Word: mortaring
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Taunted by a Marine drill instructor who called them "weenies" and some names not fit to print, the actors rappelled down a 50-ft. tower and clambered up an 80-ft. cliff. They were scared witless by special-effects mortar blasts, booby traps and "enemy" ambushes. Dinner was cold Army rations slathered with Tabasco sauce. Sleep meant grubbing a two-man foxhole and dozing in fitful two-hour shifts, interrupted by guard duty and gunfire. And that was only prelude. Filming of Platoon commenced only after two intense weeks of slogging in the bush...
Like Oliver Stone, Dye is a decorated Viet Nam veteran. His was among the first units to splash ashore there in 1965. Over the next decade, he saw buddies die at such hot spots as Hue and Foxtrot Ridge, and he was wounded three times by rockets and mortar fire. "We fought a hell of a war," he declares, "and until now, Hollywood didn't give a damn about getting it right...
...minutes later the Soviets and their Afghan Communist allies strike back with 120-mm mortar shells that fall on a ridge to the north, sending up great plumes of smoke and dust. Soon, the well-concealed guerrillas begin to lash Barikot with heavy machine-gun fire. Barrage, counterbarrage -- a typical day in the long and ongoing siege...
...another day dawns in Barikot, the mujahedin resume their attacks, firing at Soviet observation posts and mortar positions across the valley. Soon the enemy is sending a counterbarrage. The mortar rounds fall with an ugly, twisted whistle, and their explosions rattle the whole ridgeline. As one or two rounds land dangerously close, the rebels hurry to take cover...
...takes perhaps an hour to descend the mountainside. The mortar barrage goes on and on, hitting where the rebels have been, or off to one side, or on the trail ahead, but never quite where they are. Finally, as the guerrillas reach the valley floor, the barrage subsides. The men stop to pray in the shade of a grove of trees, by the thistle-covered graves of two slain comrades...