It seems that the Marines that gunny is training are not in basic training. I believe he is in charge training for “recon”. While clearly this movie takes liberty with the actual life of Marine corp. training (though I have never had the pleasure myself….”I just came over logistics and supply”) what is a typical recon training like and what is its purpose in actual combat.
shareThe point of this movie is to tell the story of Gunny Highway as he reaches the end of his career.
This movie makes hardly any attempt to show anything accurate about the Marine Corps. In reality, US Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance are elite warriors, the best of the best, equivalent to the US Army Rangers or the US Navy Seals. You would NEVER find such a group of losers in a Marine Force Recon Battalion.
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Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. - Mark Twain.
A recon platoon is different than Force Recon. These Marines were division recon...no way they would have been in Force Recon with that attitude. Although I do agree with you that you wouldn't find some of the losers that were in that platoon, I think the point was to point out how lax their previous platoon sergeant had been.
shareThanks for your input.
Yes, I know the difference between Force Recon and a recon platoon. I didn't do a good job of making my point clearly. My main point is that while the US military is now enlisted, rather than drafted, you wouldn't find a group of losers like that in any branch, especially not the Marines. Also, even a regular recon platoon is hardly down at the bottom of the Marine totem pole!
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Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. - Mark Twain.
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<<< You have to remember that the US military was in very rough shape for the period after the Vietnam war until the early 1980's. >>>
I guess that needs to be explained to anyone too young to remember the war in Vietnam. The American military was trying to fight an enemy, while American politicians limited what the military could do. American politicians gave the North Vietnamese "safe zones" where the US military wasn't allowed to attack them. How can you destroy an enemy who can always run to a "safe zone"?
No wonder that the morale in the US military was extremely low at the end of the Vietnam war.
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Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. - Mark Twain.
Their homecoming wasn't exactly morale boosting either. People failed to realize that they had to do what their President said to do at the time and military people sometimes overdid it and were on the wrong side when it came to civilians. Part of war, even undeclared war such as Viet Nam and Korea.
shareAt the end of the movie, Gunny Highway comments that this is the first time he ever had a musical band welcoming him back home after a battle.
sharedid you know that it is a myth that soldiers were spit on
shareAny unit with crappy leadership will fail. They might of been gung-ho mofos coming in but with their former platoon sgt going soft and a loser of a platoon co, they slacked off. Considering they were in the peace time Marine Corps (trust me there is a difference) they were not hard charging. When they went boots on the ground and with leadership, they shaped up. Look at their attitudes upon returning... Stitch Jones even re-enlisted.
shareactionmanrandell commented:
did you know that it is a myth that soldiers were spit on[?]
I have read or heard that. It was to the effect of something about a scene of "returning vets being spit on" happening in the movie "Coming Home" and that all other retrospective reports of that supposedly happening came after that movie came out.
Sociology and Social Psychology tell us a lot about "collective behavior" and how people hear or see something and then truly believe it applies to them. They act accordingly, causing a snowball effect with yet more people believing, internalizing, and transmitting whatever the "fad" is ~~
I enlisted in 1974 as our involvement in Vietnam was winding down and just under a year prior to the fall of Saigon to the communists. I've never met another soldier (sailor, airman, or marine) who claimed to be spit at or on (except in the mock POW camp). However, many have told me about nasty and vicious comments that they received from civilians when they wore their uniforms in public. I experienced some of the same through 1987. It was not until Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada), Operation Just Cause (Panama), and Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (the first Gulf War) that American attitudes changed.
I take that to mean that even though the U.S. military loyally executed the orders of our duly elected civilian chain-of-command, succeeded at every operation assigned to it, and won every military engagement that occurred at company level or higher, the American people blamed the military for failures in the political decision making process. I guess we had to win a few to turn people around. As a youth I was offended by that behavior, both as a civilian and later as a soldier (actually, I'm an airman, but my sergeant major says we are all soldiers). Today I take the "thank you" comments and cheers in the spirit they are given. That is, I think the civilians are sincere, but it is more about their need to contribute in some small way and to justify flip-flopping.
