During the Vietnam War, only a third of American troops saw combat. What the hell were the rest of them doing?
Home to the army’s Vietnam headquarters, Long Binh was, in the words of one resident soldier, “a virtual REMF citadel.” The shooting war was far away, and soldiers stationed at the post had plenty of time on their hands. To keep them busy, military authorities provided a full slate of recreational opportunities. As of July 1971, the post boasted 81 basketball courts, 64 volleyball courts, 12 swimming pools, 8 multipurpose courts, 8 softball fields, 6 tennis courts, 5 craft shops, 3 football fields, 3 weight rooms, 3 libraries, 3 service clubs, 2 miniature golf courses, 2 handball-court complexes, a running track, an archery range, a golf driving range, a skeet range, a party area, and an amphitheater for movies and live shows. By 1972, Long Binh Post even had a go-cart track, complete with a starting stand, a public-address system, and a pit for on-the-spot repairs.
Open mess clubs, which served food and alcohol and often featured live entertainment, abounded throughout South Vietnam. At its peak in 1969, Long Binh’s club system had 40 bars with a net worth of $1.2 million, including $270,000 in cash on hand. If soldiers didn’t like club life, Long Binh’s retail stores stocked food and alcohol to host private parties at the pools, barracks, or barbecue pits. An unofficial brothel, a “male beauty bar” with salon services, and outdoor movies rounded out Long Binh’s offerings.
Construction of new recreational facilities on Long Binh Post continued until the end of the war. As late as 1970, more than a year into troop withdrawals from Vietnam, the U.S. Army was still planning to build two 474-seat movie theaters, additional handball courts, two in-ground swimming pools with bathhouses, and a recreational lake. The military scrapped the more expensive construction projects in response to public outrage, but the post’s amenities were still expanding right through the summer of 1971.
Premise: A stoner lieutenant is ordered to build an amusement park for the troops by a couple of soon-to-be-laid-off generals who want to profit from his failure in the final year of the Vietnam war. The lieutenant’s goal is to get everyone stoned.
In the tone of Trading Places or Good Morning Vietnam, a stoner lieutenant wants to be successful in building an Olympic-sized swimming pool for bored troops in record time so that he can avoid being assigned to a combat unit.
Charlie is pulled out of line at the tent where he would be getting his in-country assignment and taken to a meeting with a couple of generals.
The generals explain to Charlie that their job is to keep the bored troops entertained as the withdrawal continues. The generals tell Charlie they are impressed by his resume and want him to be the military boss (military-officer-in-charge) of a private-sector project to build an amusement park for the bored troops.
The Vietnam Builders, VietCorp, Halliburton
After meeting with the generals, Charlie is walking by a shit burning detail (three guys stirring shit and gasoline burning in barrels) who warn him about his assignment: Good is bad and bad is good. Maybe in a rap.
Desperate: Build the amusement park by deadline or be sent to the field; sort of like Apocalypse Now
The Logical Smart One – responsible, stable
The Lovable Loser – sarcastic, optimistic, needy, impulsive
The Neurotic – awkward, nervous, controlling, worried
The Dumb One – friendly, naïve, gullible, no ulterior motive
The Bitch/Bastard – mean, insensitive, insecure, doesn’t apologize
The Womanizer/Manizer (AKA “Slutty Spice”) – charming, seductive, horny, superficial
The Materialistic One – judgmental, entitled, spoiled
In Their Own Universe (AKA “Spacy Spice”) – odd, eccentric, uses illogical logic
Tooth to tail ratio = 33% The other end of the spear.
Inappropriate goal, inappropriate behavior, inappropriate dialogue: Comic hero’s journey.
Comedy helps us live with who we are. Comedy is the art of hope. Comedy gives you permission to win. A comedian admits to being human. You don’t need an antagonist in comedy.
Comedy is about an ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win, yet never giving up hope.
“By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state of approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers, drug ridden and dispirited, where not near-mutinous.” Retired Officer, 1971
Gunga Din (Butch Cassidy cliff scene); Porgy and Bess (stupid courage); Pelle the Conqueror; A Bridge Too Far
There were 30,000 prostitutes in Saigon during the war.
