WERE THEY WRONG? - Casualties of War (1989) Discussion

[–] cleftheart101 17 years ago

Of course they were wrong. To say they're not wrong is like saying the rape and murder is justified, as if they are not to blame for commiting such a horrible crime.

Sure, they are trained to kill people, but to kill other opposing soldiers not innocent civilians. You don't just go around raping or killing people because you're "angry". In the end, it's still their "choice". They could do the right thing or the wrong thing and they chose to do the "wrong" thing. Yes, they are wrong and very wrong... no sympathy for those soldiers at all.

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RIP Heathcliff Andrew Ledger
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[–] ranmalein 17 years ago

they went to her house, took her when she was asleep, dragged her through the jungle, then raped and killed her.
NOTHING, absolutely nothing of these things was justified by stress.

of course, being there must've been horrible, but think about the girl, not only the soldiers who chose to be there in the first place. when you go to the military, in my opinion, you have to think about what could happen there first...

"Angel Investigation - we hope you're helpless" - Doyle

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[–] spore-3 15 years ago

Obviously you've never heard of the draft...

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[–] ranmalein 15 years ago

i just looked it up. i thought the u.s. have always had a volunteer military. i'm not from the u.s. so i didn't know they had a draft untill 1973.
did they ever say in the movie that they volunteered to be there?

doesn't change much about my opinion, though. they were wrong, whether or not they wanted to be there.

"Angel Investigation - we hope you're helpless" - Doyle

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[–] Ssertorivs 9 years ago

Just a fact - this kind of behavior used to be pretty standard during war. Butchering enemy citizens, abusing them, raping and torturing. Soldiers are aware they can die at any moment, this creates stress and exposes their inner animal. the pressure is worse in modern warfare, where the weapons are more formidable and the soldiers come from much more sheltered backgrounds than soldiers in previous generations.

When I was watching the movie (which was surprisingly good, BTW) I told myself: they will lose one or more of their number before the 'incident' beings, they're gonna have to be traumatized. Otherwise there is no incentive. Abusive grownups have pretty much without exception been abused as children.

But most people are also more morally flexible than Fox's character.

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[–] theblackestmagic 9 years ago

Maybe so, but I really think that Clark was truly a f'ing psychopath from day one honestly. The guy, IMO, was already mentally deranged in one form or another, and was an extremely dangerous and violent individual before he had ever even stepped foot into Vietnam.

"Life IS pain highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something".

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[–] met76 9 years ago

Just a fact - this kind of behavior used to be pretty standard during war. Butchering enemy citizens, abusing them, raping and torturing. Soldiers are aware they can die at any moment, this creates stress and exposes their inner animal. the pressure is worse in modern warfare, where the weapons are more formidable and the soldiers come from much more sheltered backgrounds than soldiers in previous generations.

It being "standard" does not mean that we - everyone with a consciousness - should not fight and condemn such gruesome actions. And even in war, these actions are not as normal as you put them. Not all soldiers turn into murderers and rapists after experiencing combat situations, in fact most of them don't. So please don't try to excuse such horrible crimes by blaming them on the stress and exposure of soldiers in war. All of them still have their own agency.

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[–] d-sierra 9 years ago

So being drafted justifies raping and murdering a woman?

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[–] Maito 17 years ago

What an idiotic thing to ask. What kind of people have you been talking to?

BUUUUT a lotta people say it was understandable. people went crazy in vietnam. they took out all the hate and agression they felt from the war out on her and made her suffer for it. theyre trained to hate and kill these people

It's understandable that people went crazy in Vietnam.It may be also understandable that under stress people commit horrible things, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they are tolerable. The idiots you have been talking to probably put themselves in the place of the soldiers. War is hell and so on.. But put yourself in the place of the person being raped and tell me it's understandable. Sure, you're under a lot of stress so feel free to sodomize my ass.

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[–] thesnowleopard 17 years ago

It always bothers me a lot when somebody says it's okay to do horrible things in war if you're a soldier. Right, but if you're a civilian and you fight back, that makes you a terrorist?

At any rate, soldiers are trained hard and held up to a high standard for a reason--war is Hell, which means that you need people who are smart and disciplined to fight it. Wars are fought for a reason, and when you lose sight of that on the ground, when you start saying it's okay to rape and murder the civilians whom you were sworn to protect and defend (we were in Vietnam to keep the south from being overrun by the north, remember), you become the monster that you swore to fight.

It seems to me that anyone who excuses capital crimes committed by soldiers in wartime has a very poor view of soldiers. It is an insult to good soldiers everywhere. Should we then excuse desertion, too? Spousal and child abuse? Do none of the idiots cheering on scum like Lt. Calley ask just how soldiers raping and murdering a civilian furthers the mission? Or how in the very act of engaging in such behavior, they break discipline and abandon their posts?

It's a particular insult to Vietnam veterans. I have heard Vietnam vets accused of poor discipline, of being whiny, not "real" soldiers, "baby killers", etc., as if nobody on the Allied side ever committed war atrocities (never heard of Dresden, I guess). At any rate, I've known both WWII and Vietnam vets and they were equally good soldiers. Having the bad luck of being sent off to a bad war does not make you a bad soldier.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] carmeliown 16 years ago

Uhhh.... YES!

it's eye for an eye, not the arms, legs and tits for an eye!!!
and besides: they were turning their hate against the wrong people.
it would be the same if something like this happened today in Iraq.

