European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 14, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Thomas Bird new York times i n february 1966, after an All Day fight with a North vietnamese unit in the Bong son Plains my company was flown to an Airstrip near the Beautiful South China sea. We had taken a number of casualties we were angry and frustrated and we needed a rest we bivouacked in a cemetery where All the gravestones had swastikas on them. Looking again i realized they were inverted and were Buddhist symbols. Three hours later after we d stripped off our gear set up our Pup tents and were beginning to unwind we were told Quot Saddle up and move across the Road to the other  we were going out into the Plains to Chase after the enemy again. We were so angry we  speak we moved onto a Muddy Road flanked by drainage ditches filled with Muddy water. Host my footing and slipped into a ditch went under the water and came up and out screaming Quot this Ain t a War movie this Ain t a John Wayne Moviel Quot i started to laugh and All the Guys in the column Starling laughing too because they also got it Vietnam was t a War movie. It took my six months in Vietnam to Wake up and turn All the world War ii movies off in my mind. They could no longer help me deflect reality Black out the pain and anger or justify me As the Good american who had come to Rescue vietnamese by Iii aug vietnamese. Why because they were really propaganda films. After seeing the movie born on the fourth of july i realized once again that i was made for the Vietnam War. Grew up on the same Parade grounds of Long Island at the same time As Ron Kovic the author of the Book on which the movie is based. Like him As a child i loved to go to the memorial Day Parade. My father was a decorated world War ii hero. I used to love to look at his medals and hear his stories about running a Field Hospital for Gen. Patton As the 3rd army crossed Europe especially How they liberated the o Mau Hausen concentration Camp in Austria. I wanted to be like my father like the soldiers of world War  a kid i used to watch All the world War i movies i could. I did no to know they were propaganda films meant to inspire the Public to support and help win the War. I did t know that in 1942 the newly created office of War information exerted censorship pressure on Hollywood to make propaganda films. . Made Hollywood film makers answer several questions before making a movie the first of which was Quot will this picture help win the War Quot it also asked them to avoid false escapist films to contribute something new to the country s understanding of the conflict to avoid using the War As a basis for profit and to Tell the truth so Young people could not say they were misled by propaganda. As necessary As the propaganda was at the time when i was a kid soaking up those movies years later their purpose had already been served from Bataan and Wake Island two films that told of american losses to the brutal japanese to Guadalcanal diary and Gung to which were about american victories Over faceless japanese hordes the aim was to portray americans positively. In All these movies the americans were to the Man and boy confront Bird top photo As a Soldier in Vietnam in 1965 above marines Crouch in a crowded Trench under heavy fire on a Hilltop position near the Doz in South Vietnam in 1966. The stars and our Mission was Crystal Clear i grew up believing that was the Way life was supposed to be. I embraced those movies because i thought they were based on real life. My favorite world War ii movie was a walk in the Sun with Dana Andrews about an american unit searching for German soldiers who Are found hiding in a farmhouse in Italy. I loved its close ups of the perfectly balanced All american platoon and the depiction of Arhe rican bravery especially the men who crossed the farm Field and flushed out the faceless germans. This movie More than any other would rerun in my mind years later As i crossed Rice Paddy dikes in Vietnam moving toward a local Farmers House or tree line. It stopped once and for All the first time the tree line opened up in a Blaze of fire trapping us in the open we were Lucky we had things the enemy did no to gunships artillery fighter jets napalm i wonder about the War movies today a children see. Are the movies about Vietnam offering up a new Agenda or Are they serving old agendas As children when my friends and i played War we imitated the movies. My dad would buy me the guns and gear i asked for so i d look the Best in my part i d kill the imaginary japanese and nazis Over and Over and i loved it. If i got wounded i d take it stoically and fight on. If i got killed i d always have time for one last cigarette time to Tell a buddy to say goodbye to my mom and dad. Then my mom would Call me to dinner and War would be Over until the next Dayi when i would kill More hated japanese and nazis. This was my first Basic training course. My second was catechism class. The nuns taught us that godless communism a sounded like nazism to me a a was the biggest enemy of America and of the Church. The most evil were the chinese communists. The nuns asked Quot what would you do if the communists attacked Long Island Quot i d yell til attack and kill Mem Quot i fantasized about fighting communists at Jones Beach. 4. At 18,1 went into the army to grow up and become a Man. After real Basic training i volunteered for Vietnam. I was told Quot Don t worry you re All going Quot it was Spring 1965.1 was t sure where Vietnam was but i was sure of our Mission fighting communism. I was in the 1st Cav div. President Johnson deployed us on National television on july 28 1965, to help the South vietnamese defend themselves against an invasion from the chinese backed North vietnamese and from an insurgency in the South. It Felt great. A Noble Mission in my life i was going to do what my dad and the other men of world War ii had done save the world. We were 20,000 men and 500 helicopters and we were going to end the War in six months our Landing in South Vietnam was like world War ii front Page news worldwide. When i landed i climbed off the aircraft Carrier Down wet net ladders exactly like my father did when he landed off the coast of Normandy from the ladders i got into a world War ii Landing Craft. My memories and fantasies of the films of world War ii seemed to merge and project on what i was seeing. After being welcomed ashore by Gen. William Westmoreland noticed hordes of Happy children Friendly hard working women extreme poverty Paradis Elike Beauty a and the abandoned garrisons and airstrips of the French. But nothing had prepared me for the experience soon to come. The fishnet full of dead Vietcong suspended from the Hook of a giant helicopter that looked like a praying mantis. The rows and rows of dead americans covered in ponchos. The Grenadine