Best film about Vietnam (or its aftermath)?

[NightTrain]

[Aristus]

1. 'Platoon'.

I had the privilege of seeing it the first time with a Vietnam Vet. He was really bowled over by the film. He was normally friendly, outgoing and chatty, but all the way home afterward he was quiet. Didn't say a word.

It was a tremendously good film. Oliver Stone's best.

[snowfence]

16. It has it all.

I wasnt there but every friend and relative that was confirmed some part of the movie.

[hlthe2b]

31. I agree, Platoon

While Barber's Adagio for Strings has been used in many powerful setting and movies, its wrenching and painful beauty was especially well placed in Platoon. Whoops, I'm welling up just thinking about it.

[NightTrain]

77. Just watched 'Platoon' on VHS

Hadn't seen the film since it first came out, but this thread made me pull out my tape of it. Suffice it to say, "Platoon" still resonates!

And as I sat in front of the VCR, one word kept going through my head: "Iraq."

George W. Bush, you are one stupid, ignorant motherfucker! :dunce: :grr: :nuke:

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. I love the Deerhunter. Never miss it when it's on.

Great movie...if somewhat long.

[everythingsxen]

3. Though there are a plethora of 'Nam movies...

I voted for Boys in Company C because it is both a gritty, scathing indictment of the US during 'Nam and it's also hilarious in it's absurdity.

If you've never seen it, see it now.

It has some truly memorable moments in it. I really like all the characters in the film, with the exception of the boys CO, who would have deserved to have been shot. ;-)

[regnaD kciN]

80. Same here...

I could have easily voted for The Deer Hunter or Apocalypse Now, but ...Company C was one of the most distinctive and unusual takes on the war I've ever seen. Criminally underrated at the time, it isn't even out on DVD yet.

[UB4Me]

4. It hasn't been made yet.

Although Platoon was an awesome testament, truth is much stranger than fiction.
In a few years, when the TIGERFORCE story is put onto film, you will see the real thing.
The reality that is war always takes many years to be palletable to the producers and consumers.

I also liked Forrest Gumps portrayal of Vietnam.
And that's all I have to say about that.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi UB4Me!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Mountainman]

38. I agree, not made yet

The only thing I've seen, and I have seen all listed movies, that comes close to the real war is the documentry "Vietnam the 10 Years War"

[NNN0LHI]

5. Coming Home

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800049677&cf=info&intl=us

Drama
When Sally Hyde’s (Jane Fonda) husband, a ramrod-straight marine captain, Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), is sent to Vietnam, she leaves the isolated world of the officer’s quarters and begins volunteer social work at the veterans hospital. There her unthinking support of the war and her blindness to its effects are challenged by meeting the crippled men struggling to recover, psychologically as well as physically, from their time in country. Many, like Luke Martin (Jon Voight), now a paraplegic, are embittered and full of unfocused, uncontrollable rage, which he takes out on the prim, controlled Sally. Interestingly, they went to the same large high school, but she was a pretty, popular cheerleader type and he was just a guy in the back of the class. Gradually, as she changes politically (always signaled by changes in hair and fashion) and he recovers emotionally, they become friends and then lovers. This causes a sexual awakening in Sally that furthers her transformation from a repressed wife to an independent woman. Then her husband comes home.

Hal Ashby’s film, with its classic rock soundtrack and lush photography by Haskel Wexler, submerged its politics in a warm nostalgia, although it was made just a few years after the war ended. Still, it’s theme of individual transformation, both political and sexual, struck a chord with baby boomer audiences who all felt, to varying degrees, that they had done the same thing.

[David Zephyr]

35. Great Film. Courageous Film.

Thanks Don.

[welshTerrier2]

54. Great Movie - Great Song

during the scene near the end of the movie where bruce dern heads into the ocean to end it all, the following song, one of my favorites, was playing:

ONCE I WAS
Album : Goodbye & Hello (1967)
Tim Buckley

Once I was a soldier
And I fought on foreign sands for you
Once I was a hunter
And I brought home fresh meat for you
Once I was a lover
And I searched behind your eyes for you
And soon there'll be another
To tell you I was just a lie

And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you remember me

And though you have forgotten
All of our rubbish dreams
I find myself searching
Through the ashes of our ruins
For the days when we smiled
And the hours that ran wild
With the magic of our eyes
And the silence of our words

And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you remember me

[denverbill]

6. Hearts and Minds.

A documentary. Watch it. Beware, it's not for the weak stomached.

