# Vietnam Movies



## metalmom (Jan 18, 2016)

Anyone have any favourites?


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Jan 18, 2016)

Bat 21, Flight of the Intruder, Rescue Dawn, and Heaven and Earth, are my favorites.

ETA: A bright shining lie was also a good one.


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## Ooh-Rah (Jan 18, 2016)

First half of Full Metal Jacket.

The Boys in Company C

How Bout you?


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## digrar (Jan 18, 2016)

The odd angry shot.


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## metalmom (Jan 18, 2016)

Loved Bat 21 as well. Awesome movie. Saw Platoon a gazillion times. Hamburger Hill and Full Metal Jacket were alright. Loved Uncommon Valor and Dear America. Havent seen Rescue Dawn.


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## metalmom (Jan 18, 2016)

Forgot Hanoi Hilton.


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## Grunt (Jan 18, 2016)

We Were Soldiers....

The Green Berets....


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## Muppet (Jan 18, 2016)

Siege of fire base Gloria.

M.


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## metalmom (Jan 18, 2016)

Ooh-Rah said:


> First half of Full Metal Jacket.
> 
> The Boys in Company C
> 
> How Bout you?


Forgot about The Boys in Company C. It rang a huge bell so went to google it.


Muppet said:


> Siege of fire base Gloria.
> 
> M.


 Sad to say have never seen -Siege of Firebase Gloria. Was that part of the Tet Offensive?


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## Muppet (Jan 18, 2016)

metalmom said:


> Forgot about The Boys in Company C. It rang a huge bell so went to google it.
> 
> Sad to say have never seen -Siege of Firebase Gloria. Was that part of the Tet Offensive?



Not sure. Move about a Marine squad with R Lee Eremy as the platoon daddy, tasked with reinforcing a fire base run by Army platoon. 

M.


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## RetPara (Jan 19, 2016)

*84C MoPic*    Not a well know movie, but still excellent..   

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096744/

Firebase Gloria is also way up there, The Green Berets filmed mostly at Fort Benning.  Used to be you could see the remains of the pagoda from A Camp in the impact area.  We Were Young is excellent.  Boys in Company C gave me a fricking flashback to MCRD Diego in the opening scene.  Filmed in PI using local retired Marines as the DI's.


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## Devildoc (Jan 19, 2016)

We Were Soldiers....

The Green Berets

Bat 21

The Boys in Company C

Of course, all of the others I enjoy.


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## Bypass (Jan 19, 2016)

My favorite Vietnam movie is Hamburger hill.

"That's why I am here."


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## Red Flag 1 (Jan 19, 2016)

Nice topic, and I have a few that I like:

Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
The Deer Hunter
Good Morning Viet Nam
Air America
Uncommon Valor


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## Grunt (Jan 19, 2016)

Red Flag 1 said:


> The Deer Hunter



I forgot about that one...GREAT Catch, Sir!


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## Gunz (Jan 19, 2016)

Hated _Platoon. _If we'd argued with each other in my unit as much as they did in that movie, we'd all be dead. Too much drama and screaming. Maybe that shit happened in units with a lot of draftees and dopers, like Calley's, but not with Marines I served with. The only thing I found accurate in that movie were the gear, weapons and uniforms.

I liked _The Green Berets _when I first saw it...although they had to use Japanese guys for Vietnamese.

_Firebase Gloria _was pretty good. Ermey was entertaining.

_Apocalypse Now._  The only good thing about it is that some of the characterizations are pretty close. I knew a few battalion commanders who acted like Col. Kilgore. Some of the guys on the boat, most notably Chef, the Chief and Willard were fairly believable. I liked the Air Mobile attack on the village but the USO nonsense and all the other surreal bullshit killed it for me.

The first half of_  Full Metal Jacket _is the most accurate representation of Marine bootcamp in the 60's-70's that I've ever seen, although platoons had 3 DIs, a Senior and two ADIs; and I had a real problem with Ermey praising Lee Harvey Oswald as such a great shot (which by USMC standards is just total bullshit). And at the time  JFK was regarded with respect in the Navy and Marines both for his prior service and for his anti-Communism.

