VIETNAM AT THE MOVIES
About the Author Michael Lee Lanning
Michael Lee Lanning retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel after more than twenty
years of service. In Vietnam he served as an infantry platoon leader, a reconnaissance platoon leader, and a rifle company
commander. He later served as public affairs officer for General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
His other books include Inside
the VC and the NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam's Armed Forces (with Dan Cragg), The Battles of Peace, Inside Force Recon:
Recon Marines in Vietnam (with Ray W. Stubbe), Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam, Vietnam 1969-1970: A Company Commander's
Journal, and The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader's Journal of Vietnam.
He resides in Phoenix, Arizona, and Eastsound,
Washington.
Introduction
I have asked a few questions of my own about where young people,
and many older ones, have acquired their knowledge and understanding of America's longest and most unpopular war. Responses
occasionally allude to a relative who served in Southeast Asia, school classes, and books, but the overwhelming majority of
those to whom I've spoken admit that the major influence on their perceptions of the Vietnam War has been Hollywood's motion
pictures.
The Vietnam War was a turning point in thought, culture, and values in every aspect of American life. It's influence
on politics and U.S. world policy is obvious on the front pages of newspapers even today. Many of those who lived through
the Vietnam Era are still confused about what really happened and why. For those who have come to maturity since the fall
of Saigon, accuracy and facts untainted by propaganda or falsehood have been difficult to come by.
Page 4
Only after the war did Hollywood finally turn its cameras to Vietnam.
But when it did, because the war itself was so confusing and unpopular, directors generally focused not on the political aspects
of the conflict but on the veterans who fought the war. If the war was unpopular and the military was considered a loathsome
institution, then surely the uniformed warrior was equally unsympathetic.
From low-budget motorcycle films depicting Vietnam
Veterans as killers and drug dealers to megabudget "epics" claiming a documentary-level approach to the war, Hollywood has
turned out a barrage of movies portraying troubled veterans who neither fit in with society nor care to do so. Film companies
have converted "loser" veterans into box-office winners.
Page 5
Written, produced, and directed almost exclusively by nonveterans and those actively opposed
to the war during the conflict, the Vietnam movie has taken a narrow view of the war's combatants-and that portrayal seems
to be concentrated on, at its best, an unemployed, maladjusted veteran who cannot cope and, at its worst, a crazed killer
still wearing his U.S. Army field jacket.
Page 45
Instead of asking how they could "help win the war," Hollywood
decision makers mostly turned their backs on the conflict while it raged on the battlefield.
Page 48
*Several scripts were submitted to the Department of Department
of Defense before and after THE GREEN BERETS, but either they were considered unsuitable or the producers were unwilling to
make appropriate changes to secure military assistance. What the Pentagon was looking for by way of films was not secret.
The requirements were outlined in Department of Defense Instruction 5410.15
This document, dated November 3 1966, stated
in Paragraph V, "The production, program, project, or assistance will benefit the DoD or otherwise be in the national interest
based on consideration of the following factors:
- Authenicity of the portrayal of military operations, or historical incidents, persons or places depicting a true
interpretation of military life.
- Compliance with accepted standards of dignity and propriety in the industry."
Page 53
From 1965 to 1975, more than forty movies with a central anti-Vietnam
War theme reached the screen. These featured deserters or draft evaders as the movies' heroes.
Page 151
Linc Case [of Route 66] would
be the last "good" vet to appear on a television series for a long number of years. Television went through its own "coming
home" period of using returning Vietnam Veterans as ready-made black-hat types wearing field jackets who were bent on crime
and craziness. Every cop and detective show - and they were numerous during the Vietnam era and postwar years - readily picked
up on Vietnam Veterans as sterotypical drug users and pushers, thieves, and murderers. If a script called for an insane character,
it was a good bet that a Vietnam Veteran would be written into the role. Of particular noteworthiness for their inclusion
of loathsome Vietnam Veterans were the popular series "Mannix," "Cannon," "Kojak," and "The Streets of San Francisco."
Introduction
The more films I watched, the
more I realized that, in part, Vietnam War films are an insult to veterans and moviegoers; as a whole, they represent the
first group of American movies to systematically vilify the warrior as well as the war.
Vietnam War Movie Facts
Apocalypse
Now (1979) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/ Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), whose mission is "Terminate with extreme prejudice",
receives orders to seek out a renegade military outpost led by a mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Brando) during the Vietnam war.
First Blood
aka: Rambo I (1982) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0083944/ A mentally unstable Vietnam war vet (Former
Green Beret John Rambo), when abused with a small town's police force, begins a one man war with it.
First Blood Part II aka: Rambo II (1985) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0089880/ Former Green Beret John Rambo is serving time in a federal prison.
(1988) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0095956/ Rambo's Vietnam commanding officer Colonel Trautman is held hostage in Afghanistan,
and its up to Rambo to rescue him.
Platoon (1986) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/ A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when a sergeant orders a massacre of villagers.
Oscar Winner: Best Picture 1987 http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/awards
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For 25 years, I've have been working to get Hollywood to say something positive
about Vietnam Veterans. I witnessed first-hand numerous acts of kindness that American military personnel shown the Vietnamese
People.
I served on a CAP Team and lived in a Vietnamese peasant-farming village under the Marine Corps' Combined Action
Program (CAP.)
Although these Anti-Terrorist Teams experienced tremendous combat, we were known mostly for our kindness
to the Vietnamese families that we lived with, protected and helped. CAP Teams had the nickname: "The Peace Corps Volunteers
with Rifles." It is the most successful anti-terrorism unit in the Marine Corps' History.
CAP was just one of many American
military teams known for their kindness to the Vietnamese People. All American military branches had humanitarian and
civil action units.
CAProductions is being formed by a group of these same Vietnam Veterans, their families, their
friends, and many appreciative Americans, who have similar qualities of kindness, dedication and pride.
Jack Cunningham
Sussex, NJ
CAProductions:
http://www.capveterans.com/caprd_021.htm
