Full Metal Jacket SAL

The first part of Full Metal Jacket is when all the new “grunts” are at Paris Island for marine training. The first scene of the movie is very telling; all the young men getting their heads shaved showing how every marine is the same in the eyes of the government. The first part of this movie shows how these young men are turned into machines. It is eight weeks of stripping down these men mentally, physically, and emotionally. The privates are called every name in the book comparing them to the lowest forms of life. The name calling and the continuous being put down are not the only obstacles that the privates must face; the physical obstacles seem easy compared to these mental games that are played. It is pure brutality as shown when Private Lenard Pyle is choked by his commanding officer for not wiping a smile off of his face. All of this brutality divides the men, really only pushes Lenard over the edge. The men are all tired of having to do extra work, so they punish Lenard just as they had been punished by the commanding officer. Lenard cannot handle the pressure and he eventually loses it killing himself and his officer. These men have been turned into killing machines. “Marine Corp does not want robots. Marine Corp wants killers. Marine Corp wants to build indestructible men, men without fear;” and that is what these marines have become, killers.
The second part of the film is when one of the Marines, Joker, is in Vietnam working as a journalist for the Stars and Stripes paper. This transition from training to being in Vietnam seems very similar to how the young men went from being young men in the United States to being young men preparing for a world of the unknown and then being in the world of unknown and trying to put a face to it as a writer. Joker is given an assignment that thrusts him into the war and eventually moves him into being a killing machine as he was trained to be in training. In this part of the movie though, Joker does not understand the war because he has not had to deal with being “in country.” Joker is forced into the war when he goes on assignment and joins his friend’s platoon. While joining the platoon, he and his friend Rafterman are in a helicopter with a sniper who is killing any human that moves out in the fields. Joker asks how he could shoot women, and the sniper just laughs. Joker does not understand, but then later when the platoon is taking on shots, Joker delivers the last shot to a sniper who was shooting at them. This sniper was a woman; this propels Joker into the killing machine that he was trained to be when he was in training. This is the third part of the movie; Joker’s final transition to a killer and not just a journalist bystander who is watching the war from afar, he is not completely submerged.
In the last scene of the film, the soldiers are signing the “Mickey Mouse” song, representing the young and innocence that these young men have lost. It is often forgotten that these young men are just out of high school and that not that long ago they were watching the Mickey Mouse Show and hearing this song. Mickey Mouse is an American icon, and is really makes the viewer think about the youth that was lost in this war. This scene at the end of the film showing the youth lost, reminds the viewer of the first scene of the young men losing these hair, which is seen as a loss of self identity.