Vietnam Movies

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.
 
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
 
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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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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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


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. 8-) Gotta love Texas.
 
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.
 
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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