FMJ is NOT anti-war nor anti-Vietnam War

Rating: 10/10 (7 June 2006)

M*A*S*H is anti-war. Dr. Strangelove is anti-war. FMJ is more of a documentary about the war experience. There are already enough reviews of FMJ, that I don't need to rehash it here. HOWEVER, people born after 1960/1968 do need a history lesson to understand WHY we were in 'Nam Men will always kill men. That's part of our DNA. Those of us from military families, or those who have served, accept this movie as a true enough account of the military experience, and most service men and women list this movie as a "top ten" favorite.
The world was different in 1939, different again in 1944/45, different still in 1948/49, and went to hell in a hand basket in 1963/64.
It was America's favorite Democrat, JFK who got us into Vietnam after the French were thrown out. LBJ was already committed to Vietnam, by Kennedy, just as Kennedy was already committed to Bay of Pigs by Ike, and Truman inherited WW2, and the A-Bomb by FDR.
Beginning with Truman, America and Britain developed the "Containment Policy" of stopping Communism where the borders were in 1945. If Truman had lost in 1944 or 1948, and MacArthur had been elected, he would have sent Patton (in 44) into Moscow and ended the cold war before the Soviets got the A bomb in 1949. No Cold War would have meant NO Korea, and NO Vietnam. MacArthur was also extremely AGAINST fighting any war in Asia. During Korea, he wanted to Nuke the Chinese back to the stone age, rather than fight on the ground and lose American and Allied lives. MacArthur warned Ike, JFK, and LBJ to get out of Asia, and none listened.
Ho came to Washington in the middle of WW2 to ask FDR to liberate Vietnam from the French. FDR was too busy trying to liberate France from Germany. Ho left Washington angry and changed his colors from democratic to communist.
Truman restored Vietnam to France, and refused to allow Patton to advance into Moscow. In 1948, China became communist, and in 1949, the USSR got the bomb. The opportunity to nip communism in the bud was lost.
Following success in China, Ho began his CIVIL WAR in Vietnam. Vietnam was two wars at once: Liberate the Vietnamese from France, and change the puppet government in Saigon from democracy to communism.
After the French were expelled from Vietnam, IKE sent the first advisers to shore up democratic South Vietnam.
Sputnik meant that the USSR could place nuclear bombs into ICBMS and attack the US from space. Ike had lost his opportunity to liberate Russia and Eastern Europe. The Space Race and Apollo project were the civilian face of the nuclear arms race. Rockets strong enough to launch a man to the moon could be used to attack Moscow and Bejing. NOW America and her Allies could only fight the Communists by Proxy.
JFK sent more people in and sent troops to protect those advisers, but avoided all out war. THEN JFK was assassinated, and LBJ and the US Congress suspected a communist conspiracy and Vietnam became a "police action" then all out war that LBJ was not committed to win. FDR did not care how many civilians were killed in WW2, television made mass murder of civilians impossible. Look up Dresden. Truman dropped fat man and little boy during television's infancy. If CNN had existed before 1945, he could not have done it. Despite carpet bombing by LBJ, Ho Chi Minh would not negotiate. That's the beauty of communism, unaccountability; kill anyone who disagrees with the Chairman. Look up Stalin's purges and Tienamen Square.
Truman betrayed the Poles by giving Poland and Eastern Europe to "Uncle Joe" Stalin in exchange for Stalin committing Russian troops to Berlin. Poland was a democracy, and ally of Britain and France, and a buffer against the USSR before Hitler invaded. Truman had the world handed to him by FDR and threw it all away.
IKE was a democrat but had to run as a Republican because the other Republican candidates wanted to dismantle NATO which IKE had set up to counter the USSR. IKE had to choose hardliner Nixon as his VP. By 1950 MacArthur no longer wanted the Presidency. Mac died in 1964 urging LBJ to get out of Vietnam, but MacNammera constantly urged LBJ to commit more bombing. LBJ should have fired MacNammera, but couldn't since Bobby Kennedy was accusing LBJ of staging a coup. The pressure was on LBJ.
Nixon was the wrong man to President in 1968. Perhaps he would have made a better president in 1960, when he was younger, and paranoia had not gotten to him, as it did by 1968 and 1972. Perhaps Nixon would have listened to MacArthur and withdrawn the few American advisers. Kennedy placed more Americans in harm's way. LBJ was committed to protecting Americans already in Vietnam, and was genuinely asleep when the Pueblo was lost to Korea, and someone panicked and shot at a whole bunch of nothing and called it a sneak attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
IF Kennedy had not been killed, or at least not been killed by a Communist sympathizer, then Kennedy or Lyndon could have withdrawn a handful of troops, and Vietnam could have been avoided.
American men and women went where they sent. They did what they were ordered to do. We still do.
Back to FMJ.
I personally do not see anything anti-war about it. FMJ is honest, when other Vietnam War movies were being editorial.
R.Lee Ermey as a Vietnam Era DI, is the real deal. His lines about Whitman and Oswald are honest, true, and a little prideful. The USMC wants riflemen like that. That's the job of a Marine, to kill, and that's it. FMJ reflects all of that.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" - Freud.