Bridge over the River Kwai theme for pool building.
Reading Stars and Strips – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Involuntary Army
Lifers versus Grunts
Commander moves continuously to avoid fragging
Dueling lifer majors
The Only War We’ve Got
Average Age: 19
Hello Vietnam by Johnny Wright
“Corruption and poor leadership particularly in the Central Highlands,” was specifically mentioned. Butterfield recalls visiting the city of Pleiku early in the year to discover a demoralized army, rationing armaments, and plagued by alarming drug addiction. “Up to 30% of combat soldiers and airmen were addicted to heroin,” he reported.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/blog/2015/04/29/vietnam-40-years/
White Christmas by Bing Crosby
LOGLINE
Having avoided the draft during the Vietnam War but ending up there anyway, a new lieutenant decides to turn his unit’s base camp into an adult amusement park, or die trying.
A stoner lieutenant starts a pot distribution operation during the Vietnam war.
Ran two bars and a brothel.
The Things They Carried
BEAT SHEET
Numbers in parentheses are the approximate page numbers in a 110-page script.
Opening Image (1): We hear a rhythmic, thumping sound as credits roll on a black screen. It’s a bed hitting the wall. Then we see the end of a bed with two naked female knees pointing upward and, in between, two male feet in black leather combat boots with toes pointing downward, off the end of the bed.
Then narration by a news anchor begins abruptly. The man groans unhappily and then pushes himself up on his knees, slips off the end of the bed, his butt toward us, and pulls his olive green khaki combat fatigue pants up as the woman pulls a sheet over herself.
As the narration continues, the screen fills with a television video clip of U.S. soldiers fighting for their lives during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Review Vietnam war movie soundtracks and try to avoid songs used in those movies.
Alice Cooper – I’m Eighteen
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son (used in Forrest Gump)
Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth (used in Forrest Gump)
Country Joe and the Fish – I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag
Set-Up (1-10): A1968 montage. The bloody Tet Offensive signals the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A Pulitzer Prize winning photo showing a South Vietnamese police chief executing a Viet Cong officer sways the U.S. public against the war. Martin Luther King is assassinated and then Robert Kennedy. President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not run for re-election. The total number of Americans “in country” peaks at over 500,000, as U.S. casualties also peak. Repeated assaults by the North Vietnamese Army force the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from the Khe Sanh Combat Base. Arlo Guthrie first performs his anti-war ballad, “Alice’s Restaurant.” Violence explodes at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Women’s liberation groups burn bras. U.S. medalists give the black power salute at the Summer Olympics. Anti-war student rallies and protests sweep college campuses.
Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
Contrast the scary things that are going on in the world with the carefree life on campus.
Charlie runs downstairs and is driven to a Reserve Officer Training Command (ROTC) class by a uniformed friend with another uniformed friend wearing a monocle in the rumble seat of a 1938 Packard. They are booed by students on the way. During the class, the ROTC student commander on full Army scholarship gives Charlie crap about the length of his sideburns and Charlie responds: “Sir, I have low ears, sir.”
Charlie, an innocent 18-year old who is young for his age, is in civilian clothes as he walks his baby pet pig across campus: “What’s its name?” “Fascist Pig.”
As social chairman, Charlie introduces “wine tasting night” on Thursday at his fraternity. The other under-age fraternity brothers love the idea.
One of Charlie’s drunken roommates kicks their door in so Charlie puts on overalls and removes the back door from the old administration building and carries it back to their fraternity through the middle of campus on his back in broad daylight. When installed, the door turns out to be a couple of inches too narrow.
Charlie gets a job helping an older fraternity brother bar tending. Charlie is paid as much beer as he can drink while at work.
Charlie grows weed in his closet. He and his buddies enjoy smoking weed on the beach at night and kicking the sand which throws bioluminescent phytoplankton into the air. He tried mescaline but does not like being kept awake all night.
