When I saw Cameron's Avatar I knew I'd heard that line somewhere else before. Turns out that it's also quoted in a Time Article from 1963.
South Viet Nam: The Helicopter War Runs into Trouble
Friday, Jan. 11, 1963
It's all the same anti-American defeatist bull@$%^. Toss in some sensationalism and some condescension, a little belittling the noble savages... and the idiots waving signs in the 60s are still making movies in the 2000s.
Empires need a good thrashing every now and then, it's good for the soul. The Iraqis and Afghans are delivering another one. You'll get used to it.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
The question was, when re-stated by Clell Hazzard, how do you defeat an enemy who fights helicopters with arrows.
It was a damn good question, considering who ultimately won the Vietnam War.
Jake: How often does the train go by?
Elwood: So often that you won't even notice it.
Vietnam was won more in the streets of America, rather than in the jungles.
We should have supported a vast insurgency in the North, to counter what the VC was doing in the south.
Better yet, as long as we're going back to the past, we should have told France they can go piss off, and we should have supported Ho Chi Minh for Vietnamese independence, but since he discovered we wouldn't do that, he turned to the Soviets and they give him that support.
France quit NATO (and left Vietnam) anyway.
Just imagine a free, capitalist Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.
"Vietnam was won more in the streets of America, rather than in the jungles."
The only reason that has any validity is because in the jungles were fighters willing to take on helicopters with arrows and fight the U.S. to a standstill while the fighting and dying was being beamed nightly into U.S. living rooms. Were the fighting in the jungle not such a part of daily U.S. life, the battles in the streets over the war would never have been fought.
Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Tarkin: Enough of this! Vader, release him!
actually, the Vietcong/NVA used machine guns, RPGs, and sometimes anti-aircraft guns to take down the helicopters.
shareWhen they were able to get them. But the fact remains that they were willing to take on helicopters with arrows. That's not my idea or that of the author of Gardens of Stone, the novel. That's right out of a Time magazine article from early 1963.
Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Tarkin: Enough of this! Vader, release him!
I'm a long time serving soldier and absolutely not a leftie. However, that bit of dialogue is one of my favourite from the film. It speaks to the resolve and determination of the enemy. It is also a moment that shows that that Sgt Hazzard is more complex than the standard movie 2D Sgt character.
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