"Okay, let's go!" "Cut us loose!" "Let's go!" "Well... damn me if this isn't the sorriest display of soldiering" "I've seen since boot camp." "Put your hands up!" "Specialist 4 Percell missed identifying a sentry in his sector." "And you see the consequences." "But do you know why?" "Because your whole damn team was moving like a bunch of turistas with the Tijuana two-step!" "All speed's going to get you men is a bunch of posthumous medals." "This mission is about stealth." "And surprise!" "Now, I wasn't brought in here to waste anyone's time." "So, ladies, we're gonna do it again." "Take all men." "Let's go!" "We're going to stick at this until you get it right or you drop dead from trying." "Go back to the A position." "Wait up." "General." "Sir?" "How are you, son?" "Oh, we stunk today." "I stunk today." "I screwed it all to hell." "That time, but what about the other four?" "Yeah, and I get the feeling we ain't through yet." "I can't take much more of this." "So we better get it together and start acting like a team." "That's right, man." "We all blew it." "Might as well tell the NVA to stay home." "Get Sergeant Richland to kill us." "Yeah, and the Army doesn't have enough choppers?" "We got to start stealing some from the NVA?" "Oh, man." "Here we go again." "If you ladies are done fixing your hair," "I want you on the demolition range!" "Now!" "I'm very proud of you, Myron." "I always knew you'd be an elite soldier." "Thank you, sir." "Too bad about your Colonel Brewster." "He was a fine man." "Knew him in Korea." "Best commander I ever had." "Well, have you given any thought to getting out of the field?" "You're dying, aren't you?" "How long have you got?" "Two months." "Three, at the outside." "Why the hell didn't you tell me before?" "When it was just lung cancer, we thought I could beat it." "Did a pretty good job." "I was in remission..." "And you're still smoking." "It doesn't matter." "It's oat-cell carcinoma now." "A runaway train." "And that's it?" "Nothing they can do?" "No, so let's not waste any time." "I got a lot of work ahead." "Insurance, property transfers..." "Forgive me for being stunned." "Don't start with me, Myron." "You walk in here, and you tell me that you're dying, and I am supposed to stand here like a statue for an audience?" "Control your emotions." "Oh, great..." ""Control your emotions."" "So you're gonna die just like you lived." "I'm a little tired." "I think I'll rest for a while." "See you at mess, 1800 hours." "Twenty more days, Marvin, and we don't have to worry about Richland." "Hey, come on." "How are we ever going to forget this place?" "You ain't going to forget this place, Johnson." "This is the type of place that forges character." "Come on, didi, didi, didi." "So, what are you going to do, Marvin?" "I mean, what are you really going to do, brother?" "I don't know, man." "It's like part of me wants to stay here, and part of me really wants all of us to go back home right now." "It's weird, but I'm comfortable here." "I..." "I don't even know what I'd do back in the world." "Sounds like lifer talk, Johnson." "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" "My sensors tell me this is the place." "Whoa." "Hi, boys." "Private party." "Hey, we just want a beer." "Anywhere else in town." "This bar is bought and paid for." "Yeah, well, I don't see no brothers in there." "Yeah, no hermanos, either." "You pick up the tab, you make up the guest list." "Oh, so this is some new rule?" "Hold it." "It's all right." "Let me ask you a question:" "Are you familiar with Article 342 of the military code?" "No, I'm not." "Well, it states that no matter how big you are, any three minority soldiers can kick your ass." "Gumby." "Puppet like Gumby." "Forget it, man." "We'll go someplace else." "You like the way I handled that?" "Did you see that angel?" "So where are we going?" "What about your friends?" "Hey, if your skin ain't good enough, mine ain't either." "Right on." "Right on." "Hey, Jackson." "Jackson, hey, hey." "Put on these gloves." "You cut your hand," "I'm going to have to write a letter home to your mom." "Okay, sarge." "Hey." "Trying to stare down the jungle here, or what?" "Just thinking." "Oh." "Army don't pay you for that." "You ever play any sports, sarge?" "Yeah, I do." "Little baseball, little boxing." "I played football." "Could have been a pro if I was bigger." "Faster, stronger, better balance." "You know, I fractured my ankle my senior year." "They told me I was out for the season, but I, uh... worked hard, pushed it." "Suited up for homecoming." "Yeah?" "How'd you do?" "Two minutes to go, got the ball on the halfback option, rolled out to the left, blocking was great." "The end came wide open." "I guess I was a little worried about my ankle." "Anyway, I..." "I was afraid to plant my foot, so I kind of threw that ball falling away." "Linebacker caught it." "Ran right past me for a touchdown." "We lost that game." "Well, those things do happen." "But I don't think you'd have gone out there if you didn't think you were ready." "That's my point, sarge." "How can you really tell?" "I'm nervous." "Percell, I am nervous every time I go out