Lifting Soldier Morale

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2019)

Vietnam was a hot topic in 80's film, even comedians such as Richard Pryor starred in Vietnam based movies. Good Morning Vietnam sidesteps the actual fighting to focus on a DJ in Vietnam: Adrian Cronauer (pronounced crone-our), played by Robin Williams. He was a fast talking funny personality that was on the edge of being a shock-jock. Perhaps some of the Army brass considered him a shock jock. Certainly, some of the upper ranking officers believed he was too risqué for the Vietnamese airwaves.
It's amazing how important his presence was for the men fighting. He may have been the only real entertainment they got out there. Morale is a critical thing when you need a group of people to accomplish a goal. I'm sure you've heard of "employee morale." It's usually brought up when it starts to decline. It's brought up for a reason. High morale allows management or commanding officers to get more out of their people. Adrian Cronauer did that for the soldiers. He kept their spirits up with laughter. Many of them didn't ask to be there and many of them didn't want to be there, so the least that could be done was to make there tour bearable. Cronauer did that and then some. He didn't fire any shots, nor did he take a bullet, yet he was just as essential.