Blog 6 SJC

The first part of the film takes place in a training camp on Parris Island. It is here that the new recruits bond with one another, are trained to become killers, and essentially go through a process that dehumanizes them in preparation for going to war. Each soldier is taught to become one of many through actions such as training together, looking and moving alike as well as facing punishments as a team. This section of the film follows a soldier known as Joker who is given the position of squad leader and then given command of a fellow soldier who needs special help in each and every activity. Looking at just this section of the film we can see that the U.S. military did their best to desensitize soldiers while in boot camp so that the harsh realities of war would not affect them. It shows that there is a very thin line between what soldiers can handle, and what they can't.

The second part of the movie depicts Joker again, this time as a writer for the Stars and Stripes while he is based at a supply camp in Danang. Jokers job is to write stories about the war that deal with successful battles or soldiers giving aid to Vietnam in one form or another, and nothing else. Joker and the other journalists are only allowed to write about things that put a positive spin on the war in an attempt to fool the American people and the soldiers themselves into thinking the war can be won. This portion of the film takes place around the same time as the Tet Offensive, a major turning point in the war and when the United States needed as much positive publicity as it could get. When we examine this part of the film we see that it is obvious in the United States that the Vietnam War is not a popular war and the government and military are trying to do their best to ignore or change that. We also see that the military may have had an idea that the war was not going well and were fighting for the sake of fighting and saving face.

The third section of the film features Joker working on a feature story with a platoon that engages in the Battle of Hue. This section deals with the trials soldiers face while at war and engaged in combat, including the stress of war, death, the different forms of killing, and how soldiers take themselves away from the realities of war. This section of the film shows how easy it is to talk and joke about what goes on during war when one is sitting on the sidelines compared to when one actually becomes involved in war and that even the best military training in the world cannot necessarily prepare the soldiers for the things they experience in combat.

When the three sections of the film are put together, an interesting portrait of war is painted for the viewer. The film shows how soldiers are transformed from innocent young men into killing machines and how the soldiers were giving up their freedom to fight a war for Vietnamese freedom. The film shows how the soldiers were forced into a war they didn't want and didn't understand from an American soldiers perspective.

At the end of the film we see the soldiers marching towards the river singing what is known as the Mickey Mouse March. This is an important scene because it shows how young the soldiers are even though they are currently in the middle of the war. The song gives them a way to bond and reminisce about their childhoods, reliving their former innocence. The song portrays just how young the soldiers are, since it was the theme song for The Mickey Mouse Club from 1955 to 1959 and the film is set around 1968.