As fraternity president, Charlie convinces his brothers that the fraternity house should be a co-educational dorm during summer break “to bring in some money during the summer.” He is called in and chastised by the Dean of Students. “But there are other co-educational dorms on campus!” says a hung over proponent of the idea.
Commander Cody – Down to Seeds and Stems Again Blues
Fraternity of Man – Don’t Bogart That Joint My Friend
Charlie gets a job as a snake handler in a lab coat from the weird professor who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment and who is now trying to use hypnotism and exposure therapy to cure people (mostly women) of their fear of snakes. “She told me about shedding her skin like a snake.” “Charlie, have you ever heard of LSD?” “But, they are using nicknames like Dick and Richard for the snake.”
Iron Butterfly – In a Gadda Da Vida
Charlie complains that his ROTC student commander has just announced that he is now a conscientious objector.
Charlie recalls falling in love with his girl, Robin, at first sight when he picks up dates at a nearby women’s college for a mixer for pledge candidates. He also recalls making love with Robin for the first time on a rock in a forest after they both took LSD during a visit to her parent’s home in the summer.
Peter, Paul and Mary – The First Time I Saw Your Face
Theme Stated (5): Edwin Starr’s version of “War” plays on the radio on the drive back to fraternity from ROTC class: “War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”
Catalyst (12): Charlie graduates and receives orders to report to active duty (Army engineering school at Fort Belvoir)
Debate (12-25): Charlie’s angry love, Robin, wants them to immigrate to Canada to avoid his being shipped off to Vietnam. Charlie considers the idea but then decides that he can’t do that.
Peter, Paul and Mary – Leaving On a Jet Plane
Peter, Paul and Mary – Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Charlie reports to engineering school with weed stuffed in his aluminum backpack frame. He smokes it in his barracks closet after dinner in the evenings. The commanding officer of his training company yells in his face while they stand in formation that he knows that someone is smoking weed, but does not know who.
Charlie and his classmates undergo Escape and Evasion training in which they play the roles of prisoners of war. After fleeing across a swamp, they are all caught and brought to a prison compound for interrogation. After having watched the movie Cool Hand Luke the week before, Charlie imprudently smarts off to his captors and they get angry. They lock him in a box in which he can neither stand nor sit. Then one of them drops a tear gas (CS) grenade into the locked box which fills the box and the compound with a burning irritant and uses up all the oxygen in the box. Captain Dick charges in and opens the box before Charlie is killed under his watch. Charlie is then tied to a board and dunked head first into a 55-gallon drum that is filled with water until he almost drowns and is willing to tell his captives anything. Charlie learns not to be a smart ass.
Janis Joplin – Mercedes Benz
Break into Two (25): Charlie receives orders to report to Fort Lewis to be a Platoon Leader of a Basic Training Infantry Platoon. This is bad news because Charlie had joined ROTC to try to avoid being shipped off to Vietnam as an infantryman. He decides to report as ordered which really angers Robin.
A 1969 montage. Nixon is inaugurated as president. In the Battle of Hamburger Hill, US. airborne troops suffer heavy casualties taking a hill of no strategic importance from well-entrenched North Vietnamese Army troops by direct frontal assaults, in what became a watershed event of negative public opinion toward the Vietnam War. The first U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam begin. More than half a million people gather near Woodstock, N.Y., for four days of rain, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six counts of premeditated murder for leading the My Lai Massacre. In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war. The first U.S. draft lottery since World War II is held. Americans land on the moon.
Charlie arrives at Fort Lewis and finds that he is assigned the job of supervising alcoholic/drunk drill sergeants who alternate between being an infantry sergeant in Vietnam one year and being a drill sergeant the next. Even while drunk, however, an experienced drill sergeant picks up and throws a dropped hand grenade (or removes a shell from a jammed rifle) saving Charlie’s life and that of a trainee.
Robin flies up to visit Charlie on the weekends.
Charlie learns about scrounging when he helps his company commander, Captain, find training equipment inventory items the captain signed for when he took over the company, but did not count at the time.
