I went to Viet Nam the first time in the summer of 1967. I came back home for the last time at the end of 1970. I spent virtually all of my time, all three tours, in the bush. I was in the Central Highlands, on the border. There have been four times in my life when I did not expect to see the next day; three of them took place in 1968.
I am what is called a decorated veteran. That means they gave me medals. I never got one for something I remembered doing, and in one case for a actions in a place I could not remember ever having seen. I may suprise some of you to learn that out of three years in that country I can remember almost none of it. It may also suprise some of you all, particularly those who believe the utter horse#$%* the TV and movies depict, but I can only remember about a half a dozen guys I served with and have only kept in the loosest of contact with 1 of them.
I came back to the US between tours, I came through San Francisco each time. Not one time did anyone act in any way disrespectful of me or of the uniform I wore - and I never talked to any other GI who had any problem either. Whenever I hear that tired old #$%* about being spit on or called a baby killer or any of that other crap I am pretty sure I'm talking to a poser, someone who never served their country or anything else.
How you going to make a move about a war in which 90% if the guys who served never fired a shot and never got shot at? How are you going to make a movie about a war that took place in a country that varied from swamp to mountain, from white sand beach to 3-tier-jungle. How do you make a movie about 200 americans dieing per week, week after week, about riots in the streets at home, about politicians so deeply in the pockets of the industries that profit from war that they could not extract their own sons from the meatgrinder?
I want you to close your eyes for a moment and immagine this - and it is not a joke at any level. Immagine yourself in a place where every person you see is doing everything they can to kill you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Immagine that you come to realize that the only way you will survive in this place is to kill everyone you see before they see you. And all this has to be done with an on/off switch planted in your brain. And when its all over you come home and pretend it never happened, which isn't so hard when, as I said, you can't remember much of anything about it. Not then, not now, over 40 years later.
The only thing in this world that I hate more than war are the god damned idiots who glamorize or glorify it. Those are the most despicable people in the world.
