Common Sense Loses Out

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 1999)

The human condition analyzed on war's bloody slab. Die and there is nothing. Nature lives on. And on. And on. Ok I got the picture. We become lesser animals and each must fight and win the war within us. The mountain of death we all must challenge. That `stuff' is all well and good to cinematically portray the savagery of war, but war must also have a practical side. Animals tho' we may be, we can't all be as dumb as those soldiers paraded before us in TTRL.
Specifically I refer to the `take the hill' pivotal action as the catalyst for warriors facing up to their courage. The problem I had was that from an officers perspective, Company C found the right most limits of the Japanese lines. Why charge up the damn hill when a flank attack was the called for strategy. Lee & Jackson proved that move 80 years earlier. The Captain was stupid for disobeying a direct order, he should have told the Colonel the situation. I mean this wasn't some dumb ass horror flick where everybody screams don't go in the basement. If realism is the vehicle, keep it realistic. Ok the Colonel gave some lame ass excuse why he couldn't, but it was obvious if they were receiving no enfilade fire, or interlocking fire in depth, which they weren't, Mr. Nip had his unprotected flank in the air. Now put Co. C in the middle of the regimental assault, and it makes a little more sense, but not much. I appreciate what was being attempted, I guess I am too practical to go with the flow. There were no Jap troops in force to the right or behind that bunker. None. Yeah I know the hill and all that was symbolic and all that gooey abstractionism, but it has to make some basic common sense. It was just too obvious to ignore. Even cowards aren't that damn dumb.
At the end, the company, or a platoon, it isn't clear, is in a stream bed and supposedly they lose communication contact. If it is the company, one would think, with 4 platoons, there would be more than a string and tin can involved. This is the `car won't start' routine. I felt insulted. C'mon. They didn't even have a simple walkie-talkie for comm back up? They went that far out in the bush stringing commo wire? You don't have to have a degree in military science to figure out the bad guys cut the wire and are following it. Which was pretty dumb (to cut it) on the Japs' part. But no, we'll stay in this stream bed and wait for'em to come up our rear and shoot us. Ok they wanted us to see how men react to the unexpected. But combat veterans, as these were, aren't that naive. None of it made any sense.
So now we have a reinforced battalion doing some Greek tactics on our brave group, well what happened to them? Sure would have been nice to know. And the poor wounded guy, they had him float DOWN the stream. To where. The three man patrol went up the stream to find the cut wire. How the hell many streams were involved in this mess? I think continuity got lost about as badly as I did.
Ok it was just a movie and sometimes things get confused out there and it aint perfect. We lose control as some of the grunts did when they over ran the base/hospital center. If the idea was to make the American soldiers and officers dumb asses and the enemy and nature just a couple of noble creations in the way of the white animal Yankee, the movie succeeded.
From my perspective, some common sense has to play into this. Death is defeated many ways other than raw courage. Some of us think our way through problems, and outflank them, instead of charging into the center of a decision gone wrong. We do that only when we are out of options.
Sir, we sent out patrols, the center is defended by a platoon. The flanks have 900 armies covering them. Aw hell let's charge the flanks.
It isn't always what it seems to be, though, is it?