Blog 6 SN

Full Metal Jacket is a film that is divided into three different parts. The first part of the Film involves the young characters as the enter the military camp for the first time. The film is through the eyes of Joker, who is an aspiring writer for the military. Another character is named Lenard. He is an overweight private who seems to fail at all the tasks he is called upon to undertake. Eventually, every time he screws up, the rest of the privates have to suffer for him and are punished. Because of this, they beat him with bars of soap while he sleeps, taking the life out of him. Learning about the nature of rifles, Lenard becomes one with his rifle. By the time graduations arrives, Lenard has gone mad. He then, the night before graduation, shoots not only himself, but the Lieutenant as well. First off, this shows how military camps can completely affect a person. Many people say that the war affects the soldiers, but the camp is just as harsh. He loses all sense of himself, and becomes a killing machine, which is stated by the Marines as the ideal soldier. They are all the same people, without independent thought or actions because the military made them that way. It also notes the senseless killing involved in Vietnam. Lenard has no respect for the Lieutenant because of the brutality forced on him. He only returns the favor when he has nothing left inside. Because there were such harsh conditions, two lives were lost, when it could have been avoided.

The Second sections is when Joker is now in part of the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for the war. They talk about how the war is not in approval by anyone in the U.S. or Vietnam, so they need to talk about killing and get blood photos into the articles. with the already low self esteem of the soldiers, Joker must provide stories that are able to make the soldiers keep fighting. They know that the country is not on there side, which is why they need the newspaper to help them. When they are bunked up, a conversation comes up about staring in the distance after a soldier has been in battle for too long. It symbolizes that a soldier has seen it all. This is a tribute to the truly affected soldiers that have their life turned upside down by the tragedies of war.

The third part of the movie is when Joker goes into the field. Here he sees many disgusting things, which includes a helicopter gunner shooting civilians, and other dead civilians in a hole covered. This is another example of the senseless killing of war. The gunners are just killing civilians because they want to. There is no regret coming from the killers. Also, throughout the movie, Joker seems to be the soldier who does not want to kill anyone. Although he has the "born to kill" on his helmet, he wears a peace pin also. He does not stress violence at all throughout the movie, and the only reason he wrote born to kill on his helmet was because of the Lieutenant from the first part of the movie. When he kills the sniper, he is no longer the guy who didn't kill anyone. It shows that it is either kill, or be killed in war and at that time he didn't have a choice. The sniper tried to kill him first, so he killed her after.

With all of the sections put together, it outlines the senseless killing of young men for a cause that is blurred throughout the U.S . Also, the film shows how young men can be transformed into killing machines created by the U.S. military. Also, the film does a good job of showing how the affects of war can change a person forever. Whether it is Lenard at the beginning who snaps or Joker who loses his peace ways to kill the sniper, people are changed throughout the film. The Mickey Mouse is sung as the soldiers are marching at the end of the film. Its relation to the film is how these young men are no longer young men in terms of war and fighting, but still very young on the grand scale of life. Many of them in their early twenties, this song is just barely gone from their lives. It shows how the kids go from the Mickey Mouse song, to war in a short time.