HOLLYWOOD VIETNAM

Fabulous documentary. One morning really early, I couldn't sleep and started flipping the TV, just as I'm about to go to music, I run across this documentary, Hollywood Vietnam. It is how Hollywood deals with war. What was absolutely mesmerizing is the fact that I'm looking at this while we are at war in Iraq. The documentary was made during Iraq and makes no reference to it. Openings were everywhere to show the insaneness of war and especially in light of what a mess we are in in Iraq, Nada.

The documentary uses comments from those like former Georgia Senator, Max Cleland, one of my heroes. I could not help but think of how he was unseated in his bid for a second term in the Senate. Mostly it was a smear campaign by the right wing, mainly those like Anne Caulder who has now been mostly discredited by anyone who thinks. Her outrageous statements are designed mainly to build her bank account. During the campaign, she said that Cleland should not be considered a war hero because what took his legs and arm was a routine accident. Many Georgia voters apparently bought her rantings. I would love to know where those voters stand now in light of Iraq. Probably at the same place: don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up. Shameful.

Lee Ermey, who was the drill sergeant, in the best movie I think about Vietnam, Full Medal Jacket, and was killed in the movie by one of his crazed recruits. Matthew Modine was really good. There's one scene where some Colonel accosts him in Vietnam. Modine is wearing a peace symbol. The Colonel lets go with a barrage of typical stuff: do you love your country, etc.; Modine comes forth as a very respectful Marine and says something like, "the symbol is about the duality of man. A Jungian thing." Funny!

Bobby Muller, founder of Vietnam Veterans of America, was very eloquent. I've read about him for years. I was a VVA member for awhile and probably still would be if they had been better at marketing. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam vet, with somewhat political babble talked about a more balanced view of the Vietnam vet and issues of an Army out of control.

Hollywood Vietnam shows the transitions of what we see in war and in Vietnam in particular. We start off with the heroism of War, the WW ll movies, Sands of Iwo Jima, John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Battleground. We want to translate that to Vietnam and in the beginning Hollywood depicts just that, i. e., Green Berets with John Wayne. It's kind of heroist but not totally: movies like, Boys in Company C, Purple Hearts which single out individuals but still with some degree of positive.

The country changes and movies take on more a flavor of negativism and surreal existence: Apolcalyse Now and Platoon. In Apocalyse Now, there's one telling scene that Frances Ford Coppola insists upon to tell the story that he wants to tell: the boat crew suddenly stops a boat of Vietnamese and ends up killing them. It is a kind of MyLai right in the middle of the movie.

Next Hollywood begins to depict the returning vet as some sort of crazy. America is tired and wants to get out. LBJ says, "I can't be the first President to lose a war."

Then there comes more of a sympathetic view in movies like, Coming Home and the Deer Hunter. Ten years after the 1968 Tet offensive which most Americans viewed as the turning point of the lost war--the Vietnam war was a loser, therefore Vietnam vets became losers. Hollywood is not left with any real winners as they see it and so they have to find some stories where there's personal winners: movies like, Born on the Fourth of July. Ron Kovics, the writer, played by Tom Cruise in the movie makes a pivotal speech that is so applicable today; basically that the government is not the people. These are angry guys from Vietnam with a cause.

In Hollywood Vietnam, someone says vets need a parade--we put you through this and as a society, we owe you a parade. We never did that with Vietnam vets. The War at Home and other movies began to depict the hair trigger nut. Vietnam vets who were nutso. Nutso Vietnam vets in movies like Black Sunday. Gardens of Stone, Rolling Thunder, and even comedies like Caddy Shack, with Bill Murray, a Vietnam vet who was unhinged.

Then, there's the kind of redemptive movie or attempts at it where Jon Voight says, "I'm not the enemy, the enemy is War." Deer Hunter was another of those attempting to be sympathetic while telling a story, sometimes inaccurate, i. e., the crazy Russian roulette scene which never was.

Movies were primarily the media that informed America about Vietnam. In movies like, Flight of the Intruder, people are dying for nothing. America wanted to believe if you just had Chuck Norris, Syvester Stallone. just the right mix--Special Forces. Look at Iraq, still searching for a stragedy, with the seeming idea that if we can just find the right mix. Forget it! Often, movies had nothing to do with reality.

There seemed to be some sort of evolvement; instead of the crazed, there's a flesh and blood, hero in the movie, We were soldiers.

Is it that we have a love of war? Can't learn from history, My favorite depiction in Hollywood Vietnam is one where Bruce Willis in, In Country, is facing the Vietnam Memorial in contemplation, he leaves a Bronze Star Medal and a pack of camels--this is his closure. We wish it were that easy.

What I came away from this accidental viewing of HOLLYWOOD VIETNAM is sadness: a sadness that as a country, we never learn. The undeniable stupidity that we are at war after having the experience of Vietnam is almost unbelievable. If we had a Vietnam vet president, I doubt seriously that we'd be in Iraq but we know that story, right?