If you don't believe that the people collectively flip-flop, go research the approval rates of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2002 compared to 2007 and later. Or really dig and see if you can find the polls for the operations in the other operations. You can even go back and research the change in the majority opinion of the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1968. Of course, afterward everyone claims that they always held the majority opinion.
It is human nature to have short memories. You could hardly find anyone who was against the second Gulf War in 2002/2003, and you can hardly find anyone who admits to have ever been in favor of it today. I try not to blame people for being normal. I catch myself "back fitting" sometimes, but I do analyze my feelings and try to catch myself when I'm doing it, then I turn it off.
Hi Dannieboy and thanks again for another intelligent and interesting comment. Actually, I was spit on while returning to Boston from MCRD Parris Island at Logan Airport in May, 1971. There was a crowd of protesters and police and apparently things had gotten out of hand. In those days you were required to travel in uniform when traveling under orders and at government expense. On the landing approach the flight attendants warned us that we might face some hostility as we exited the airport and sure enough we did. My girlfriend was waiting for me with a car and she took me to an apartment that she had rented on Comm. Ave in the Back Bay section of Boston and that's pretty much where I stayed for three weeks until I got a plane for the West Coast. Semper Fi!
shareNo offense, larsvanness, but I don't believe you.
-- Infantry veteran, RVN, 1969/70
Amazon423, my homecoming was just fine. It was mundane and undramatic, compared with WWII and Korea, but that was a function of the prevailing methods of troop transportation employed. Following WWII and Korea, troops were generally brought home packed aboard leased cruise ships, with as many as 15,000 troops aboard at a time. In contrast, Vietnam vets came home one chartered airliner at a time - hour after hour, day after day, week-in week-out. The packed troop ships were met by thousands of family members, friends and well-wishers at dockside, while the numerous, scattered arrivals of 150 or so Vietnam returnees per plane offloaded well away from the public arrivals area; they then spent a day or two getting mustered out, out of public view, then went individually on their way home. And, contrary to urban myth, there was none of the fabled spitting nor clamorous shouts of "baby-killers". We were treated just fine - although some people will claim (usually through third-hand anecdotal rumor) all sorts of maniacal abusive treatment, without evidentiary foundation.
-- Infantry sergeant, 1st Cavalry Division, Vietnam, 1969-70
Hey, "movies789", how is thids for an "evidentiary foundation"?
Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam by Bob Greene (author)
"Were you ever spat upon when you returned home to the United States?" asked syndicated columnist Greene of the Vietnam veterans among his readership. He received over 1000 letters in reply, many recounting specific details of just such a painfully remembered incident. Evidently this recollection of "hippies" (as they are often called in the letters) spitting on combat veterans has become one of the war's most unpleasant, enduring images. Conversely, other letters describe acts of generosity toward servicemen, from the typical free beers at the bar to a free show. But the over 200 letters excerpted here do more than confirm popular notions. They bring back the incidents of 20 years ago vividly, but not always with bitterness. And they reveal healing solidarity among veterans in response to what for many was not a happy homecoming. Recommended. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
"To be brutally honest, parts of this book reduced me to tears. This book concentrates on the homecoming of the Vietnam Veteran. The author asks the question "were returning soldiers spat upon their arrival to the States". Some answered yes, some answered no and some answered with incidents far more worse than just being spit upon. Out of any book dealing with a homecoming of the Vietnam Veteran, this is the one that I would strongly recommend"
Syndicated columnist Bob Greene heard the stories about anti-war protesters abusing Vietnam veterans, and wondered if they were true. He asked his readers to tell their stories, and then he checked them out. Despite denials from the Left, Greene found that protesters and others did, indeed, spit on and abuse returning veterans. He found the stories so compelling that he compiled them in this fascinating book. I think 'Homecoming' provides valuable perspective on a troubled time in U.S. history.
"This book was everything and more that I hoped it would be. Being a Vietnam veteran it was very painful to read. I thought I had finally buried that experience where it wouldn't bother me anymore but when I started reading the book it brought all the hate, disgust and feelings of betrayal rushing back again. I buried them before and I'll do it again but I'll never forgive those that betrayed us while we were doing our duty to our country or treated us like they did when we came home. I personally believed the war was justified but whether it was or not, there was no reason for the hatred to be aimed at those of us in the service that were simply doing our jobs. My thought is that it was their way of covering the their own guilt."
