The Green Berets

 

 

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If you ever read Gustav Hasford's "The Short-Timers" (which "Full Metal Jacket" was based on) you know how he felt about this movie: "Let's watch the Duke and Mr. Sulu karate-chop Victor Charlie in a Kodicolor fantasy about Vietnam." In other words, he thought it was bunk. So does everyone else on the left, who have bought into the myth that Vietnam was a purely guerilla war and that the human-wave assaults employed by the NVA/VC on Col. Kirby's camp in the film would never have happened in real life. In point of fact almost 90% of the fighting in Vietnam was of the conventional type in the Central Highlands or the valleys ("We Were Soldiers") while only 10% of the troops were employed in the rice paddies you see in movies like "Platoon." Whenever the NVA fought out in the open, a la the Tet Offensive, they were well and truly beaten, but their leadership was ruthless and understood that by trading 5 Vietnamese lives for one American, the U.S. will to fight would eventually break. They knew the American public had only tepid support for Vietnam and would not accept the losses. The result, of course, we all know. Hanoi Jane what she wanted and so did Uncle Ho. Too bad Jane didn't go back in say, 1975 and spend some time in a re-education camp. They could have taken pics of her in a tiger cage, eating bugs and rotting from typhus.

If you are reading this you probably know the story of the movie.
John Wayne's Col. Kirby and his elite Special Forces "A" Team (no, not the one with Hannibal and Face and B.A. Barracus)is sent to Vietnam to establish base camps which offer protection to the local farmers from the murderous Viet Cong (whose crimes against their own people are well documented here). The soldiers teach the locals how to fight while providing basic medical care and 20th century improvements to their primeval way of life. There is the usual big John Wayne type battle as the VC try to overrun the camp, followed by a commando raid deep into enemy territory, and a tragic-heroic ending. But the movie is more than the sum of its parts. It is not mere entertainment, it is personal propiganda, designed to present the Duke's argument for why America was fighting in Vietnam at all. The only failing is its sappiness and jingoism, which make it easy for opponents to ridicule. But making fun of it doesn't take away the fact that the Duke's argument was based on something he is rarely credited for -- human decency. What "right" did we have in Vietnam? I guess the same "right" we had to land on the beaches of Normandy. We had no "right" at all -- it was just the "right thing to do", to support a bad government (South Vietnam) against a much worse government (North Vietnam) that used methods like mass killings of teachers, civil servants, nuns, missionaries, and village chiefs to destabilze the South and forcibly unite the country. You can argue about the legitimacy of taking sides in a civil war all day, but any country that uses methods like burying people alive and raping women to death as a matter of military policy probably deserves to be opposed, yes?

Anyway, let me take a moment to say I LOVE THIS FREAKIN' MOVIE. Growing up, good old Washington D.C. Channel 20 (remember when you only had ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and your one local channel? Channel 20 was ours) played this movie, (along with "The Battle of the Bulge" and "The Bridge at Remagen" and some other classics) about once every other day. Even the thought of it brings a smile to my face. Here was a guy, John Wayne, who had the guts to make a film this flag-shakingly right wing at a time when patriotism was growing unfashionable and millions of people were abandoning and spitting on the ideals that he embodied -- which, by the way, a few of us still hold true. As a movie, "The Green Berets" has a hard ideology of anti-communism and shows the newfangled Special Forces as a sort of elite brotherhood consecrated to fight against it. I think a lot of the hate directed against this movie comes from the surity of Kirby's (meaning John Wayne's) beliefs. They are rock-solid and not up for debate or negotiation. He understands what will (and did) happen to Vietnam if the North wins the war, and fights bitterly to prevent this from happening, while simultaneously trying to win over a stubborn journalist who has legitimate doubts about our involvement. No question, this movie is jingoistic and predictable, a Vietnam war movie packed in WWII casing, but who cares?

Watching this movie will make you want to be a member of the Army Special Forces. I joined the Army because of this movie!

