This film captured the DESPERATION more than any other!!

Rating: 10/10 (22 March 2007)

I was there. No, not on the Mung River, but I did venture into the highlands from time to time, where things were quite savage. The Mung and the Montangiards allied themselves with the US out of sheer hatred for Charlie and the NVA, not because they loved us so much. I spent most of my time in the 4th Inf. Div. I remember a point at which all of declared "we're dead already, so what can hurt us?" In Vietnam, not AA, one learned the true meaning of "one day at a time". A "wake up" was a victory. One night, several of us whose time grew short gathered at about 5 PM on a hot, dry season day for cold beer and some smoked weed. A new-be came in and someone tossed him a beer (normally, we would have chased him out - "new-bes to themselves"). He took a pull and then said, "technically, we're still on duty. What if they catch us?" A buddy of mine, drunk and stoned already, replied, "What're they gonna do? Send us to Vietnam?" That wrapped it all up for me. As Morrison's song "The End" said, "desperately in need of some stranger's hand, in this DESPERATE land". It was indeed, my readers, the "worst place in the world". Once there, nothing procedural could tough one at all - only a bullet, mortars or mines. Enough written!