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. Go Tell the Spartans...

...shot on the cheap on back lots in Cali. Burt Lancaster put up $250,000 of the million it took to shoot. Set in '64-'65, before the big escalation.

It fits in between "The Quiet American" and "Platoon" et al.

[CanuckAmok]

11. Good call...I was going to say "...Spartans"

An under-appreciated movie. ANd so tragic, in a tasteful and understated way.

[kodi]

85. yeah, that one was way ahead of its time, for what it said and portrayed

i have it on vhs and watched it a month ago.

[hussar]

8. We were soldiers

In my opinion the best

[Nailzberg]

9. 84 Charlie - Mopic

A film that was nominateed for the grand jury award at 1989's Sundance film festival. It is shot entirely in first person POV.

A combat cameraman is sent on out to document a long range recon patrol.

(Tnis was made ten years before Blair Witch Project "awed" folks with it's "originality." It is probably where the BWP guys got their idea.)

[sistersofmercy]

12. Heaven and Earth, one of my favorites. eom

[underpants]

13. Siege at Firebase Gloria

IT is supposed to be pretty accurate.

I dunno I just heard that from a Vietnam Vet once.

[Zuni]

26. Bad movie but had R. lee Ermey in it

I love that guy. The movie sucked, but R. Lee can make anything partially watchable.

[Frangible]

14. We Were Soldiers!

"We were soldiers once, and young..."

I'm really boggled that this wasn't a poll choice-- this is by far one of the best war movies I have ever seen. It's also a true story.

If you watch the deleted scenes they even have a segment with McNamarra being a tool.

Apocalypse Now wasn't even about Vietnam. It was simply a retelling of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

[Zuni]

15. The Killing Fields

about the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia was good. It is based on a true story and a writer's recollections at the time.

I liked Platoon. I hated The Deer Hunter, which was interminably boring.
Apocalypse Now was not really even based on Nam, it was a retelling of Heart of darkness, which took place in the murderous Belgian Congo, perhaps the most evil of all Europe's colonies.

[NightTrain]

25. OMFG! I totally forgot about "The Killing Fields."

What an incredible film! That one should've gotten the Best Picture Oscar for 1984, not "Amadeus" (as much as I liked that film, too).

[Zuni]

27. I agree here

Amadeus would not have been my choice either

[GOPisEvil]

17. THE GREEN BERETS!!!!!!

Not.

I vote for Platoon, although it hurts too much to watch it.

[regnaD kciN]

81. Oh, come on...

The Green Berets has to be considered for the purest example of "revisionist geography"...in the final scene, in which the sun is seen setting in the east!

[soupkitchen]

18. Apocalypse Now was as much about American culture as it was about Viet Nam

Viet Nam, as fought, was a war that could have only been fought by children of American culture.
And one of the lessons that should have been learned is that we have to change our culture or our unthinking rapacity, our unreflective optimism, will always come back to bite us in the ass.
Did we change our culture? No. Are we going back up the river into the Heart of Darkness?

[Bandit]

19. The movie about the 101st four day assault on hill 485

I think it was called Hamburger Hill but not sure that is the name. I was not with the 101st but every part of that movie was totally realistic. The attitudes and the dress and the landscape it was as if I was right back there all over again.

[Zuni]

28. good flick

I liked Hamburger Hill too. Great combat scenes.

[NoPasaran]

20. Apocalypse Now was a metaphor

for the whole war. The longer it went on the less sense it made. At the end I didn't really care HOW it ended. I was just glad it was over.

[4_Legs_Good]

30. =) That's what FFC said

in an interview, I think, which appeared in "Heart of Darkness". He said, "My movie isn't about Vietnam; my movie *is* Vietnam."

pretty profound...

david

[Mountainman]

39. some movie trivia about Apocalypse now

My deceased cousin was married to Martin Sheen's brother. She lived in LA during the time the movie was being filmed. She told us that Martin Sheen got really messed up on drugs and alcohol during the filming and smashed his fist into a mirror in his hotel room. He almost died as a result.

[hussar]

64. Heard that story too

[CanuckAmok]

78. Rent "Hearts of Darkness" for the whole story.

Coppola's wife's documentary about the making of the film. Lots of good, behind-the-scenes stuff.

[Blue-Jay]

88. Would that be Joe Estevez of B-movie fame?

What was that piece of crap called?.... Soul Stealer or something?

