Tag: Vietnam War

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 03MAR2022 – On War

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(In reply to comments on the review of the 1965 movie “The Battle of the Bulge”) – photog

I’ve never heard what Eisenhower had to say about it. I get my lean on it from my uncle, an enlisted man. Battles are seen quite differently if you’re one of the dogfaces in the ranks than by staff generals and politicians and people who write about it later.

Having been in a couple or so battles myself I can say the troops fight a battle intimately, not cooly and detached like they do at headquarters. You fight what is in front of you and you do not fight for king or country. You fight for the dogfaces to your right and left, your brothers. Your own world in battle is quite small, really. Your brothers on your right and left, and what you can see to your front. Usually about 400 yards or so. Modern thermal sights changes that for tank xrews and the like, and better optics on rifles extends that range a little bit but the soldier with the rifle in the ranks can only worry about what he sees and what can see him.

I generally don’t watch war movies that involve ground action. They are so fake overall. I’ll watch Battle of Brirain or In Harms Way about planes and ships, but I usually don’t watch ground war movies. I saw Bulge before I went to Vietnam. After that I gave up on ground war movies. I especially never watch movies about conflicts or operations in which I took part. They remind me of things I’d rather not remember and they are so wrong I get angry.

 

Strange and Inexplicable Things in a Combat Zone

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These stories were comments that were sparked by an episode of the Twilight Zone called “The Purple Testament” about a soldier in WW II experiencing  an uncanny phenomenon. (photog).

 

“You can see some very strange and inexplicable things in a combat zone. Most of my senior male relatives have seen strange things and so have I. Maybe it’s all the physical and psychic stress that causes a tear in space-time and it allows “leakage” between realms? Who knows?”

“I can relate a few if anyone wants.”

 

(First Story)

“I was point on patrol in Vietnam. Going quietly and as safely as possible. All of a sudden, my tribal spirit twin appeared before my eyes, in full ceremonial dress. She put her finger before her lips in the universal “hush” symbol, then pointed out a VERY cleverly concealed tripwire. She then vanished. Saved my life.

When the patrol ended I wrote her and told her what happened, and described the dress down to a “T”. I may as well say that she is also an absolutely raving beauty. She had done the same thing and wrote me the day after it happened. Our letters crossed in the mail. She had suddenly swooned and when she revived she told her family that I had been in danger of some sort but that I was okay. She could not recall what kind of danger.

She had started that ceremonial, doeskin dress with the fancy bead work and dyed porcupine quills after I had left for Vietnam. She had never mentioned it in a letter nor in person to me. I was able to describe it down to individual colors and designs, and the fact that she wore a beaded headband to keep her long hair in place. I described the colors and patterns on the headband as well.

So tell me, how could I describe a fancy ceremonial dress in great detail without ever having seen or heard about it? Why did she swoon at the exact time and date she appeared before me in a vision? How did she know she had swooned as I had been in danger? Since our letters crossed in the mail, the letters could not have tainted our recollections.”

 

(Second Story)

“We were in our trench on the perimeter when we were mortared, then attacked. Charlie in the wire. Right in front of out trench was an observation tower/platform. It was put in after the trenches were dug or it would have been placed right behind us. It was a night attack and our guys were firing flares so we could see Charlie.

The firefight was pretty lively when the tower was hit by a mortar round. The tower was about fifteen feet tall to the floor of the platform with one ladder up. We were directly behind the ladder. The legs of the tower were wrapped in razor wire to prevent climbing up except by the ladder. The “room” was two sheets of plywood large. Eight by eight. It had a corrugated tin roof which was covered with sandbags. Sandbags also inside the inside of the corrugated tin walls to stop bullets. A guy was in the tower to call in our own mortars on Charlie in the wire and on into the edge of the woods 300 meters back. He could also call in artillery from the nearby firebase. He had a field phone and a Prick-25 radio in case the phone wires were cut by shrapnel or bullets.

When the tower was hit, we just knew he was dead. Me and one other guy climbed up to get his body down or to save him on the slight chance he survived. There was no body in the tower. It was only 8X8, less that that, really because of the sandbag armor. Nowhere for him to hide. I climbed upon the roof and he was not there, either. A hole in the roof where the mortar had hit and just a few scattered sandbags inside. We looked under them just in case but you can’t hide a full grown man under few sandbags a couple feet or so long. And the radio was missing. The field phone was junked so we got back down as there was nothing we could do without a phone or radio to call the mortar pit, and Charlie was consecrating fire on the tower, anyhow.