Other draftees beat up hippies after throwing a blanket over each hippy at night. Charlie helps hippies get classified 4-F.
The Vietnam war escalates on TV.
Rolling Stones – Sympathy with the Devil
The Animals – House of the Rising Sun
B Story (30): Against the wishes of her parents, Robin marries Charlie. Robin’s father is a retired Air Force colonel who flew C-123 transport aircraft during his tour in Vietnam spraying the chemical defoliant Agent Orange.
When Charlie’s mother hears they were married by a justice of the peace, she tells them not to let Robin’s parents’ know. Robin and Charlie are married again at her parents’ church. Charlie flies in for the day.
Charlie receives orders to go to Vietnam. Charlie and Robin spend the summer making love in the loft of her grandparents’ cabin. She tries to talk him out of going.
A 1970 montage. President Nixon orders U.S. forces to cross into neutral Cambodia, threatening to widen the Vietnam War, and sparking nationwide riots. Ohio National Guardsmen shoot and kill students and bystanders at a Kent State protest. In Washington, D.C., 100,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam War. President Nixon announces that the U.S. will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas. The U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV, the advisors) reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is established. By 1970, there are over 700 U.S. Phoenix advisers in Vietnam, involved in the identification and “neutralization” (via infiltration, rape, capture, terrorism, torture, and assassination) of suspected members of the Viet Cong.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Ohio
Dixie Chicks – Travelin’ Soldier
Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A.
Fun and Games/The Promise of the Premise (30-55): Charlie reports to Travis Air Force Base and is flown to Vietnam in a full troop carrier. When Charlie arrives in country, he forcefully requests an engineering assignment from a low-level specialist, instead of an infantry assignment, and is granted his request.
Charlie begins his habit of writing a letter to his love every day they are apart. (Use both of them as two voice-over narrators and show the differences between what is happening and what they are reporting.
Charlie arrives at his unit, a province-level advisory team. Charlie is the engineering advisor, assigned to advise a province public works chief who does not want any advice.
Charlie locks his M-16 rifle in a locker for the duration of his stay in Vietnam, as part of his commitment not to commit. His Vietnamese counterpart loans him a 45 caliber pistol with no bullets.
Charlie meets the antagonist, Major Dick, who is second in command (executive officer) of his unit. Charlie also meets Sergeant Mac, the master sergeant assigned to assist Charlie in his military engineering role.
Consider having the enemy extensive tunnel system extend under the unit’s compound with the shadow province government operating “under the noses” of Charlie’s unit. This occurred under a major, neighboring U.S. base at Cu Chi. It took months for the 25th Division to figure out why they kept getting shot at in their tents at night.
To deny the Viet Cong cover and supplies in the nearby infamous Iron Triangle, rice paddies are defoliated, huge swathes of jungle bulldozed, and villages evacuated and razed. The U.S. also continues spraying Agent Orange on the areas aerially and a few months later ignites the tinder-dry vegetation with napalm.
Major Dick notices that Charlie does not get drunk at night and assigns him to be club officer of the unit’s small Officers’ Club and Enlisted Men’s Club. Charlie meets the club officer he is replacing at the home of the head bar maid, with the club officer in a smoking jacket robe, obviously sleeping with her. Charlie learns about people in a war.
A drunk infantry lieutenant threatens Charlie when Charlie attempts to close one of the club’s bars, pressing the muzzle of a 45 caliber pistol into his nose. Charlie delegates closing of the clubs to Sgt Mac.
Charlie make new friends among the other lieutenants and finds out some of them smoke weed, too.
Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit (used in Apocalypse Now)
The Animals – We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Charlie is initially assigned overnight duty in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), a bunker in which an officer is in charge during the night. Charlie is appalled when he learned that sensors had been dropped in the jungle and that when the Vietnamese language was heard, he was supposed to call in a B-52 air strike. He passively resisted against the program, which was called the Dial-a-Dink program, by not hearing any voices. Charlie learns about war.