and collapsing of an underground Field Hospital that suffocated its screaming inhabitants to death. The disembowel a chopper Crew Hung upside Down. Learning to patrol from a montagnard who could read the Jungle perfectly because it was his Home not mine. Giving piggyback rides to laughing children. Sex for $4. Eating charcoal with lepers. A year later i was Home i was no hero. I was numb i did a stint As a Drill sergeant at fort Dix . I taught the Bayonet the spirit of which is Quot to  i used to stand on my platform and whip my 200 trainees into a frenzy about killing. But unlike my counterpart in Stanley Kubrick a 1987 film full Metal jacket deep Down i knew i should be teaching classes in How to Deal with death. I did t know anyone in Vietnam who was prepared to handle death. But it was 196& we were winning Eind i did t have the guts to Buck the system. At night i needed plenty of whiskey to help me sleep. I was guilty. I could walk. I was t a big hero. I had t done enough. Id been afraid. I was alive. My dad said to put the War behind me and get on with my life. I sprinted with that College football dating and bumper stickers on my new car a Quot America love it or leave  in the fall of 1967,1 asked Antiwar demonstrators protesting two marines recruiting on Campus to leave them alone. One demonstrator called me a War criminal. I broke his jaw got arrested and was thrown out of the school. I told the judge i was Only defending my Honor. The judge said i was guilty. A court appointed doctor decided the tranquil Izer thorazine was to be my treatment. I Don t remember seeing that in any world War ii movie. If a Man suffers Shell Shock in combat there is still a sense that he a a Coward a lot of world War ii veterans initially reacted to Vietnam veterans that Way. In 19691 was declared Safe stopped thorazine and went Back to College. The War was Stilt going on. I had shoulder length hair wore an earring and read Sartre got involved in the theater because the drama students were the Only people on Campus who would talk to me. They were also the people who had demonstrated against the marines two years before. I made peace with the Guy whose jaw i broke. I spoke out against the War but asked people not to blame the soldiers. They blamed them anyway. I studied acting with Lee Strasberg at his school and at the actors studio and got work in commercials and films. I started to imagine i d never been in the War. But once in a while id slip and mention having been in Vietnam and people would Drift away. Then in 1978,1 saw my first movie about the War coming Home i cried during the Hospital scenes because the actors were All veterans who were paralysed missing legs arms Laryn xes. I d last seen them on my nightmarish medevac flight out of Vietnam. There was a kid in the movie on thorazine. I cheered him on. He committed suicide. Why  the film makers solve his problem i was furious. But then thousands of Vietnam veterans have committed suicide since coming Home according to the veterans administration. Since coming Home there have been at least 15 feature films about Vietnam most have helped americans remember the War and acted As a kind of therapy for Many veterans. As a nation we Are in Many ways still obsessed with the War. I believe this is because of intense moral pain caused by our Tost innocence and All the death and destruction. The Best of the Vietnam films acted on us this Way they awaken our memories forcing us to Deal with our remorse for things we did. But we have not yet had the moral courage As a nation to face up to what has happened to the vietnamese from their perspective of All the movies platoon is to me the Best so far because of the director Oliver Stone s attention to detail. The horrific sequence from the patrol s discovery of the enemy s Tunnel to the murder rape and Burn the Village scene angered me but helped me finally piece together a similar series of events in my mind that culminated in the wasting of an innocent Village. Hamburger Hill full Metal jacket and 64 Charlie topic All followed platoon. In each film a Vietnam Veteran wrote the script directed or both. Unlike the films before platoon these depict Vietnam realistically. Paradoxically they All use the world War ii formula with actor John Wayne during the filming of a the Sands of iwo Jimay in 1949 below a scene from the film Quot full Metal jacket depicting the climactic Battle for Hue in South Vietnam. Garner Bros a new twist americans in the forefront courageously fighting against an evil faceless enemy in a now horribly futile War. Two other movies while not Good at detail have dealt with the War in ways the others did not. Barry levinsons Good morning Vietnam in 1987 showed a vietnamese expressing his anger at America s patronize action while Brian Depalma s casualties of War in 1989 chronicled one soldiers outrage at the rape and murder of an innocent vietnamese. Stone took the next step in bom on the fourth of july when he portrayed Ron Kovic participating in the political system by the film s end even though he does t agree with the Way the system works. In 1981 i was one of the first four Vietnam veterans to go Back to Vietnam. We went in the Hope of facilitating discussions on the Resolution to the 2,500 american soldiers listed As missing in action and we Learned that there Are More than 300,000 vietnamese missing from the War with the United states. We Learned that some 2 million North and South vietnamese died during our War there. We met the amerasian who were lost on the streets at the time we saw the Luna like landscape near the cambodian Border which had been defoliated by agent Orange we met disabled veterans War widows orphans and. Deformed children in desperate need. I went Back again in 1982 and 1986 along with More and More Vietnam veterans who Are returning to build health clinics Clear land mines and help set up Homes for the amerasian. Returning helps to break up the Frozen images of the War and replace them with those of a Small country poor and badly damaged As it is growing Back and Ever so Beautiful i m tired of the War movies. We must Stop re fighting the War. Let s not mythologized Vietnam any further lets not create a new propaganda about our loss ind victimization. Let s move on. In t there a studio in Hollywood today that will Buck the system and make a movie about the vietnamese9 to truly get Over Vietnam and its ghosts we need to go further and show remorse to All the vietnamese we need a movie or movies in which the vietnamese Are in the forefront we still owe them a peace. Thomas Bird 1h� artistic director of the Vietnam veterans Eriser ple theater company m new York produced the play tracers and go prox Lucid dear America tellers Horne e Rorn Vietnam or Hob which receded emmy and Peabody awards. Page 14 a a a the stars and stripes Saturn july 14, 1990 the staffs and stripes Page 15