meet, but the war affected him profoundly. He was lucky that he survived it as well as he did, but not long after we'd become friends in 1974 he had an episode, a 'flashback' that turned him into a firestorm of violence ready to kill me and fully capable of doing it with his bare hands. I still remember the crazed rage in his eyes and his muscular grip crushing my windpipe as I tried to croak out my name to say "it's me"... I did think he might kill me in that moment. He was a giant of a man and many times more muscular than I. Thankfully he came out of the trance and let go. After the event he told me some of what happened to him there that made him that way. I am so thankful to have been too young to register and to have missed it. There are still guys who served there, all elderly now, who still have to self-medicate to get past what they experienced there, day to day. I hope they find peace.

 

And the realization struck in the ranks about how ... it was all so wrong...the attention turned to 'the system' and how military organization was putting everyone into harm's way. The movie dealt with a lot of that. I was at first surprised, then not, when I discovered that fully a quarter of the officers who died in the war died of 'friendly fire.'

 

Very well done movie. Haven't seen it in years.

Don't really know any Vietnam vets to know how accurate it is.

 

That somewhat overdramatic scene is parodied to great effect in ' Tropic Thunder ' , the half-wit step brother to 'Platoon'

 

I was born in '63 so too young to have served in Vietnam. I have known several Vietnam vets and most of my US Army drill sergeants in 1981 were 'Nam vets (most ex-airborne). My parents became opposed to the war in '68 or so, when it really looked like a failed effort on all fronts. in '72 my parents took me to a local rally of Vietnam vets against the war. I have vivid memories of the vets smashing their toy M16s and throwing them in a huge pile on Boston Common.

I think Platoon is an excellent movie on all fronts and I am glad you watched and enjoyed it.

 

very sad memories...our neighborhood kids were dropping like flies...It was horrible...every other week we'd hear about another neighbor.

 

I'm trying to figure out the purpose of that movie...

 

Purpose?
It's ' Tropic Thunder' starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black , Tom Cruise ( as a sweaty hog of a movie mogul) and Robert Downey Jr as an actor who doesn't read a script but lets the script read him.
What's to figure out?

 

my disdain for it...; )

 

I also watched it again recently as it was on UK telly last week. Great film. I had forgotten that Charlie Sheen's character was not a draftee but a volunteer, or so he says. I don't know if that was significantly unusual, but I was surprised by it.

 

A (relatively) famous but nonetheless engaging clip:

 

I always thought Platoon and the documentary Hearts and Minds played really well as a double feature and impart a pretty good sense of the Vietnam era.