Word: platoons
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North commanded a patrol platoon. He was "tough but fair," says Herrod, and always a stickler for safety regulations. He insisted, for example, that his men buckle their helmet chin straps, when most soldiers let them dangle free. In combat, North's first instinct was to attack, not hit the dirt. Ernest Tuten, who served under North for five months, says, "He had a philosophy that the best way to survive was to minimize your exposure to hostile fire, and the best way to do that was to assault the enemy...
North's Silver Star owes as much to determination as to bravery. He was leading his platoon near the demilitarized zone when the lead platoon came under heavy fire. North maneuvered his men through the lines and led an assault against the North Vietnamese, "calmly braving the intense fire of the tenacious hostile soldiers," as his citation puts it. After regrouping his men and directing the evacuation of the wounded, he renewed the attack three more times before driving the enemy from the field...
...defend, just their asses; the accompanying music is not Samuel Barber but inane party rock of the '60s like Wooly Bully and Surfin' Bird. In this second section the movie becomes a notebook of anecdotes, always compelling, but rarely propelling the story toward its climax. Unlike Oliver Stone's Platoon, with which it will unfortunately be compared, Kubrick's film does not want to say every last word about Viet Nam. It wants to isolate a time, a place and a disease...
...sniper shoots one, then another, member of Cowboy's platoon. How many of the enemy are inside the building? How many live bodies should Cowboy offer up to fulfill the Marines' tradition of recovering their dead and wounded? How does any officer stanch his men's righteous bloodlust? And what does an honorable soldier do when confronted with a killer's face, as pretty as an M-14, that pleads for mercy killing...
...film lays out Vietnam before the audience in all its scintillating confusion. It does not indulge in the gruesome battles of "Platoon," but it also does not manipulate its audience into feeling terrorized by the silver screen...