[KDLarsen]

21. I'd say Platoon

.. while I also love Apocalypse Now, I just think that Platoon made it much more clear what the daily life (more or less) in Vietnam was. Apocalypse just exposed a lot of the things that should have been done differently (or just not at all).

[KDLarsen]

22. I'd say Platoon

.. while I also love Apocalypse Now, I just think that Platoon made it much more clear what the daily life (more or less) in Vietnam was. Apocalypse just exposed a lot of the things that should have been done differently (or just not at all).

[ironflange]

23. M*A*S*H

Yeah, it was set in Korea, but everyone knows it was really about Nam.

[DemoTex]

67. No, Korea

But I went on R&R to Australia with an Army MASH surgeon and a Navy riverine PT boat skipper. We killed the girls in Thredbo that beautiful August winter!

[4_Legs_Good]

24. Born on the 4th of July

for message and raw emotion.

Apocalypse now for art and entertainment.

david

[Kolesar]

29. From the moment the handsome Marine recruiters came into his classroom

The protagonist was doomed.
He bought the line.

[rppper]

32. "HI.....JOKEEEERRRRRR........"

[hussar]

87. You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece!

http://www.celebritysoundboards.com/fmj.html

ENJOY!

[BurtWorm]

33. The Scent of Green Papayas

was a beautiful, quiet, meditative film, made by a Vietnamese filmmaker, about a Vietnamese family's perspective on the war.

[alfredo]

37. Loved that movie. I bought it.

It was like a dance.

[sistersofmercy]

63. Oh I just LOVE that movie! Beautiful movie

[geniph]

34. We Were Soldiers Once...and Young

According to my USMC Vietnam-veteran husband, this one got it right. It is not at all jingoistic, but it doesn't try to make all Americans automatically into the villains, either. It's very fair and sticks pretty closely to Hal Moore's book (which is EXCELLENT).

I can't believe anyone would say Apocalypse Now - it isn't even really about Vietnam. It's based on Heart of Darkness, which was set in Africa.

[guitar man]

36. We Were Soldiers......

Kick ass movie. I love Sam Elliot's character,I think he almost stole the show.

[geniph]

40. Have you seen the deleted scenes from the DVD?

There's a scene with some of the soldiers telling a tall tale about Plumley (Elliott's character) that is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Really a shame that scene was deleted, it really sets the stage for Plumley's later appearance.

"Good morning Sarn't Major"
"What are you, the fucking weatherman now?"

[DemoTex]

55. Geniph, "We Were Soldiers ..." is #2 to "Hamburger Hill" for me ..

Great film, but a little too explicit in the exploding heads department. I know Gen. Hal Moore and he is a class act. Too bad he is not around for Iraq.

For actual combat film from the battle for LZ X-Ray go to:

http://www.lzxray.com/ Click on "Combat Camera Movie Clips."

Steel yourself up with a shot of brandy or two. Those short clips are the real thing.

[HEyHEY]

41. I'm sorry but Apocolypse now fucking sucked

Who's with me!?

[psychopomp]

42. Why the profanity?

AN is a great film. I recommend "Hearts of Darkness" for more of what it took to get this movie into the cinema.

[HEyHEY]

50. was in a profane mood!

:shrug:

[psychopomp]

52. Get elevated

..just a bit.

[HEyHEY]

62. thanks dad

;-)

[DemoTex]

57. I have never made it through "Apocolypse Now"

I hate it. I am a Vietnam combat vet and a big fan of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Enough said.

[Madrone]

43. HAMBURGER HILL -

Bar none.

[DemoTex]

44. As a Vietnam vet, with experience in the A Shau, I agree 1000%

Read the book too. Hamburger Hill is not only the best war film of the Vietnam genre (IMHO), but it also chronicles the insane battle for Ap Bai mountain that led to Ted Kennedy's famous anti-war speech on the floor of the US Senate. That ignited - ignited! - the anti-war movement in the US in 1969.

Col Hunnicutt (?) in his fucking helicopter. What an asshole!

[Madrone]

86. I have a dear friend that was at Hamburger Hill -

He can't watch the movie - and before they made it (or while they were doing so) he said he was contacted by "Hollywood" for information and experience to help put it together. He couldn't help them - said it was too much for him to handle, so he turned them down.

