Word: platoons
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...funeral and laughing." For a long time, Clark could not joke about Viet Nam. As a second lieutenant in the infantry, he "found war" in 1971, during the 72-day incursion into Laos known as Dewey Canyon II. Of the 35 men who set out with him in his platoon, only eleven returned. Clark later went through the familiar agony of nightmares and flashbacks. "There were times when I was hell to live with," he recalls. "In 1975, when they had all those TV specials on Viet Nam, they would show coffins with flags draped on them. I knew people...
Even before he went to Viet Nam, Robert Muller, 35, knew he stood a good chance of becoming a casualty. At the Marine platoon leaders' class in Quantico, Va., he learned that during World War II, 85% of all company-grade officers in the Corps were killed or wounded. Crippling injury, not death, was what most worried Bobby and his buddies. "I remember saying that if I lost a leg, I would rather be killed. As to the possibility of being paralyzed, well, that was not even open for discussion." Confined to a wheelchair for the rest...
...Saturday Night Live, meet Harold Ramis, John Candy, Joe Flaherty and Dave Thomas of SCTV. Psycho from Taxi Driver, meet martial music from 1941. Tired moviegoer, meet tired moviemakers. And note: Murray, he of the choirboy face and pseudo-hip slouch, is convincing as a soldier who maneuvers his platoon into and out of World War III. Director Ivan Reitman is a canny merchant. He knows that the easy laughs are the surest, that teen-agers love to watch goofballs shape up without losing their shambling style, and that it doesn't hurt business to insert a sorority shower...
...relates his experience in a motivation platoon--"moto," as it was called. "We had to go through this long trench with mucky water, under and over barrels. And you'd better be screaming like a banshee when you come up for air. I had one more barrel to go under and as I dove down I could see an officer pissing into the ditch, just to spite me. I was so psyched I didn't blink an eye, and I broke water yelling as loud as I could...
...almost picture my platoon," says one former lieutenant, "how tall they were, where they were from, what they did-I mean, who cried and who didn't cry." An ex-grunt remembers a godlike feeling: "I could take a life, I could screw a woman, I can beat somebody up and get away with it." Another returns home to join a stickup gang: "It wasn't the money with me. I was doing things for a handshake. I wanted the adrenaline pump...