As far as the suicide, that was real enough. Rare, but it happened. A recruit in another platoon in my company pocketed a 7.62 round and brought it back from the range and that night after lights out shot himself in his rack with his M14. The next day our Senior DI sat us down, was as nice as he could be, and told us about it and said it just ain't worth it, we'd be out of there in 3 weeks.


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## RetPara (Jan 19, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> The first half of_  Full Metal Jacket _is the most accurate representation of Marine bootcamp in the 60's-70's that I've ever seen, although platoons had 3 DIs, a Senior and two ADIs; and I had a real problem with Ermey praising Lee Harvey Oswald as such a great shot (which by USMC standards is just total bullshit). And at the time  JFK was regarded with respect in the Navy and Marines both for his prior service and for his anti-Communism.
> 
> As far as the suicide, that was real enough. Rare, but it happened. A recruit in another platoon in my company pocketed a 7.62 round and brought it back from the range and that night after lights out shot himself in his rack with his M14. The next day our Senior DI sat us down, was as nice as he could be, and told us about it and said it just ain't worth it, we'd be out of there in 3 weeks.



Concur.  Are you sure he wasn't talking about Charlie Whitman?   In 1966 he  pinned down the Univ of Texas  and a good part of San Antonio for over 96 minutes.  God knows we heard about him for weeks before and after Elliot Range.  Time or Life had a top layout of where the shooting victims were.

Charles Whitman | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Life Magazine with article and map of the shooting area.
LIFE


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## Gunz (Jan 19, 2016)

RetPara said:


> Concur.  Are you sure he wasn't talking about Charlie Whitman?   In 1966 he  pinned down the Univ of Texas  and a good part of San Antonio for over 96 minutes.  God knows we heard about him for weeks before and after Elliot Range.  Time or Life had a top layout of where the shooting victims were.
> 
> Charles Whitman | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
> 
> ...


 

Haven't seen FMJ in quite a while but I recall it was Lee Harvey he was bragging about...and that was Stanley Kubrick trying to make the Marines look a little crazier than they actually are. 

I remember Whitman well. I was in 9th grade and it was huge news. One thing I remember from the shootout was that civilian Texans grabbed their guns and joined LEOs in shooting back at the tower.  Gotta love Texas.


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## metalmom (Jan 19, 2016)

Forgot about Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox. Surprising in how many movies Captain Dale Dye made appearances and was an advisor to some directors. I believe he put some actors in Platoon through some basic for a month or so.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Jan 19, 2016)

Yep several civi's suppressed him, while a team of two cops and another civi stormed him on the tower. The incident was covered in-depth at a basic SWAT course I took. At the time LEO's only had shotguns and revolver's, and back then every civilian kept a deer rifle in their vehicle. If it hadn't been for the deer rifle packing civi's there would have been a lot more dead, and taking him down would have cost many lives.


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## SpitfireV (Jan 19, 2016)

He refers to both gunmen IIRC. 

The best Vietnam movie is Operation Dumbo Drop for sure.


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## Devildoc (Jan 19, 2016)

SpitfireV said:


> The best Vietnam movie is Operation Dumbo Drop for sure.



Ha.  That movie was entertaining, and somewhat based on a true story.

I also liked Heaven and Earth with Tommy Lee Jones, and my wife liked Purple Hearts (because of the love story angle).  It did show corpsmen in a good light. ;)


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Feb 15, 2016)

So my insomnia is in full swing, just finished Heaven & Earth. Seen it many times, and I'm always taken back by the nuggets of life and lessons learned in that movie. I would recommend it to any soldier deploying, especially those who come into contact with the locals. If you view it as a personal development, and as an educational life story, it will serve you well...

$.02


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## Devildoc (Feb 15, 2016)

Diamondback 2/2 said:


> So my insomnia is in full swing, just finished Heaven & Earth. Seen it many times, and I'm always taken back by the nuggets of life and lessons learned in that movie. I would recommend it to any soldier deploying, especially those who come into contact with the locals. If you view it as a personal development, and as an educational life story, it will serve you well...



I only saw it once, on video several years ago, but really liked it.  As I recall I thought it one of Tommy Lee Jones' stronger performances.


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