I think what made the movie the best Vietman flick for me is how it portrayed the soldiers in the film. What they had to go through - how much they hated being there. One of the most memorable scenes to me is when one guy gets a letter from his girlfriend. He was SO excited to receive a letter from HOME - a thread of normalacy in his fucked up exsistence in Vietnam, and the letter told him that she was breaking up with him because he college friends said that it was immoral to have a boyfriend fighting in an immoral war. It was very intense.

GREAT movie. I think it really touches on the Vietnam experiece. Of all the Vietnam movies I own, that one is by far my favorite.

[HuckleB]

45. I'll third Hamburger Hill.

.

[NightTrain]

51. I definitely need to see this film!

Any idea of when "Hamburger Hill" was made? Sorry to say, I had never even heard of it until just now!

[DemoTex]

53. My DVD says 1987, for the film ...

I'm not sure when Franco Zeffirelli's book, Hamburger Hill, came out.

[11 Bravo]

47. Wish I'd gotten here sooner.

While I loved Full Metal Jacket, I have no experience in city fighting. (I believe that pleasure was mostly reserved for marines.) However, as an ex-snuffy whose only combat experiences were in the bush, I can attest to the fact that Hamburger Hill portrays a fire fight as accurately as anything you will ever see.

[DemoTex]

48. After a few days of sloggy combat, up and down Ap Bai ...

A poor Navy FO (arty forward observer for the rounds being pumped in from offshore), during the dawn mad-minute (the flight of four Fox-fours had just dropped snake and nape), heard a hiddeous screech that he had never heard before. It impacted at the military crest of the hill with an unbelievable concussion. It was the first of many 2000# rounds from the 16" guns of the Battleship Iowa. Those round were as heavy as a Volkswagen Beetle.

[11 Bravo]

56. My platoon humped around around the Burger in '71.

Almost 2 years after the battle it was still one scary fucking piece of real estate.
56 KIA
120 WIA
5/11-5/20 1969
Sleep well bros

[DemoTex]

58. In the A Shau? 71?

I was above you supporting Lam Son 719 and getting my ass shot at by the NVA 37/57 mm AAA on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. I even got shot at by heavy AAA over the A Shau. We saw NVA convoy's streaming down the A Shau Valley at night with their lights on. Brazen!

Cat's Paw 911, Crazy Cat 911, Vanguard 911, depending on the mission.

[11 Bravo]

61. I never had to hump the Prick 25...

generally kept my ruck full of mags and frags, but our RTO at Firebase Rendevous sure as shit may have hooked you up looking for a little support from the fast movers.

[DemoTex]

65. I remember FSB Rendevous

And Sarge, Vandergriff, Able, and a few more. We did a lot to keep the NVA critters off the FSBs in northern I Corps.

[11 Bravo]

68. I hope its not too late to say thanks.

Rendevous, occasionally fucked up, but never overrun.

[DemoTex]

69. We try, GI!

Guardian angles above. Radio shit my friend. We were the ELINT/COMINT people who could place a NVA Regiment on the head of a dime, as soon as they started their radio net. Can't say much more than that, or they will still send me to Leavenworth!

[11 Bravo]

75. I got to ride the dust-off bird in April of '71.

Nothing serious, but they eventually gave me a second Heart, a nice piece of tin, and a ticket home. Unfortunately, the NVA had a few tubes in place within range of our LZ. A section of Fox-4s laid enough ordinance on the bad guys to allow the slick to slide in and extract me and two other guys. The word "squid" has never passed my lips since that day.

[ChemEng]

49. I agree, but I also like the Killing Fields, ...

even though technically that was about Cambodia.

[Jack Rabbit]

46. I have to go with Platoon

Full Metal Jacket and Born on the Fourth of July also excellent. Apocolypse Now didn't do that much for me.

Not named on this list but highly recommended is Coming Home.

[Suspicious]

59. Platoon.

I saw it when it opened in the theater, and it was the first time in my life I was given a glimpse of the stark reality of war - the Vietnam experience, specifically. These are things you aren't taught in History class - at least not in the schools I attended.

When I was a bit older, I became good friends with a Vietnam veteran (he was one of the guys who had a bit of trouble with the law and was given a choice - jail or Vietnam...he told me several times how much he wished he'd made a different choice), and though he did not often speak about his experience in Vietnam, he said Platoon was the closest to the reality of the war he had seen. He watched it once, but he could never watch it again.

