"Born on the 4th of July"

James, I guess most of the movies have been fairly true to the spirit of the war. (I hope you can see through the cynicism of a statement like I just made.) One of the objections I've heard people make about movies like "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" is that they are full of violence and foul language. What did they expect?! These are people who still don't get it! If you were to take out the language of a movie like "Platoon" it would come off like a fraud. This is what half a million 19-, 20-, and 21-year-old young men sounded like, surrounded and scared by a frustrating and damn strange war.

The one problem I have with most of these movies is that they can't seem to find actors who are 19 and 20 years old. The age of the average casualty in Viet Nam was 19. That means half of the guys were younger. This is the youngest age for casualties in any American war. A movie-goer just can't get the sense of the youth of the Viet Nam war when the actors are all 25 and 30 years old trying to look and act like they were teenagers. This was a TEENAGE war! Look around you, James. Look at any group of 19 and 20 year old boys at school, at the mall shopping. Now visualize these kids, teenagers carrying M-16's, scared as hell. I haven't seen a movie yet that did an honest job of portraying just how damn young we all were.

The senseless violence depicted in most of the genre pretty much makes the whole point, doesn't it? The point being much of the violence in Vietnam was pretty senseless. This is not to take away from the service and sacrifices of those who served. We went for different reasons, and under the circumstances I think we mostly served with honor.

"Born on the 4th of July" is the most poignant for me. It describes the loss of innocence of one young man, and his embitterment, but it is a metaphor for the entire U.S. I don't mean to wax philosophical, James, and your question deserves to be answered by other veterans. I hope you get other honest replies.