At the beginning of the movie while the Sgt was lecturing the new people there was a VC soldier sneaking though the peremeter w/an RPG and no one noticed. What was all of that about? Were they all just imagining what it would be like to face an enemy that snuck up on you or what?
shareIt was a demonstration. The RPG was not real. I don't know a lot of background on the training. He was probably an NVA defector or prisoner who they forced to show how silent the enemy moves.
"The problem with Scotland... is that it's full of Scots!"
I believe the point of that demonstration by that NVA defector was to show them that despite many of them not wanting to be there, and having strong convictions against the war, they had to realize that their enemy had no such reservations and was activally trying to kill them 24/7 when they were in the field.
A viewer might say 'no duh' to that fact, but I think this scene is effective because it highlights the fact that for soldiers the idea that there are people 'out there' who are actively trying to kill them is almost and abstract concept until they get into combat for the first time. You can often read veterens accounts, from many wars, that it wasn't until they heard the first enemy round snap past their head, or saw their first dead body, or came under their first artillery barrage, that that REALLY sunk in. Unfortunately, some soldiers dont live past this first initiation.
Sgt. Franz was trying to accelerate that realization with his demonstration, high-lighting all the stupid things new guys do to get themselves killed because they haven't had that realization yet.
I think the reference to Chieu Hoi strongly suggests that North Vietnamese soldiers are pretending to defect, getting 'fattened up' at the American Army's expense, and then going back out into the field as NVA. In this context, Franz's suggestions are very real, and the man they are looking at may well be shooting at them one day. The Chieu Hoi program was rated a success by the US Army; inexpensive and highly expedient (The advertisements were printed on disposable plastic bags carrying ammo rounds), the program was said to have removed 100,000 combatants from the field. Analysts dispute the official statistics, however, and suggest that only a quarter of Chieu Hoi defections were genuine. We don't know if Franz's insight into Chieu Hoi is historically accurate, but as he is highly distrusful of everything around him, it is a reasonable conclusion to make.
shareDon't confuse the term 'genuine' with the possibility of them being false defectors---it's more to say with crooked South Viets using the Chieu Hoi Program to make money for themselves by having a friend/relative/flunky to purport to be a VC/NVA & turning himself in for a cash reward then splitting it with the other guy & going somewhere else to "defect";
Most US Soldiers who wrote memoirs commented on Hoi Chan/Chieu Hoi/Kit Carsons...MOST of them found them to be experienced in fieldcraft but often uncertain of their overall 'loyalty'; a few writers who dealt with the pacification side of the war rather than the 'big unit' war, often found these guys to be VERY determined and assets to THEIR fight...
NM
Agreed on both points. The movie failed, however, to make any of this clear, and my personal experience suggests that they should have shown some Kit Carsons accompanying American units into the field!... this is my main beef with the film, that despite its advertising it simply doesn't tell the story like it was.
shareindeed a GOOD movie/miniseries about the 'village war' would be a good addition to the filmology;
NM
Or a film dealing specifically with the Village War, and not simply using it as an anecdotal exploitative device of the film's thesis.
shareI feel that in order to NOT become a 'cliche' anything dealing with the pacification effort will have to be a miniseries;
NM
No, you just have to leave out My Lai, pungee sticks, rat meat, evil, sadistic vietnamese officers played by chinese-american or japanese-american character actors, John Wayne, David Janssen, Marc Singer, Marc Singer's hair, Burt Lancaster's whithered white butt, and any real mention to the idea that the VC were Rambo-superninjas who could alter space-time, turn invisible, or cobble together instantly-lethal boobytraps out of bird puke and banana leaves with an ubermenscheian ingenuity that would make MacGuyver look like a permanent rider on the Short Bus. You need to tell Dylan McDermott that your production is going to be colder than Calgary so he stays the hell away. You need to tell your writers that when a claymore fails to completely perforate Mr. Victor Charlie it's got to be explained that it wasn't planted properly by the terrified FNG that was sent out to set it... and then there has to be a reasonable explanation why in God's name one would trust Mr. FNG to do that job in the first place. Finally, talk to the vets and find out from them what it was like, and then, instead of a non-stop-roller-coaster-composite of a hundred vets' experiences, figure out a SINGLE plausible storyline that does not attempt to encapsulate, memorialize, sentimentalize, or explain the entire damn war. Finally, you need to take aside all those other fine ladies and gentlemen that have ALREADY been in Vietnam War Movies, and tell them politely that their talents are not required this time around.
share