"I haven't read this book. I don't think I can. I have an indelible memory of a day in 1991 on the Mall in Washington, DC. It was the day of the official welcoming home of those who participated in Desert Storm. Parade, F-15 and M-1 Abrams on the Mall, B-2 and F-117 flyovers, young folks walking around with posters (no idea where they got them) and Sharpies asking anyone in uniform to sign them.
I was happy for the GIs, but I couldn't help recalling our `welcome' less than twenty years earlier.
I sat down under a tree and cried."
"This is a review of HOMECOMING: WHEN THE SOLDIERS RETURNED FROM VIETNAM by Bob Greene, a prominent author and syndicated columnist for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Mine is the hard-cover edition published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in New York during 1989. The book has 269 pages of text and has no bibliography, end-notes, or index.
Greene writes well and it's apparent from his easily read style why he's such a successful journalist. He's also open-minded. Noting the shift in public attitudes regarding those who served in Vietnam, Greene questioned the iconic accounts of returning soldiers being spat upon and verbally abused by hippies upon their return to the US. He didn't think it happened and he raised the issue in his syndicated column asking Vietnam vets to send him their experiences. They did.
Greene received thousands of replies and they form the heart of his book. Some vets recalled in detail how they'd been spat upon and abused when they returned to the US. Others recalled positive treatment upon their return. One returning soldier was picked up, welcomed home and transported to his destination by a hippie who's brother was in Vietnam.
Other vets were ignored, neither welcomed nor vilified. Greene consequently organized his book into three sections. Those who were spat upon. Those who were welcomed home and those who came home without any noteworthy incidents whatsoever"
"The genesis of the book was newspaper columnist Bob Greene's posting a question in his column in the late 1970s to veterans of the Vietnam War. It was an article of faith among conservatives and war hawks of the day that GIs coming back from the war in Southeast Asia had been routinely spat upon by members of the counterculture, generically referred to as "hippies" by the soldiers. Greene wanted to learn if the act of American citizens spitting on soldiers was the truth or if it was an urban myth. He promptly was inundated by a flood of mail from veterans, and also from their friends and spouses, talking about what had happened to them on their return from Vietnam.
He winnowed through the letters, weeding out the obvious fakes, and wrote back to the remaining writers requesting amplification or clarification of what they had experienced. He went through the stories again, cutting any he felt rang even the least bit false. Finally, he asked a friend in the Veterans Administration to run the names and serial numbers of the remaining letter-writers through the military database, to determine if they had in fact served where and when they claimed. The letters that cleared this bar went into the book Greene felt compelled to write.
The letters come from members of all the services and all kinds of military occupations. They cut across ranks and include stories from women who served in Vietnam as well as men. It is a good cross section of those who served that Greene put into the book. He does not impose his own opinion on the experiences, but simply introduces the various categories he found the homecomings fell into, and then lets those who were there tell the stories of what happened to them. What did he learn?
Yes, there were Americans who spat on returning soldiers -- and not just at the airports where the troops were flown home to be separated from the service or to be processed before being sent to a new assignment or a military hospital. But there were also Americans who went out of their way to help returning soldiers, everything from a TV star who picked up the bar tab for an platoon of Marines to a taxi driver who drove a soldier back to the airport in time to catch his flight home after staying in San Francisco longer than he should have and didn't charge him for the ride just because he had a brother in Vietnam. The writing ranges from barely literate to eloquent, and never fails to touch your heart.
The Vietnam vets were really handed the fuzzy end of the lollipop in terms of coming home from the war, and there s no doubt of it; this book makes that crystal clear. But it is because of this book and the experiences described in it that we as a people have made certain that we differentiate between the troops who FIGHT our wars, and the administrations that SEND THEM to fight our wars, popular or unpopular. Never since have we failed to welcome home our fighting men and women, and thank them for their service, whatever we think of the politicians who sent them off to war." -- Roy Jaruk
Patterson, NJ. February 10, 2015
"This is an excellent compilation of letters written by returning Vietnam Veterans relating to their
scandalous,rude demeaning and insulting mistreatment by the American public upon their return from the war to the USA.