MAKE no mistake, the Duke tells his side of the VN war. John Wayne felt it was his patriotic duty to answer "Jane Fonda" pinko liberal anti-VN War protesters and Hanoi Jane herself, the most hated sumbag by US GIs in VN. As a veteran of many covert low intensity wars, dedicated Colonel Mike Kirby of the US Special Forces, John Wayne leads a dedicated "A" team of highly skilled "Professors of Warfare" deep behind enemy lines in VN. Based in part on Capt. Roger Donlon's heroic and harrowing defence of a Green Beret outpost that won him the 1st Congressional Medal of Honour awarded in Vietnam, John Wayne is at his patriotic best in his realistic potrayal of a veteran of many, many wars fighting his country's enemies. The footage of an AC130 gunship "Puff the Magic Dragon" that terminates the VC that have over run the Special Forces camp is chilling in its depiction of quick death from the sky. Fascinating too to military buffs are the techniques of sentry silencing shown including garotting, as well as the use of the STABO extraction rig used to extract the enemy NVA General for interrogation. John Wayne's parting line as the sun sets over Danang, when he puts the Green Beret over the head of the orphan Vietnamese boy "Ham Chunk", "You're what this is all about, Green Beret" brings tears to your eyes. The plight of the boat people after the fall of Saigon showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that what John Wayne said to Ham Chunk in Danang Air Base was in fact TRUE. Refugees are people who vote with their feet. If you have ever seen the booby traps exhibited in the Cu Chi Tunnels exhibit you will realise that the sometimes simple and warm Vietnamese people can turn very nasty. Just see for yourself the many different leg traps made with rusty 6 inch long nails coated with faeces used to slice up unwary ARVN and US GIs and you will see exactly what I mean. As Ken, a good friend of mine always says, "Seeing is believing". If you know people who were in the re-education camps after the fall of Saigon, you won't be so quick to condemn this film. The Communists sytematically starved to death thousand in the re-education camps. my frind had to eat spiders and ants to stay alive. John Wayne had the guts and the money to tell the other side of the story, the side the pinko hippie pressure groups refused to see. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Today's Green Berets actually trace their lineage to the OSS of WW2 which set Europe ablaze and helped free a Nazi occupied continent. Today, the intrepid and indomitable Green Berets carry out the same daring mission President JF Kennedy gave them - De Opresso Liber which means to "liberate the opressed". In Afghanistan and Iraq, they fight today to keep freedom alive and I for one wish them every success in all their endeavours. De Opresso Liber!Dr. M The Travelling Gourmet.

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2.0 out of 5 stars War, Movies and Politics
I've seen this movie only once, on television when I was a teenager and the Viet Nam war was winding down. Read more

Published 25 days ago by RFD

5.0 out of 5 stars from a patriot who was not afraid.
if John Wayne had made something like this today he would be ostracized from all of Hollywood and from about 2% of this nation. Read more

Published on Jun 11 2004 by Andrew Ehrlich

4.0 out of 5 stars THE DUKE HAS THE LEFT TIED IN KNOTS
In 1969, John Wayne infuriated the Left with "The Green Berets", a film that made no apologies in its all-out support of America's effort in Vietnam. Read more

Published on Jun 6 2004 by Steven R. Travers

2.0 out of 5 stars bad propoganda but a couple of gem performances
the performances of david jansaan and jim hutton stand out in this really blatant propoganda piece.
wayne the director and producer is not someone i empathize with but i do... Read more

Published on April 22 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid, well-made film
John Wayne like any other American had the right to promote his opinion. Period. ...

Now, the film is as accurate as any other Vietnam film made in that last 30 years... Read more

Published on Mar 25 2004 by W. Zeranski

1.0 out of 5 stars Wow........ what a pice of crap !!!!!
Whether or not you were pro or against the Viet Nam War, this movie is one of the all-time pieces of crap. Read more

Published on Mar 9 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars A Legacy
Through the muddled and cynical torrent of news and media in this day and age, I can say definitively that there is indeed such a thing as a "hero. Read more

Published on Dec 22 2003 by Flower Power

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!!!
Best Vietnam War movie ever made!
Based on the book by SGT. Bary Saddler, who was there and did it!

Published on Nov 28 2003 by Pequegnat

5.0 out of 5 stars I rather watch TGB and We Were Soldiers than Platoon
I am more concerned with the identification of Platoon as a accurate representation of the Vietanam experience than with TGB's. Read more

Published on Oct 21 2003 by Antonio De La Cruz

3.0 out of 5 stars John Wayne's Viet Nam.....
There was a line in another John Wayne movie that went," When the legend disagrees with the truth, print the legend. Read more

Published on Oct 13 2003 by Joseph A. Aycock

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