Blog 6 TJM

Stanley Kubrick brings us a realistic soldiers journey through the triumphs and tribulations of the Vietnam War in Full Metal Jacket. The movie begins with the training of marines at the training facility in on Parris Island. The men are entering basic training before their deployment to Vietnam. Joker, Cowboy, and Pyle are the first three soldiers that we meet in the film. They encounter their first taste of the horrors of war from their drill instructor, Sgt. Hartman. He quickly tears them down both physically and mentally. He especially picks on Pyle who is not only out of physical shape but is stupid to boot. Joker decides to take Pyle under his wing and teach him the basics so he can escape the ridicule and humiliation he receives from Sgt. Hartman. Though Joker teaches him what he needs to know, Pyle keeps screwing up until one night during lights out the rest of the men beat him with socks filled with soap. Suddenly Pyle snaps out of his trance. After that night he seems to be the perfect soldier, until that fateful night in the bathroom. Pyle is found with a loaded rifle in the bathroom and seems to lose his mind, shoots the Sgt. and himself. This scene exemplifies the strain that was put on our soldiers at the time. Many of these men were young, most just out of high school, and often many of the trainees could not handle the training mentally.

The second chapter in the movie brings us into the war. Joker has been placed in the journalism division of the military and is working for Stars and Stripes magazine. Joker and his cameraman, Rafterman, are living the easy life in Da Nang. Joker wants to go on an assignment to the front lines and report on the action there. At first he is denied by his superior officer but soon gets his wish when the Tet offensive begins. He and Rafterman are given an assignment to go to Hue and cover the Marines as they attempt to fight off the NVA forces that have captured the city. When Joker arrives in Hue he runs into his old buddy Cowboy and his platoon. Many of the men in Cowboy's outfit are just as young as he and Joker and they act as such. One of the Marines wants to pose next to his "friend", a dead NVA soldier. He sits next to him and explains to Rafterman and Joker that it is the dead mans party. This scene shows us that many of these men were very immature. These men were so young yet so desensitized to all of the violence and death that surrounded them. It was evident that they had become the killing machines that the marine corp training was meant for.
The men move out from their current position to infiltrate and destroy the enemy NVA forces that are within the city. Joker and Rafterman have to put down their pens and cameras and pick up their guns for the first time in combat to protect themselves and their fellow soldiers. We can see on Jokers face that he is torn between shooting the enemy and keeping himself alive. Throughout the movie we see his feelings about the war come through. He goes into the journalism department because he doesn't believe in the violence, yet in the end he is forced to act violently himself. When they come upon a block of destroyed buildings they start to take sniper fire. A few of the men are killed including Cowboy. When Cowboy is killed we immediately see a new fire in Jokers eyes. He volunteers himself to hunt down the sniper with another soldier. They enter the building and Joker comes face to face with the female sniper, but his gun jams. Rafterman wounds the sniper and leaves her on the ground to die. All of the men huddle around the sniper and just stare at her, watching her slowly die. Joker wants them to kill the sniper humanely but the other men want to leave her for dead. They leave it to him but he cant bring himself to do it.
As the men leave we hear them start to chant the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. This is just another example of the youth trapped in these "hard" men. They have become trained killers, hardened to the violence and death, but through this all they can tap into their inner child and release some joy.