Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: war drama prefigures similar film Full Metal Jacket, Fact2: group of boys arrive at USMC induction center, Fact3: draft dodger Dave Brisbee is delivered in handcuffs by FBI agents, Fact4: Foster Joker in keeps Full Metal Jacket, Fact5: supplies turn out to be crates of cigarettes liquor and furniture being sent to general for birthday
Output (English): This war drama, which prefigures the similar film Full Metal Jacket, follows the lives of five young Marine inductees from their boot camp training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in 1967 through a tour of duty in the Vietnam War in 1968. In August 1967, a group of boys arrive at the USMC induction center. They include draft dodger Dave Brisbee Wasson, who is delivered in handcuffs by FBI agents. The other inductees include Tyrone Washington Shaw, Billy Ray Pike Stevens, Vinnie Fazio Lembeck and Alvin Foster Canning. Like Joker in Full Metal Jacket, Foster also keeps a journal and his entries provide the running narrative for the film. The five boys go through basic training together. The training is dehumanizing and brutal, designed to make them think and act in unison. They are then shipped to Vietnam; as their ship docks, the shelling begins. Vietnam is a bewildering chaos: bureaucratic incompetence, callous officers concerned only with monthly body counts, and the constant threat of death. Their first firefight there are no real battles, just sudden explosions andor ambushes occurs while they are bringing vital supplies to an army outpost. Those supplies turn out to be crates of cigarettes, liquor, and furniture being sent to a general for his birthday; two men die in the fighting. Indeed, the officers in Company C are mostly incompetents who endanger the lives of their men through blind adherence to rules or timetables; their nervous soldiers open fire on anyone and anything at the slightest provocation. In January 1968, Company C is ordered by their CO to throw a soccer game against a team of South Vietnamese, in order to bolster the morale of their ally. The Americans are told that, if they lose, they will see no more combat; if they win, they will be sent to Khe Sanh. Despite everything, the Americans win. The game ends with a Vietcong attack, during which Foster heroically throws himself on a grenade to save some children. The film concludes with the final entry in his journal: ...Ive decided to give up writing this journal, because I dont know whod believe it after today. We had a chance to go home, and we blew it off for a soccer game...I guess well just keep on walking into one bloody mess after another, until somebody figures out that living has got to be more important than winning.