I, personally, discount those letters refuting this horrendous treatment as not occuring as knowingly false and meant to further
demean and insult Vietnam Veterans while unjustly exculpating the American public responsible for such treasonous behavior.
The letters describing this treatment are extremely dramatic. As a Vietnam Veteran who experienced this same demeaning, insulting, and oppressive treatment, I can attest to the veracity of the same. Most Vietnam Veterans that I have talked to state to me that the same insulting behavior towards returning Vietnam Veterans by the American public was the norm. They, often, express extreme anger with regard to the same.
All Vietnam Veterans and their supporters should read this book."
ByJ. Cowleson January 16, 2012
"3rd amtrac 1st mar div 1068-1969 marbke mt da nang. usmc. some of us were warned of spitters and advised not to return anything so that we werent arrested for asault. i missed the spitters but within a year i returned to work and tried to explain vietnam to co workers and had a strong negative response. thay were just common citizens. some time later many older vets-koresn and wwone at vfw gave me a cold shoulder. then after that at an employment agency a korean war vet stuck his finger right in my face and said----you lost the war---hipies didnt like vets and some older vets didnt like viet vets and a number of regular citizens didnt like vets. after that i was invisible. to me nam didnt exist. so to hell with your parades ....to hell with your-thank you for your service--im not beatin my head against a brick wall for anyone not my family or very very close friend. to hell with you."
ByAlan E. Creageron November 4, 2010
"To begin, this book was published in 1989 by John Deadline Enterprises, Inc. but for some reason has the name Putnam- from G.P. Putnam's Sons of New York, NY- on the spine. But anyway. My copy is a 1989 hardcover, with a white background, mostly blue lettering, and an illustration of an American flag, a GI and his duffel bag, both in olive drab. I bought my copy at the Tuckahoe Branch of Henrico County Public Library for $1.00, which is a far cry from its self-listed price of $17.95 and an indescribably long way from what it is truly worth.
But the price of this book is immaterial, as is the price of any great work. Something that so many seem to forget, but in the past and present, is that the quality or lack thereof endures long after nobody cares to remember the price.
The original price of this book is already fading into memory, but its quality will surely endure.
"Homecoming" is a work of stunning force. It makes no deliberate effort to draw you in, but if the subject matter it discusses doesn't at all interest you I don't know what will. It is the product of an overwhelming response that Greene got to a newspaper column he printed, asking for veterans of the Vietnam War to write in and tell their take on the generic story that the typical veteran returning from Vietnam was spat on by hippies at the airport.
Greene noted being told several times that readers of the column and its responses had deliberately sought privacy before reading, and some were brought to tears. That's how much emotion this book, even before its creation, involved.
This is not some definitive history of the war in Vietnam. Not in any way. It is instead a collection of stories, responses to Bob Greene's original question to Vietnam veterans. The responses it contain cover just about every kind of response possible. Vehement "Yes"s, equally forceful "No"s, and all manner of in between's. One man was bitter enough, even after so many years, that he said that unless there was a war in Texas he wouldn't show up again. I don't blame him, and I don't think anybody should.
There's a lot more to the generic story of a soldier returning from Vietnam and being spat on by a hippie. This book shows that beyond a doubt. One man, in fact, after being ignored and rejected by such institutions as the American Legion, found acceptance among the war protestors and hippies you'd think would have treated him as a pariah.
This book makes no judgement on any of the men and women who wrote in. There are occasional sections where Greene breaks in and makes commentary on his own thoughts and feelings as he assembled "Homecoming", and I thank him for adding his own comments without passing judgement."
Nice job of cut 'n paste, but it amounts to exactly what I described in my previous post: third-hand anecdotal rumor, i.e. you, claiming to quote what you purport to be authors, who claim to cite claims by people who claim to be abused Vietnam veterans (or so claim the purported authors, or so claim you).
It boils down to this: To borrow a time-honored figure of speech, am I to believe you? Or my lyin' eyes? But, hey - if readers of these posts want to buy what you're selling, that's fine by me.
Happy New Year.
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