[DemoTex]

60. Jail or Vietnam?

I hope those judges spent sleepless nights until they expired their last breaths. Motherfuckers.

[Suspicious]

66. Yes, I hope so, too.

I was incredulous when he told me that. It was some minor, petty offense, too. I wonder how different his life might have turned out had he chosen to serve the jail time, and I am certain he wonders the same.

[Myra]

70. "Regret to Inform"

A documentary. I had the honor of meeting
Xuan Nguyen, a major interviewee from the film,
when it was shown recently in Seattle.

http://www.seattleactivism.org/events/event466.htm

The focus is on those left behind, in both Vietnam
and the US, when the so many died. It's extremely
powerful; deeply affecting.

[DemoTex]

71. Remember what it is all about ... those left behind.

Useless, pointless war. Millions of Vietnamese/Laotians/Cambodians dead at the hands of Nixon/Kissinger. I know. I watched arc-lights in both Laos and Cambodia. Yes, I know.

[DemoTex]

74. Last part of my short story on that subject:

(Note: Sirius and Betlegeuse were my dogs in Vietnam. The first part of the story introduces them)

The NVA troops on the Ho Chi Minh trail could not see or hear the B-52s seven miles up in the night sky. I glanced up through my Mohawk’s overhead canopy, knowing I would not see the bombers either – thirty-something thousand feet above me - in the ink-black stratosphere. High in the spangled Asian winter sky, however, hung the constellations Orion and Canis Major. The reddish star representing the hunter’s right shoulder, Betelgeuse, winked against a sky as black as a Rothko canvas. Orion’s belt pointed downward and to the left, as always, towards Sirius, the alpha-star of Canis Major. Sirius, the Dog Star, competed well with the bright planets Jupiter and Mars, as they ascended in the ecliptic plane. In the distant east, over the horizon of the South China Sea, were faint streaks that hinted at the imminent rising of a waning gibbous moon. The still-fat moon could be a tactical advantage or disadvantage, depending on who you were and where you were. I always called it a “shooter’s moon.”

Just short of the seventeenth parallel, I made a turn southbound for another infrared imaging run down the trail. The jungle darkness just northwest of Tchepone suddenly exploded with a carpet of bombs from the unseen B-52s. From my vantage point at two thousand feet above the Namkok Valley floor, the eruption of the earth - with streets of fire and visible shock waves - was awesome. I thought of Kurtz: “The horror, the horror.” I looked over at my observer, a doughy former Greyhound bus driver from Paris, Texas, named Charlie Walker. Charlie was on his third combat mission over the trail in Laos. Tonight he was witnessing his first arc-light saturation bombing. He was ashen.

This is Moonbeam on guard. SAMs! SAMs! SAMs! Vicinity of Ban Karai Pass! SAMs! SAMs! SAMs! Moonbeam out.

Charlie flinched, obviously waiting for me to do - or at least say - something. “Don’t worry, Charlie,” I said, trying to calm his brittle nerves. “We are thirty miles south of the Ban Karai. They are shooting at the B-52s anyway. But things might get interesting when we get over Tchepone. Just remember what General Westmoreland once said about Tchepone, ‘I’d love to go to Tchepone, but I don’t have tickets.’ What an asshole.”

“Ha! That’s good,” chuckled Charlie. “Westy on the Greyhound to Tchepone.”

Tchepone, Laos, was a desolate, war-torn, frontier village at the deathly nexus of the Ho Chi Minh trail and the serpentine QL-9; “highway” 9. The QL-9, which wound westward from out of the mountains just south of the DMZ in Vietnam’s Quang Tri province into eastern Laos, was just another “street without joy,” as Bernard Fall had tagged the QL-1 near Hue. Tchepone, reputedly, crawled with Pathet Lao, Viet Cong, and NVA troops, along with seedy Russian advisors and CIA-types trying to keep the war going.

I watched the seemingly endless bombing and listened over my headset to the soft poetry of Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence through the static on the Armed Forces Vietnam radio station in Quang Tri. Charlie operated the infrared camera gear.

Three volleys of tracer rounds caught my eye just to the west and close to Tchepone. I knew there were 14.5-mm, 37-mm, and 57-mm anti-aircraft guns in that area. “Better pucker up, Charlie,” I said. “The shit’s out of the barrel.”