"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small..." - Jefferson Airplane

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] jones7418 14 years ago

Rape and war have gone hand in hand since the beginning of time. Doesn't make it right, however. This was a very shocking and upsetting movie for me to watch. Some great acting but no, I won't watch it again.

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[–] daedalus1337 16 years ago

Of course they were wrong, but it's easy for everyone to sit here and say "I wouldn't have done it!" when you've never been in that kind of situation.
I'm willing to bet 90% of the men here would've done it. But of course they should be punished for committing a horrible crime.

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[–] dcampbell000 16 years ago

I doubt 90% of soldiers would do or even conceive of something like that. In my opinion, it was just a very bad squad. 2 psychos, 1 slow-witted grunt, and a complete coward. Most soldiers would've been more like Erikson or his friend, Rowan. Enough so as not to regard all those innocent civilians as scum.

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[–] daedalus1337 16 years ago

I know most people would like that to be true, dcampbell. But having been in the Marines and having served with an infantry unit in Afghanistan I have *some* idea of what these guys had to go through. I had a few friends die and experienced some hard times but I won't pretend I went through half the hell the guys back in 'Nam did.
The rape and murder is a result of -
A. Horny, sexually deprived soldiers
B. Hatred for all Vietnamese. Back then VC often blended in with innocent civilians. This is why murder of civilians was fairly commonplace during the conflict, because American men never knew who they could trust and who they couldn't.

I wouldn't say they were psychos. Call me a pessimist but I think most men put in a situation like that would be perfectly capable of raping the innocent girl and then murdering her to cover it up.

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[–] neamtzu_rau 16 years ago

Yeah sure, a girl screaming to be left alone and that she wants her mother is as VC as I am VC.

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[–] zanbuddha 16 years ago

You cant say "90% of men here would have done it" when it wasnt that regular an occurence in Vietnam.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] daedalus1337 16 years ago

Zanbuddha - When I said that hypothetical, I meant 90% of men here would've acted similarly IF pitted in Penn's squad, not in Vietnam in general. Of course this wasn't a regular occurence.

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[–] fuguy 16 years ago

your retarded

Whats that on your face!

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[–] aryangod 15 years ago

daedalus, people like you make me sick to my stomach.

being horny does not give anyone an exuse to rape and murder. NEVER, EVER. then go jack off and relieve yourself.

my father was in vietnam and he told me that innocent civilians were killed even when the soldiers knew they were and not armed. it's because they didn't care. he also made it clear that it like any group, there are good and bad people so there are good and bad soldiers. to say that because bad soldiers do heinous things and attribute that other soldiers would do the same is an insulting farce and lie! it's no different than people who claim that all perpetrators or people who commit crime must have had that done to them *beep* which is an insult to victims and other good people who have suffered and been abused and chose not to be evil themselves. everyone has a choice and it's not always pressure that causes people to do bad things, it's because they are *beep* i guess that's hard to figure out? lol

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[–] TalkinPikchorBox 14 years ago

You're an effing idiot! Stop saying most men just because YOU are capable of such a heinous crime. You say you were a Marine. Well, I say you were a disgrace to the uniform!

BTW, if you're capable of rape in war, you're just as capable of rape at a family picnic. Judging from your posts, its obvious you are the "Uncle John" the parents tell their kids never be alone in a room with.

Babies taste like chicken

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[–] thornsthorns 12 years ago

it would still make them evil.

And that's the defining point.

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[–] janlappalainen 10 years ago

You can speak for yourself, but you CANNOT speak for me. It's a completely useless and utterly cynical view of life when you think you can predict what all people will do - you've lost perspective.

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[–] ceethismove 13 years ago

@ Dcampbel000
_______________________________________________________________________
2 psychos, 1 slow-witted grunt, and a complete coward
________________________________________________________________________

LOL...perfect :)

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[–] Anorensic 12 years ago

Don't know about the rest 90% but it would be hard for me to get a hardon on a bleeding screaming girl.

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[–] werecow2003 9 years ago

Are you ƒucking kidding me? No! 90% of men are not just waiting for an excuse to become violent rapists. How contemptible can you get?

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[–] Janatay 16 years ago

Wow, you got the whole wrong outlook on this thing!!

Just stop there for a second, and try putting yourself into the position of the "other"...

What if some foreign soldiers broke into your house, kidnapped your teenage daughter and then raped and murdered her, would you still be even asking the same question... "WERE THEY WRONG?"

Masking your own "understandable" feelings with "a lotta people" doesn't really work.

Stop valuing the lives and feelings of your people over the others.

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[–] farzhan 12 years ago

well that's the problem they had over there, they were told to go over and save the South Vietnamese from the evil communists and they found a bunch of people living in grass huts with no political knowledge or feeling. This isn't like liberating Western Europe from Nazis. these people just looked at them like they were aliens & naturally sided with their own kind frequently. So there was a lot of animosity towards the South Vietnamese for not being particularly worth saving, worth the trouble of being there in the first place, and for not being able to trust them not to blow you up given a chance.

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[–] Toolman911 16 years ago

I always found the movie to be quite disturbing and it is one of my favorite films. I think that this stuff DID indeed happen and that the men who committed crimes like this were filthy animals. Had I been Michael J. Fox's character, I may have shot them myself. You never know until you are in the situation, but I'd like to think that I would have done whatever it took to stop them.

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[–] VermilionCat 16 years ago

Haha. What a question in the first place. Of course, wrong. Understandable? No way, those are simply weak.

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[–] gsxrrules 16 years ago

The question is so utterly stupid it doesn't deserve an answer.

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