Why We Fight - Geopolitical Justification and Personal Motivation - Movie Review Example

The Vietnam War, Why we fight: Geopolitical justification and Personal Motivation Introduction In 1965 President Lyndon Baines Johnson committed American combat troops to the war in Vietnam. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 US Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. For American ground troops the war ended in August 1972 when the last troops were withdrawn. Both prior to and following these dates American troops advised and trained the South Vietnamese army and American Navy and Air Force units provided fire support and other assistance. The following brief discussion will focus on the motivation for American involvement on the war on two vastly different levels. First, the various reasons for American involvement that were offered by the Presidents, governments and military leaders of the United States will be enumerated. Then the motivation for the individuals involved in ground combat, the grunts, will be explored through consideration of the movie, Platoon (1986). The director and writer of the movie, Oliver Stone, had fought in Vietnam earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. (“Oliver Stone”) Geo-political and Strategic Reasons The United States was involved in the Vietnam war before American ground troops became directly engaged in combat in 1965. According to Andrew Mark Lawrence American involvement in Vietnam was predicated on Cold War rivalries with both China and the Soviet Union. “As the globe split into rival blocs headed by Washington and Moscow, conflict in Vietnam increasingly appeared to be connected to the worldwide struggle between democratic capitalism and international communism.” (Lawrence, 2008, 5) Two days after assuming the Presidency, Johnson said, “the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination." (Quoted in Karnow, 1983, p. 339) In this context American involvement in the Vietnam war was inspired by the related motives of spreading democracy and stopping the spread of communism. On the most immediate level the precursor of American direct military involvement related to alleged violations of international law in the Tonkin Gulf in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam in 1964. In two separate incidents in August 1964 the USS Maddox reported exchanging fire with North Vietnamese patrol boats while it was conducting surveillance off the coast of Vietnam. Subsequently, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that permitted the President to use military force to “assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance to defense of its freedom.” (“Tonkin Gulf Resolution”, 1964) The Tonkin Gulf incident and the “Tonkin Gulf Resolution” were the immediate pretexts for American involvement in Vietnam. Therefore, in the broadest senses the American involvement in Vietnam sprang from a desire to halt the spread of communism and to protect any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance to defense of its freedom. In this sense, American involvement in the Vietnam War was a logical policy designed to advance the national interests of the country. Personal Motivation Chris Taylor the central character in Platoon is not a draftee. He is in Vietnam by choice. This is not to suggest that he understands the consequence of his choice. However, thematically, it is essential to realize that Chris Taylor has chosen to make the ‘journey ‘ to Vietnam. He is in Vietnam for his own reasons. One of them is a desire to do what is being demanded of other members of his generation when they are drafted. In this sense one can say that he is their out of a sense of social obligation. On another very personal level Taylor is in Vietnam because he is curious. Curious about the nature of combat. Further, he is in large measure a characterization of Stone himself who served in Vietnam as a combat infantryman. That service in Vietnam is an intensely personal journey of self-awareness, an internal journey is made apparent throughout the film. The framing scene is the new reinforcements arriving in Vietnam. Immediately they are in battle – successively tramping through the jungle, setting up a fire base, and out on an ambush. Combat is the entire point of the journey: It is the destination and Taylor passes the first test of a combat soldier. He stays awake through a night ambush. Most importantly, Taylor receives a minor wound. When he returns to the platoon he is officially re-introduced as a member of the group: “This ain’t Taylor. Taylor bin shot. This here Chris; he bin resurrected.” He has been reborn as a member of the group, of the fraternity of combat troops. He is no longer a characteristic or anonymous piece of “fresh meat” he is an individual, a comrade, and a man who has passed his first firefight. Taylor was the anonymous soldier at the bottom of the military hierarchy. Chris is a member of a small band of brothers. His comrades in arms are infinitely more important to him than strategy and political reasons for the war. His metamorphosis from Taylor to Chris establishes that the grunts in the film fight for themselves and one another, their platoon, not for any grand designs. In similar fashion the film climaxes with Chris Taylor’s ultimate combat experience as the Viet Cong overrun his unit during a night attack. Again, he survives both physically and emotionally. Another platoon member, O’Neill, survives, but only by hiding and one other dazed ‘grunt’ emerges from a bunker. Taylor alone fought, and survived. He survived by momentarily lapsing into a berserk rage but he survived. And like metal that is heat-treated he has been tempered by the experience. His heart has not been hardened or permanently made cynical, but he has stared into the abyss and he has returned. Early in the film, waiting for his first firefight Taylor writes home (and speaks in voice over): “Maybe I’ve finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again. Be something I can be proud of without having to fake it…See something I don’t yet see or learn something I don’t yet know.” Importantly, as the film concludes Taylor asserts that this has been the case: “We did not fight the enemy we fought ourselves and the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now but it will always be there…. Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life.” In these terms the ending of the film is optimistic: Not only has Taylor survived his tour of duty, he has won the battle waged within him between good and evil. He leaves Vietnam a more mature and better man than he was when he arrived. He leaves with “an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life.” The personification of good in the film, Elias, may have died but good did not expire with him. Chris Taylor went to Vietnam for intensely personal reasons not to spread democracy or stop the spread of communism. Furthermore, once he was there he fought for personal reasons. Loyalty to the small in-group that he belonged to, the platoon. The grand causes, geo-political factors and military strategy that are traditionally advanced to explain the war are absent from the relationships that sustain the members of the platoon. In fact, the only time they enter the characters minds is when they discuss the war cynically as an attempt to build those grand illusions on the backs of the powerless, the poor and minorities. In Platoon the individual members of the platoon are involved in an internal moral struggle between good, personified by Sergeant Elias, and evil, personified by Sergeant Barnes. Conclusions In Platoon the geo-political ambiguity of the war and its tactical savagery is not glossed over one bit. However, thematically it focuses on the coming of age, or the dawning self-awareness of Chris Taylor on an individual level not the moral morass of the larger issues of warfare in general and Vietnam in particular. These geo-political issues also take a backseat to the dynamics of the platoon and the loyalty that the troops feel to one another. In Platoon the war is experienced personally not politically. Moreover, the internal personal struggle is, ultimately, between good and evil. These diverges, indeed is diametrically opposed, to the issues that politicians and military strategists used to justify the war. It is also a presentation of the motives for combat that differs from those that are traditionally debated by historians. References Platoon (1986) dir. Oliver Stone. Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker. Academy Awards: (4) Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Sound. Internet Movie Database. “Oliver Stone”. Accessed November 31, 2010, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000231/bio. Internet Movie Database. “Platoon”. Accessed November 31, 2010, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. (New York: Penguin Books, 1983). Lawrence, Mark Andrew. The Vietnam War: A Concise International History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. “Tonkin Gulf Resolution”. (1964). Accessed November 31, 2010, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc_large_image.php?flash=true&doc=98. Read More