I recently read a book entitled American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam by Peter S. KIndsvatter. As I read this excellent analysis of what soldiers went through, I made a list of facts about the soldier experience that are seldom touched on in war movies. Below is my list. If you can think of any movies that actually show the activity or problem, please comment. We’ll put together a list of movies that you can watch to get a truer picture of soldier life.
- fratricide – friendly fire; usually by artillery
- digging in – soldiers using entrenching tools’
- resupply and feeding of hot food
- lack of sleep
- the large amount of gear being carry
- critters – lice in WWI, leaches in Vietnam
- dysentery and its effects
- filth
- effects of artillery fire on the mental state of the receivers
- chickenshit details
- accidents
- replacements and their treatment
- the smell of death
- involuntary urination and defecation
- war weariness
- religion – some soldiers become more religious, some become atheists
- soldiers snap
- a small percentage of soldiers are “soldier-adventurers” who enjoy combat and are good at it
Let’s work on this project together. I’ll get us started.
#10 – in “Platoon”, Chris has latrine duty and has to stir the shit and burn it with kerosene.
Friendly Fire, "Pork Chop Hill" right? "We were soldiers".
ReplyDeleteall quiet on the western front 1979 a scene where soldiers have fun hunting mice in the dugout
ReplyDelete#12 Band of Brothers
ReplyDelete1. Kelly's Heroes had the whole first several minutes with the Sarge yelling about US artillery dropping on them and not the enemy.
ReplyDeleteThe made-for-TV drama Friendly Fire (1979), based on a true story, stars Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty as parents who find out that their son was killed in Vietnam by off-target US artillery, not in combat.
ReplyDeleteThe TV series M*A*S*H often depicted patients who had been injured in accidents (such as friendly fire incidents). There was an early episode where Hawkeye and Trapper John worked to expose an incident in which US forces accidentally bombed a village.
From Here to Eternity, which has junior enlisted soldiers (i.e., privates) as major characters, shows the men doing fatigue duty (chickenshit details), such as guard duty and KP.
The Caine Mutiny and Mister Roberts, which depict events through the eyes of commissioned officers, sort of mention chickenshit details in passing.
Steve Mcqueen's character in Hell Is For Heroes is a soldier-adventurer who is good at combat but does not seem to be good for much of anything else.
ReplyDeleteOften, even in movies with an anti-war moral or message (Platoon, Casualties of War), the NCOs (platoon sergeants, squad leaders) are competent, and good at their jobs in combat.
The two Spielberg Hanks miniseries tick several of the things on your list. Digging foxholes. We see several scenes of soldiers digging. One veteran even lectures a replacement on the importance of his foxhole in the upcoming days' battle. While American movies generally shy away from religion, Hacksaw Ridge attacks the subject head on. In The Pacific we see the character of Sledge visit Robert Leckie and borrow a bible. This leads to an exchange in which Leckie makes it clear that combat has had the effect of disillusioning him about the existence of God. In fact, in his book 'A Helmet For My Pillow' Leckie describes how his faith has been strengthened by his wartime experiences. Point 5 - Band Of Brothers (in episode 2 Day Of Days) explicitly discusses the amount of gear the paratroopers have to carry into battle as well as the well documented leg bags that were torn off during their jump into Normandy. Sledge is part of a mortar team in The Pacific is both a victim and perpetrator of friendly fire in the series (point 1). Not sure what you mean by Chicken shit details (point 10). As in, duties or assignments that are meaningless in the wider context or bullshit? Or daily details of being a soldier that are skipped over by film makers because they are unimportant? I liked the scene in Hamburger Hill where an officer supervises as his men brush their teeth, making sure they maintain proper hygiene. Is that the sort of detail you mean? Accidents: Tom Hardy's character is killed in a traffic accident in Band Of Brothers (episode 10 Points). That kind of thing? Replacements - Band of Brothers episode 3. Samuel Fuller also devotes quite some running time to the treatment of replacements. Basically the Sargent's Four Horsemen treat them mostly like shit. When one of them complains, he is told they don't bother learning his name because he is a walking dead man, and learning his name is a waste of time. Soldier adventurers are often portrayed as the dangerous characters in the story. They are the guys who get others killed.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input. Some of your examples are not from movies, but from miniseries like Band of Brothers and The Pacific which have the time to show these type of things. My definition of "chickenshit" would be something a veteran in a unit would consider beneath them.
DeleteI'd like to thank everyone for the input.
ReplyDelete