Isabelle King (Y12)
Now I admit that the only form of media that I’ve really consumed in the past few months is completely Vietnam-related because I have to for my EE research. Therefore, I’ve written a ranking of my favourite and the most informative of all the Vietnam War media I’ve had the pleasure of reading or watching!
Personal ratings on my enjoyment:
APOCALYPSE NOW:
In the highly enjoyable section, Apocolype now takes the number one spot. This is because it was truly enjoyable all 5 hours of it (there is a 3-hour movie as well that can be watched instead). Overall, it gives a beautiful representation of madness within the Vietnam War, with all soldiers from both sides feeling a sense of despair and confusion over what their purpose is. Moreover, the most influential character, in my opinion, is the man who is being hunted, as he decided to defect from the military, as he did not agree with the reasons or morality of the war. He created a Vietnamese-run society in the midst of the Mongolian forest, and there he is slowly going insane as he is coming to many realisations about the actions that he had committed. I think that this movie is truly an artistic masterpiece; it was genuinely one of the best movies I have ever watched because of the pure amount of emotion that is conveyed through it. However, it is also quite a controversial movie with a separate documentary made of the production process, wherein the actors are all severely committing substance abuse. And the main actor actually had a heart attack on set. This added to the hallucinogenic quality of the movie, as all of the characters were supposed to be on drugs anyway. Reflecting how, in the war, there were huge amounts of substance abuse to escape the grim reality that they were in. Truly, I recommend this movie because it has such an interesting progression, and you almost feel like you are with the characters in the moment because of how vulnerable they are.
FULL METAL JACKET:
This takes the second spot mostly because of the first half of the movie (If you know you know), I remember watching this movie for the first time when I was hiding in my room to avoid having to talk to the guests and finding the first part so ridiculous that I went downstairs and asked anyone if they had watched it and engaging in a long conversation with one of my dads friends about bootcamp because he’d also been in the army himself. If I was sure that I didn’t want to join the military before this movie, then I was completely sure I had no business in the army afterward. In any case, this movie is supposed to highlight how men who go to war are often turned into killing machines who are dehumanised. It’s a pro-peace movie that criticises the reality of war and what it makes men do.
A RUMOUR OF WAR:
This is one of the books that I’ve really analysed because it’s in my research question, wherein I am trying to see how it reflects truth, responsibility, and morality. It follows the authors’ (Caputos) experiences in the Vietnam War as a Marine lieutenant. The most prominent message of this book is how information can change the more it’s passed around. He worked as the Assistant Adjutant, otherwise called the “Officer in Charge of the Dead”, after his time on the field. In this job, he was in charge of the scoreboard of enemy casualties vs friendly casualties. He came to realise that it was this specific data that generals cared most about, leading many soldiers to kill suspected Viet Cong who had no incriminating evidence against them to increase the kill count and therefore get rewards for their platoon. This book reflects on how numerical data and assumptions about victory played a huge role in decision-making, even though there should have been other indicators of victory. I think this book is a wonderful read for anyone interested in the early days of the war, when everything seemed to hold its breath, and soldiers still believed there was a purpose in being there.
THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST:
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam is essentially a classic study into the mistakes that led the US into continuing investment in Vietnam. It mainly argues that the war was a result of intellectual hubris, arrogance, political fear, and a lack of knowledge and understanding of southeast asian history. This book falls 4th on the list simply because of the fact that you need a lot of background knowledge into American foreign and internal policy of the era. This is because Halberstam assumes that if you’re reading this book, then you’ve read about the era before. So you need to know, for instance, what the Bay of Pigs was, what McCarthyism is, how the US federal system works, e.g., what the different roles are, e.g., Secretary of Defense, or Under Secretary of State. I have to admit that I had to stop quite a few times and look things up that I wasn’t sure about. I thought that this book was super interesting because it would just stop suddenly and go off on long tangents about the history of the key players, such as McManera, JFK, Ball, Bundy, Johnson, and Rusk. I really did learn about the motivations of these people through a look into what their origins looked like. It was a highly influential factor in the decisions made and who had the power of decision at that moment. Overall, I can highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the complexities of the policy that led up to and continued through the war. It’s also a great book for understanding American history in foreign policy and how we should be cautious of the dangers of a closed foreign policy.
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED:
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a collection of short stories detailing the physical and emotional burdens of American soldiers in a Platoon. I must admit this probably only places slightly lower because I’m not the biggest fan of short stories in general. It’s a great book that gives insight into the terrible conditions that American soldiers were put in and the emotional strain of wartime. I think it’s a great read for understanding the tragedy that the war was, and the camaraderie that the soldiers gained through the experience. I mostly read this book to further understand the human experience on the battlefield and how that relates to the truth of the Vietnam War. I would absolutely recommend this, as it was a real emotional read that made the soldiers feel more human.
PLATOON:
Platoon follows a young U.S. Army volunteer who drops out of college to go to Vietnam because of his preconceived notions of war being a noble cause. However, the reality that he is met with is grim, wherein the Viet Cong are not his only enemy; his own sergeant Barnes proves to be a psychopathic killer who is allowed to act on his disregard for human life because of the nature of war. This movie was highly controversial because it depicts American war crimes that American citizens didn’t necessarily want to know about. However, it is a deeply true movie that showcases the psychological toll of the Vietnam War on the soldiers. I can fully recommend this movie as it does an excellent job of conveying the way that the war changed people for the worse.
DISPATCHES:
This book is actually the partial inspiration for Full Metal Jacket. It is also widely considered one of the best accounts of the Vietnam War. It details Michael Herr’s experience as an Esquire magazine correspondent, who is a civilian journalist who embeds with military units to report on combat, strategy, and the lives of service members from a first-hand perspective. In this book, Herr tells the story of the soldiers through a poetic reflection of human dimensions in conflict. Moreover, this story really highlights the atmosphere of insanity in the war, with it following a surreal and chaotic timeline. It was made to give a side of the story that is a reflection of the truth, while still acknowledging that it is not the full story of Vietnam. I mostly put this book lower on the list because this was my latest read, and because I had read and seen a lot of other media like it, I was a little burned out from the Vietnam narrations. However, I would recommend this book, just maybe only this or A Rumour of War. Reading both was a little excessive.
A RUMOUR OF WAR MOVIE:
Now this might as well have been the most random thing I’ve ever watched. It was a really funny watch because the budget was so low that they didn’t even film in Vietnam; I think it was filmed in Florida, which does not do such a good job of mimicking the dense jungles of Vietnam. Moreover, I watched this on YouTube, which surprisingly had 775k views. It was made back in 1980, so the quality was expectedly not too great. Here’s an actual screenshot to demonstrate:
I found it relatively enjoyable to watch, though, because I had read the book beforehand and therefore understood what was going on to a deeper extent. I think that there are definitely better Vietnam War movies than this one, such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket.
Information-based rating:
I think this one is self-explanatory after my above explanations. I found that all of the media I consumed was helpful towards my understanding of morality in the war. If you want a historical book that explains what brought the US into the war, then The Best and the Brightest is for you. And all of the other books or movies explain a perspective of a soldier, or a platoon. If I had to recommend one, it would be The Best and the Brightest, simply because it gives so much insight into both U.S foreign policy then but also now. Having an idea of what shapes current-day foreign policy is beyond valuable because this is what the new administration is supposed to be trying to avoid.