Blog 6 FMJ AM

The movie Full Metal Jacket was a very detailed account of what basic training and combat was like for soldiers in the Vietnam. The first section of the film followed two soldiers through basic training on Parris Island in South Carolina. The training of the soldiers was absolutly brutal. The training appeared to try and break the soldiers down and build them back up as killing machines. Also, it seemed to try and make the soldiers depend on eachother. This was shown early on when Private Joker was made a squad leader that was put in charge of helping to train a slower soldier named Private Pyle. When Private Pyle succeeded they all succeeded and when he failed the entire unit was punished. Even though this method seemed to bring the soldiers together it was at Private Pyle's expense. Eventually Private Pyle snapped under the pressure and killed Drill Sergeant Heartland. This showed that it was possible for soldiers to start suffering post traumatic stress disorder even before they left the United States and set foot in Vietnam. I think that the brutal training was necessay though because if they didnt deal with such hardships and adversity before they went to war then they wouldnt be able to be functional, productive soldiers, they would be liabilities to themselves and eachother.

The second section of the movie followed Private Joker as he worked as a combat reporter for the magazine Stars and Stripes. In this film Private Joker is seperated from actual combat. This section of the film demonstrates how sensationalized the war was. There is a scene where the commanding officer tells the reporters how to rephrase reports and fudge figures of enemies killed to make the war seem more appealing to the American public and other soldiers. This section of the movie also seemed like a break from the intense training and actual combat. Private Joker clearly got a simple job where he didn' have to deal with the horrors of war. He is able to easily act like a big shot and talk about killing like it is nothing because he has not experienced combat. It also seems like he has forgotten many of his lessons he learned in basic training and that the war is a big vacation for him.

The third and final part of the movie shows Private Joker joining up with his old friend from basic trainig Private Cowboy in combat during the Tet Offensive. In this section Private Joker finally experiences the horrors of combat. The strain is shown when he witnesses a soldier snapping and firing on civilians in a rice paddy for no reason. Also, this section shows how constantly on edge all the soldiers are. Almost every time there is a gunshot all the soldiers that here it fire at least a clip of ammo in the direction of the sound regardless of if they can see a target or not. Even when they are told to cease fire they continue to shoot until they think they have killed their target. Also, in this section of the movie Private Joker is confronted with the decision to actually kill an enemy sniper that killed two members of his squad. Despite talking about death and killing earlier it takes him a long while to make his decision to finally pull the trigger and after he does it it is evident that it was not an easy decision that it will affect him for a long while. It is no wonder that so many soldiers came homoe with post traumatic stress disorder.

The song that is being sung at the end of the movie was the theme song from the Mickey Mouse Club. This is significant because in the beginning of the movie Sergeant Heartland told them that when they graduated from basic training they would become part of an elite club. This song is a light hearted song of an American Club back home. It takes the edge off of the seriousness of the situation. It helps the soldiers cope with the insanity of their situation by bringing back positive comforting memories of their childhood.