Tracer rounds drifted up towards us, flashing from the big guns below. Initially, the few red-orange balls floating up – five at a time, desultorily - seemed harmless; even eerily beautiful. “When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night, and touched the sound of silence,” played the sentient masterpiece of Paul and Art. Then, as suddenly as a desert cloudburst, the anti-aircraft fire poured up in sheets. The NVA gunners were shooting payback from three guns; payback for the B-52 strikes. Payback, as the saying goes, is a motherfucker.

Twenty-four terrified and pissed-off young North Vietnamese soldiers, some probably chained to the guns, were shooting at us with inch-and-a-half explosive tracer shells, fed in five-round charger clips, with a rate-of-fire of 180 rounds-per-minute. The 37 mike-mike anti-aircraft crews tracked our Grumman Mohawk, bracketing us with thunder and lightning. “But my words like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence,” the folk singers’ haunting lyrics addressed my darkest fears.

I pushed the nose over and dived for a lower altitude, out of the 37 mike-mike’s kill zone. “Look!” screamed Charlie. “Starboard, low!”

A stream of green tracers, like water from a fire hose, arched up from the side of a hill just to our right. A 14.5-millimeter Soviet-built ZPU, firing 600 rounds-per-minute of explosive ammunition, was shooting at close range; way too close. I yanked the Mohawk into a tight, high-G left turn to escape the ZPU emplacement, only to have another ZPU – a quad-barreled ZPU-4 – open up from my port side.

“Flak trap! Flak trap!” I shouted, redundantly, at the now terrified Charlie Walker. A round ripped through the Mohawk’s flak curtain and canopy, sending ballistic-proof glass shards into the night void. Another round slammed into the trailing edge of the starboard wing, exploding. The aircraft shuttered violently as a round hit the tail. I fought for control and dived for the relatively safety of the tree tops.

“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” I managed to yell on the radio. “Crazy Cat 9-1 is hit. Just south of Tchepone. Flak trap.”

Citations for our Distinguished Flying Crosses would be written a week later by Lieutenant Colonel Gauthier in a style evocative of Antoine Saint-Exupery. My citation would read that I nursed a severely battle-damaged Grumman OV-1C through mountain passes, across the northern A Shau Valley (where NVA convoys inched towards Ta Bat with so many vehicles that they had abandoned any pretext of nighttime headlight discipline) and eastbound along the QL-9 to a safe bailout area over the South China Sea. Gauthier, a 1948 graduate of the French military academy at Saint-Cyr, would also write that the ordeal verified Calonne’s Dictum: “If it is possible, it is done; if it is impossible, it will be done.” What the awards would not say was that everyone in the world – the world that mattered; our little world – followed our dubious, anguished progress.

The moon was up, and by the time we got to the coastline a full search and rescue team (including two “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters) was in position just offshore. When “feet-wet,” I slowed the Mohawk and re-trimmed. I flew over the US Navy rescue vessels at two thousand feet and gave Charlie the most pointed, unequivocal order he had ever received, “Bailout! Bailout! Bailout!” The explosive charge shot Charlie’s ejection seat up the rail and through the broken canopy.

“Moonbeam, this is Crazy Cat 9-1 on guard,” I radioed. “Thanks for the help, guys. I’m punching out now. Au revoir!” I kicked my legs back against the ejection seat’s restraining plates, reached up – hesitated a second or two - and pulled the overhead firing ring just as Moonbeam bade me “Godspeed!” over the radio. My ejection was terrifying. The noise and the sudden slap of the tornado-like slipstream took me by surprise.

Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! The risers popped and I looked up at a gorgeous camouflaged parachute canopy illuminated by the low, pale moon. I watched as the Mohawk, which had been our ticket from POW-status - or worse - splashed anti-climatically into the placid South China Sea. I glanced down and saw Charlie’s parachute below and behind me. On the sea-surface silver Vs - moonlight reflected from the wakes of several Zodiacs – marked the convergence of the rescue skiffs on the spots where Charlie and I would hit the water.

Sirius nuzzled my hand for more jerky. I sipped my beer. The movie was still on and somewhere in the background was a quiet conversation about lucky Zimmerman and Walker. I could hear Malcolm Smith’s shortwave set tuned to the BBC. The artillery and the 20 mike-mike “duster” fired monotonously. Oh, that dog’s brown eyes killed me. Sirius got a piece of jerky. Betelgeuse was fast asleep.