The firefight went on for another half hour, when all of a sudden, we heard the tower guy calling in mortar fire. We looked up and there he was with the Prick-25, calling in very accurate mortar fire. We were spooked but Charlie was keeping the dull times off so we didn’t have time to wonder – then. After the fight was over, we asked him what had happened. He said he was doing his job when all of a sudden he heard a huge noise and saw a blinding white flash. He thought he was dead as he couldn’t move, but after a while he could move again and he got up off the floor, grabbed the radio and started calling in fire again.

“Oh, by the way, I wanna thank you bastards for coming up and checking on me.” he said, sarcastically.

“Dude, we did!” and we told him what had happened. There was barely room for the two of us up there, there was no frigging way he was still in that tower, even under a sandbag. Nor on top of it. He and the radio had just flat disappeared. He then wanted us to explain how he was there with the radio, then. Ten guys witnessed it all, ten guys will swear that he disappeared and then reappeared. One guy says differently. There is no way he could have been blown out of the tower then climbed back up the ladder as the ladder was between us and Sir Charles and our entire attention was fastened on that direction. Let alone considerable lead passing back and forth. Until the day he rotated back to the world he would not believe us.

Twilight Zone? Did he phase out and back into space/time? I sure as heck do not know. Nor do the other guys if they still live.

Strange things in a war zone.”

 

Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” – A Movie Review

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Kubrick produced some very memorable films.  All the ones I’ve seen are extremely idiosyncratic.  Full Metal Jacket is definitely in the same mold.  It tells the story of a group of U.S. Marines from boot camp to their participation in the Tet Offensive during the height of the Vietnam War.

In the opening scene the Drill Sargent played memorably by R. Lee Ermey berates and sometimes beats on the recruits to cow them and focus their attention on how serious their situation was.  I won’t reveal the details of the boot camp section of the movie but suffice it to say that the consequences of the discipline prove to be as serious as the consequences of war itself.

After the boot camp scenes we go directly to Vietnam and meet up with the new Marines.  One has ended up as a reporter with the military news service “Stars and Stripes.”  He is bored and anxious to get into the field to see the real war.  With the beginning of the Tet Offensive he gets his wish.  He’s sent up country and meets up with one of his boot camp buddies and joins their patrol.  Here he sees the real war with all the brutality and even criminality associated with a guerilla war.  And here we meet the most interesting character of the movie, Animal Mother played by the inimitable Adam Baldwin.  He’s the M60 machine gunner of the platoon wearing ammunitions belts like bandoliers across his chest and shooting an enormous number of rounds at anything that fired at him.  When asked how the war should end he stated that the “smart guys” should bomb North Vietnam into surrendering.  He’s brutal and completely uninterested in helping the South Vietnamese, only in killing the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese and anyone else who gives him trouble.

The final battle scenes show the patrol running into a sniper position.  One of their men is hit in a forward position.  The acting squad leader is worried that a large North Vietnamese force is ahead and doesn’t allow his men to retrieve the downed man even after the sniper continues to wound him with additional shots.  Finally after seeing the wounded man hit several times, Animal Mother charges in.  He manages to reach cover and determines that a lone sniper is at work.  When the patrol reaches him they take further casualties including the acting squad leader.  The final scenes show the ironic nature of this unconventional war and the effect it has on the Americans who have to navigate it.  But as insane as their world has become, they still celebrate the fact that they’ve survived what so many have not.

Based on the tone of his earlier movie “Doctor Strangelove” I assume Kubrick was not a patriotic cheerleader of the Vietnam War but I would say he represented the war right down the middle.  He showed the horror but he doesn’t have the men represented by only pacifists.  They represent a cross-section of attitudes.  They show a cross section of behaviors from humane to sadistic.

It’s been called a classic.  I’d say Full Metal Jacket is a Kubrick style take on the Vietnam War.  I have a brother-in-law who was in the Tet Offensive.  I remember his description of what went on and it seems to jibe very closely to what Kubrick is showing.  That speaks well of what Kubrick made.  I think it’s a good movie and one of the few representations of that war that gets it right.