Charlie is assigned by his boss the job of painting a white line down the middle of the road between the unit’s compound and the province’s offices. He borrows a line painting machine and scrounges some paint. On the day of the job, the machine is accidentally off-loaded from a truck onto a Vietnamese helper who has to be taken to the hospital by Sgt. Mac who warns Charlie to delay the job. By that time, Charlie is suffering from heatstroke and is determined to do it himself. He paint the line and, looking back, sees that the line wanders down the road, instead of being straight. He is mercilessly ribbed by his friends.
Porter Wagner – Green Green Grass of Home
Aretha Franklin – Chain of Fools
The Box Tops – The Letter
Otis Redding – (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Purple Haze
Bobby Bare – Detroit City
Barry McGuire – Eve of Destruction
Donovan – Universal Soldier
The Rolling Stones – Dead Flowers
The U.S. bombs Cambodia, an act Charlie disagrees with. He writes President Nixon and his Congressmen expressing his position. Some responses say the envelopes were empty. Major Dick takes a disliking to Charlie.
With the enemy pushed back into Cambodia and bombed, some of the troops are bored and begin “chasing the dragon,” that is, smoking tar heroin. Charlie’s boss asks him to lead a volunteer project to build a swimming pool for the team to give the troops something to do. Charlie begins construction of swimming pool by stealing equipment and supplies. He even steals a concrete mixing truck to mix the sand, aggregate, and cement he also steals.
Charlie is bored, too. He start climbing to the top of the compound water tower during the lunch siesta time and blowing bubbles on the top of the water tower for fun.
Through Robin, Charlie is contacted by fraternity brothers who he helps get conscientious objector status by writing letters of support.
Charlie’s SUV breaks down and the motor pool can’t fix it. Sgt. Mac and he travel to Saigon with some bolt cutters and steal a jeep for Charlie.
Charlie finds out his previous training company commander, Captain, works in Saigon, consolidating totally bogus soldier housing construction data. Charlie meets Captain in Saigon bar and learns what a lap dance is.
Charlie arranges entertainment for the bored troops. He interviews and hires Vietnamese bands and strippers/hookers. He trades liquor he steals from his bars, by “accidentally breaking bottles,” for lobster tail.
Charlie’s boss asks him to get a number of potholes filled in the road to the Province HQ. His Vietnamese counterpart agrees to supply a truck to transport the asphalt to the project, but the asphalt disappears over and over. Charlie confronts the driver and gives him an ultimatum, at which time the driver backs the truck up to the river and dumps a truckload of asphalt into river. Charlie learns what culture shock is.
A Navy Sea Bee friend asks Charlie if he can obtain some money to hire Vietnamese operators for some of the equipment his friend is using to build market places. Charlie scrounges dollars for Sea Bee friend by obtaining receipts for more money than he actually spends buying local food for the bars. Charlie notices that his translator gets ten percent of each deal as a kickback and learns how corrupt the system is.
Charlie goes out drinking a strong liquor with his Vietnamese counterpart. They play a game which involves spinning a chicken head to see who drinks next. Charlie gets so drunk he begs to be taken home. He learns the chicken head can be pointed at any participant on purpose.
Forward observers are becoming impatient with the lack of combat and report flying upside down and shooting at enemy troops with a pistol. Charlie learns that some people in charge are crazy.
A lieutenant who was drafted out of Stanford business school takes Charlie’s place in the TOC and calls in air strikes. The maids eat his little white puppy.
The USAID person Charlie reports to in his “pacification” duties has the habit of playing a small, portable foot-pumped organ in the Officer’s Club when he gets drunk and boasts he has three wives: one in the U.S., one in the Philippines, and one in Vietnam. Charlie learns that war corrupts.
Road paving U.S. engineer units in the province are directed to pave 25 klicks (kilometers) per day. Charlies notes that some of the pavement is less than an inch thick. Giant potholes form in major roads which are hard to drive around..
The Moody Blues – Nights in White Satin
Midpoint (55): Charlie survives an ambush by the Viet Cong. He meets his wife in Hawaii for R&R (Rest and Recuperation).
