Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 Academy Award nominated film made by Stanley Kubrick about the Vietnam War. It is based on the novel Short-Timers, by Gustav Hasford and it follows a group of recruits through their basic training and eventual deployment to Vietnam. (Hasford) The movie is divided into two parts: basic training and Vietnam. While this movie is not accurately depicting any one particular person's experiences, it does give an accurate overall portrayal of the U.S. Marine Corp basic training and the experiences of U.S. Marines in general during the Vietnam War.
The film begins with a group of young marine recruits entering basic training at Paris Island South Carolina. Paris Island is the actual Marine Corp training facility for all make enlistees who come from east of the Mississippi. Those from west of the Mississippi go to California for training. Today it is the same for male recruits, while all female recruits, regardless of where they are from, go to Paris Island for basic training. (MCRD) Marine Corp Basic training at the time of the Vietnam War was only eight weeks long, not counting zero week, or the first week of orientation. While today it is nine weeks, ten if you count zero week, back then the Marine Corp Drill Sergeants had only eight-week to get a recruit ready for combat in Vietnam.
Because of the large numbers of men needed to serve in Vietnam, the Marine Corp did not look too closely into the techniques used by Drill Sergeants when it came to preparing the troops. Drill Sergeants were given a great deal of latitude when it came to their training programs, and this is exemplified in the film by the treatment...
Vietnam War Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1995 In Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1995, James S. Olson and Randy Roberts provide a compact history of the war and its resulting aftermath. The authors work to explain one of the most important and difficult issues in war history - the U.S. And its involvement in the Vietnam War. Throughout the years since the war ended, people have said
Vietnam -- Rules of Engagement There are many reasons given for the fact that the United States lost the war in Vietnam, and that America was basically pushed out of the country by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army even though the U.S. had far more firepower. Among the more credible reasons America lost the war was the failure on the part of the political leaders back in Washington
To that end, the northern Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong in the south were looking to actually unify with the southern portion of this country -- which is evinced by the fact that shortly after the end of the war Vietnam was indeed united once again. Although this conception of the significance of the war is primarily political in nature, U.S. military forces could have used a more
South Vietnam, it believed, could be a base for the desired ability to mount military and economic operations throughout the globe and regardless of the insidious presence of communist influence, a premise which stood in direct contrast to Ho Chi Minh's dream. Indeed, as an official policy, leaders in Washington considered that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would be a pathway to the prevalence of communism in other
S. mission in Vietnam. Whenever he had the chance, he restated the nation's moral commitment. His morally-grounded idealistic rhetoric gained him definite advantages. His arguments made him sound tough and pleased those with an equally hard-line position against communism in Southeast Asia. He could also use these arguments to justify and support his policies, such as when Congress threatened to reduce foreign aid. He insisted that foreign aid was an
Minorities tended to live in more impoverished and less urban areas. The Hoa and ethnic Chinese were the exception to the rule however, typically living in more urban areas, and isolated from mainstream Vietnamese culture for some time. However, despite these seemingly unsolvable problems, there is ample evidence suggesting the government has continuously worked to help end discrimination and support a unified front. In recent years policies have been developed
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