© 2003 DemoTex (WMT)

[Myra]

76. Yes, those left behind...

And in the case of so many young Asian
women, including Xuan Nguyen, what they
had to do to survive. As bad as it was
for those left behind in the US, those in
Vietnam couldn't escape the war for a second.

Xuan Nguyen did a Q&A after the movie, and
spoke about her mission: The New Day Project:

http://www.thenewdayproject.org/

She wants Asian women to have a way to survive
that doesn't leave them scarred humiliated victims.
Even now they don't have real great prospects
in many countries.

Here's a quote from her website:

"Located in the village of Mui Ne, just north of the city of Phan Thiet on the South China Sea, The New Day Project sewing and design school will open in mid-2004. The school will give sewing and clothing design skills to women caught up in the sadly re-emerging sex industry in Vietnam. Along with sewing, our students will learn English and computer skills that will allow them a chance for a productive and honorable life.
At 14, Xuan Nguyen, our co-founder, was given no such chance
(click on "bio"). It is her goal to open doors for the women of Vietnam."

(Yes, she *gladly* accepts donations.
They need money for sewing machines, fabric, etc.)

[WillyT]

72. Hearts And Minds... No Holds Barred !!!

Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6302039525/qid%3D1068870939/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-4039650-0476618#product-details

Bets Documentary 197... ?

WILL KICK YOUR ASS !!!

Sigh... BUY IT!!!

[LTR]

73. I voted "Platoon"

I remember seeing it in the theatre in '86. Nobody was talking on the way out.

"Full Metal Jacket" and "MASH" (took place in Korea, but really inspired by Vietnam) showed the cruel sarcasm of war.

Here's another interesting one for the list, showing a different perspective. I believe it was called "Path To War". It is shown occasionally on HBO (made-for?) and was about LBJ and the escalation of fighting in the mid-60s. Alec Baldwin played Defense Sec. McNamara. Donald Sutherland was also in it. Directed by John Frankenheimer. I don't remember who played LBJ, but the guy was great. Didn't really look like him, but his acting really made you forget, and actually think he was actually LBJ. Not really an in-the-trenches war movie, but was still pretty good. And was good for background material about the Vietnam War.

[MountainLaurel]

79. Heaven and Earth

Perhaps not the best but gives a different perspective.

[psychopomp]

82. Not many Gen X, Y, etc. know this history

It happened they know, but few know much in detail. The lessons of the Vietnam war have not been learned, so the children of the generation of those who fought this war (in both senses of the word) are not seeing recurrent patterns of folly, deception and loss.


On November 15th:

1969 Second moratorium against the war held
Following a symbolic three-day "March Against Death," the second national "moratorium" opens with mass demonstrations in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam ("New Mobe"), an estimated 500,000 demonstrators rallied in Washington as part of the largest such rally to date. It began with a march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Monument, where a mass rally and speeches were held. Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and four different touring casts of the musical "Hair" entertained the demonstrators.

Later, violence erupted when police used tear gas on radicals who had split off from the main rally to march on the Justice Department. The crowd of about 6,000, led by members of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), threw rocks and bottles and burned U.S. flags. Almost 100 demonstrators were arrested.

The largest protest outside Washington was held in San Francisco, where an estimated 250,000 people demonstrated. Antiwar demonstrations were also held in a number of major European cities, including Frankfurt, Stuttgart, West Berlin, and London. The largest overseas demonstration occurred in Paris, where 2,651 people were arrested.



1966 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs heckled at university
Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses a gathering at Brown University and approximately 60 students walk out to protest his defense of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Some of those who remained shouted and heckled Wheeler, while others attempted to storm the stage. Outside, over 100 students continued the protest.


http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/vietnam.html

[NightTrain]

83. It's official: This is the longest thread I've ever started

Thanks, y'all! :yourock:

[Bridget Burke]

84. "Gardens of Stone"

Not the best one by any means, but an interesting view of the war from the US. It doesn't try to tell "The Story of Vietnam" but shows the effects of the war on old soldiers & the young--and the women who loved them. (Sounds corny?; it isn't, really.)

Fine performances by James Caan, James Earl Jones & Anjelica Huston. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

[Character Assassin]

89. Platoon was vapid and preachy, although there were some great scenes.

Think you could be more obvious and lay it on a little thicker, Ollie?

What? You mean that death scene with Dafoe was representative of Christ? Get out of here, I never would have guessed that!

And that voiceover by Sheen really tied things up in a neat little bow, allrighty.