A 1971 montage. US Supreme Court rules unanimously that busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation. Five hundred thousand people in Washington, DC and 125,000 in San Francisco march in protest against the Vietnam War. Harris public opinion poll claims that 60 percent of Americans are against the war in Vietnam. The New York Times begins to publish the Pentagon Papers showing the US Government had been lying to the American People. The Voting Age in the United States is lowered to 18 when the 26th Amendment is ratified. The total number of American troops still in Vietnam drops to a record low of 196,700 (the lowest since January 1966).
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising
Bad Guys Close In (55-75): The major U.S. combat unit that Charlie’s unit’s advisors have been working with prepares to leave Vietnam. Charlie is given many M-60 machine guns that are surplus and is even offered an armored personnel carrier. The combat unit scoops long holes in the ground and drive massive equipment into it rather than leaving it behind.
Charlie is ambushed again while monitoring areas sprayed with Agent Orange. Puffs of smoke appear along the tree line and then Charlie hears the “zings” of bullets passing by his head. He beats a quick retreat.
Peter, Paul and Mary – Puff the Magic Dragon
Alone in his jeep, he comes across the skinny bodies of Viet Cong in small piles along the road.
In a letter, Robin encourages Charlie to read The Harrad Experiment about polyamory. That worries him.
John Prine – The Great Compromise
Major Dick assigns Charlie the task of killing the weeds in the minefield surrounding their compound. He uses a pitcher borrowed from the mess hall to dip Agent Orange out of a barrel located next to the unit’s water well into a backpack sprayer. A Vietnamese who knows where all the mines are clears a circle around each mine. Charlie learns that war is absurd.
A night Charlie is Officer of the Guard, the compound gets mortared. He dives under his bunk but then turns on the siren. He is teased by his friends in the bunker for waking everyone up.
One of Robin’s cousin’s husbands returns from Vietnam and explains to Robin that Charlie is probably not being faithful. Robin writes that she unsuccessfully tried to seduce one of Charlie’s best friends at his sister’s wedding, and has gone camping with two guys who are just friends.
Three of the unit’s officers are killed in an ambush near a district-level HQ.
Charlie and his roommates initially sleep in a hooch near the unit administration building but move to another hooch when a rumor is heard that the First Sergeant is going to get fragged.
Charlie hears an old U.S. tank operator bragging about shooting a Vietnamese off his bike for target practice.
Charlie studies for his GRE exam. He decides to become an environmental engineer.
Charlie is almost terminally homesick for his wife. Charlie decides sleeping a lot is the solution to his problem. He tells a friend “If I sleep 12 hours a day, it’s like I’m only in Vietnam for six months instead of 12.”
All Is Lost (75): Charlie’s letters to the President and his Legislators become known.
Charlie is cornered and beaten up by a drunk Major Dick who then collapses in tears grieving for a recently killed comrade.
The Byrds – Eve of Destruction
The Doors – Riders on the Storm
Dark Night of the Soul (75-85): The compound mortared regularly now. Charlie is shot at in a helicopter monitoring defoliated areas while sitting on his helmet.
The Animals – Sky Pilot
Charlie is losing patience with the whole situation and confronts his translator for accepting bribes.
Charlie’s friend receives his orders home and performs a striptease on the Officer’s Club bar.
Charlie expresses anger at his Mom for bragging about his service, which he is not proud of.
The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
Break into Three (85):
Finale (85-110):
Rush to complete project before a general visits.
Rush to complete pool before unit withdraws.
Rush to get friends out of country
Sneak friend (Sgt. Mac) and Miss Kitty out of the country
The Viet Cong start overrunning U.S. positions and winning battles. At one point, the unit’s helipad is full of dead and wounded soldiers laying on the ground.
Charlie rushes to finish the swimming pool and is awarded Bronze Star for helping keep heroin use down and morale up.
Charlie receives his orders and flies back to the Travis Air Force Base in the U.S.
Final Image (110):
Charlie receives Silver Paper Clip Award from his team.
Charlie jump out of bed on first night he sleeps with his wife at Travis.
The Wall with offerings