To all who tipped their hat to me (former IMDb profile name: dgarts), I salute you all as well.
No, I never served. I'm Canadian, and only faintly remember news of the fall of Saigon as a little kid.
But, when I watch movies like these, I really do try to immerse myself in the milieu of the times and, more helpfully, in the view of the story being told. Movies are more than just entertainment, for me - particularly, movies about this horror of a time. I want to hear what the story teller wants to tell, I want to feel what they felt, because that's where the story if found.
I have met Vietnam vets. None of them have regaled me with stories. They never offered. I never asked. But, I listened to the silence, and I heard them. Unlike their fathers in "the great war", there was no sanitizing, no romanticizing this war, no wrapping it within the warm embrace of any noble narrative, any point. And that may hurt the most - for all they gave, for all they suffered, for how they died, and how they are haunted to this day...it. meant. nothing.
One thing those vets did mention - of all the Vietnam films they've seen, two are mentioned the most: this one, Hamburger Hill, and We Were Soldiers. And, more often than not, when they mentioned them as "getting it", they were choking back tears.
What prompted me to reply here after all this time? Well, in May 2016, I was part of the Fort McMurray wildfire evacuation. When the city started to burn on Tuesday May 3rd, I stayed "on-site" (60km north of town at one of the mining sites). The roads closed, we couldn't drive south. By Friday, smoke had reached where we were, and I slept with a dust mask on my face, wondering if I'd die in my sleep of smoke inhalation; on Saturday morning, smoke alarms woke us up at 6am; people pounding on the lodge doors, running with what possessions they had...the fire had moved through town, mostly, enough that police could escort vehicles southbound through town to get on down the road south to Edmonton/Calgary or wherever.
At around 2pm,the police let our cohort go to return northward to escort more vehicles. I was out of Fort McMurray, and would make Edmonton by 7pm that evening.
Many people on Facebook started sharing their experiences, including how edgy they were, not sleeping, jumping at the sound of emergency vehicles/sirens, feeling anxious every time a chimney billowing smoke was seen...always seeming at the ready to take off...it was found that we were suffering mild forms of post-traumatic stress disorder - from an ordeal that essentially lasted 5 days.
I can't imagine what it must have been like to endure a battle theatre like Vietnam, but there is no macho cowboying up. Pain is real. And these movies attempt to help us, fortunate enough to not have had to experience it, try, even just a little bit, to understand what those who did come back are hard-pressed to remember, or forget, let alone share.
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Trying real hard to be the shepherd.
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