PLATOON – The Movie

I went to see Platoon today, 3 FEB 87. I think all Viet Nam Vets – no, all Vets who have watched people die, should go back to the feeling of Death by seeing the film. If the final firefight had lasted another minute, I would have had to leave the theatre. I wanted to get up and walk out, but I didn’t want people to see me cry. It hurts to have lived through it and then force yourself to walk right back into it.

Being torn down to an animal existence such as grunts are put in jungle warfare is something that, once felt, never goes away. If one has felt the grief of watching a loved one die, they know that initial gut wrenching, mind-tearing, feeling that overcomes and overwhelms one. Add to that the feeling that you don’t have time to grieve because the man that just fell back in the hole may have saved your life temporarily, but you must forget the poor bastard that you hardly even knew, and concentrate on saving your own hide. The movie was right, as a platoon sergeant, I didn’t even want to know the new guys’ names. Why get to know them when you’ll have to grieve when they’re gone. Even today, when a name pops up that sounds like it might have belonged to someone I knew then, I wipe it and the tears away as fast as I can.

After that initial threat of the firefight is wiped away, there are no tears. No “man who has made it TO Nam” has tears. It is not manly… No, that’s not it - What is there to cry about? When you came over here you figured you were not coming back. The letters from home are nice, but soon they became distant – There is no “Home” anymore.

My first daughter was born while I was here. My first reaction, when the runner from Red Cross told me I had a daughter, was pride. My second reaction was, “Will I ever see her?” No… It was not even that. It was, “I will never see her.”

Well, I made it home. People who have unexpectedly lost a loved one know that they feel, at first, as if there is no reason to go on. How would they feel if that one they lost had saved their life? You can’t even thank their family for their son’s sacrifice because you only knew them a short time in Hell. Later, that gut wrenching, mind tearing, feeling begins to soften up, and yes – you still miss them, but you make the best of it. Eventually, you can’t even imagine the hurt that slammed at you at the first recognition of death. Sure, you think you can, but it takes being back here to really give you that searing, splitting stomach cut that makes you remember and understand the hurt that you felt. The movie Platoon takes you as close as you’re ever gonna get again to that hell of death.

For those of you that have never felt the cruelness of war, try to get through the whole movie without tears and fears. For those of you that have been “put out to dry” and made it through, I don’t have to put the feeling into words. The “Man who has made it THRU Nam” has tears. I hope he finds a way to let them out. For those of you that didn’t make it, I hope you hear me when I say, “I hate meaningless death and, after looking at the world around me, sorry, but you died a meaningless death.”

The statement, “Life sucks” that was seen on many a steel pot in Nam has been expanded in a song the kids of today are listening to – “Life sucks…and then you die.” Maybe the ones that died young were not so unlucky; they don’t have to live through these disillusions of the goodness of man.

Reyes, If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have a wonderful wife of 41 years, two children and two grandchildren. Thank you. You took the bullet that was meant for me.

Sgt. Paul Breitfeld

1^st Calvary Division

US Army – Viet Nam