there." "You're just going to have to lean on the guys around you." "Maybe..." "Maybe I'm pushing the rehab." "I don't know anything about all that." "What I do know is if you get the ball, you're going to have to throw it." "So you plant that foot." "Would you guys just drop it and let's go eat already?" "All I'm saying, Johnson, is a big guy like that gets in your face, you got to tough it out." "I just got better things to do with my time than fight." "Oh, you mean we ain't in a war?" "That ain't what I mean, man, and you know it." "Listen up, Johnson." "Tupelo ain't going to be like you remember it." "You were a kid, man." "And America weren't shooting their own in the streets, and they shoot mostly black Americans." "That Uncle Tom crap ain't gonna cut it." "Look, Uncle Tom ain't got nothing to do with it, but a black man don't always have to make a fist just to get what he wants." "It depends on what he wants." "Look, Thurgood Marshall didn't have to make a fist to get on the Supreme Court." "O.J. Simpson didn't make a fist to win the Heisman Trophy." "Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson..." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, nigga." "That's five out of 20 million." "And one of them can run the 100 in 9.4." "All right, you know so much, how do you say the rest of us get what we want?" "I say we take it!" "Take it?" "That's right, we take it!" "Ain't that right, Ru?" "Ru?" "Ru?" "Johnson?" "You know, if my mom knew that I was seeing a Mexican..." "You?" "If my dad found out" "I was seeing a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, he would fly over here and shoot us both." "Immediately." "Immediately?" "Yeah, I'm not kidding." "I can't wait to meet him." "Well, they're not as good as quesadillas, but..." "You like quesadillas?" "I cook great quesadillas." "You cook?" "Yeah." "My mom taught me when I was a little girl." "She worked a lot, so I had to do the cooking." "I bet she's proud of you." "Yeah, well, she thinks I should be married." "I think you'd make a great wife." "But that's not what I want right now." "Oh, you want Vietnam instead?" "No, I wanted college, nursing school, but I couldn't afford it." "After graduation, one day I looked at my mom's face, and I saw my future." "I said "Whoa, let me get out of here fast."" "And, uh, so, I went down and I... joined the Army." "It was the first time I was out of Brownsville in my life." "You're crazy." "But you got a lot of guts." "How about you?" "What are you doing here?" "The president sent me." "Actually, I thought the food was pretty good." "I'm just not hungry these days." "The only thing worse than Army food was my mother's cooking." "That's not why I married her." "It's just..." "I was away so often, and we both changed so much, but in the beginning..." "Well, why didn't you just do everybody a favor, get a divorce?" "I tried when you were five years old, but she fought me on it, so we reached an agreement." "Stay together for the kid?" "The illusion of a perfect marriage was important to your mother." "Well, that gave you the best of both worlds, didn't it?" "I was always faithful to my vows." "All that time overseas?" "Give me a break." "I wasn't the one who had an affair!" "You're a liar." "If you weren't my father..." "With Lieutenant Goldman on a three-day pass," "Lieutenant McKay, you are the senior officer in charge." "However, since field maneuvers are not your specialty," "I strongly suggest you allow Sergeant Anderson to lead the mission." "Understood, major." "All right, gentlemen," "S-2's got a pretty good idea where this NVA chopper's based." "It looks like a Russian-made KA-15." "And it's spotting our cross-border insertions." "So we're going to take it out?" "Or fly it back, your call." "Now, due to the terrain, we're going to work on your arrival technique." "I'd just like to go on record as saying" "I did not come to Vietnam for this." "Noted, private." "On rappel!" "Oh!" "Hey, doc, what happened?" "I was falling!" "Well, now, that's the whole idea." "Get going." "I'm coming down." "Wait till you're coming out of a ship." "What a charge!" "All right, people, let's go!" "Now, if you have to tear it apart, try not to touch the electronic sensor equipment." "That's what makes that bird really special." "Piece of cake, Winslow." "I tell you," "I'm going to be in and out of there before you know it." "No one's ever flown a Russki op, McKay." "This will go a long way to clearing up your record." "My record?" "Yours makes mine look like a religious document." "Well, if you do screw up," "I'll be there to pull your rumps out of the fire." "Fifty bucks says I don't need you." "Fifty bucks says you do." "You're on!" "Come." "LT." "Hey, sergeant." "How's the mission prep going?" "Well, it'll be nice to see some real NVA for a change." "This Richland guy, he's tough." "Yeah." "Wish you were going with us." "Well, believe it or not, so do I." "I heard about the general." "Sorry, LT." "Well, it's kind of out of the blue." "That doesn't make it any easier." "Yeah, well, this one was never going to be easy." "Anything I can do?" "Yeah." "You bring everybody back." "Consider it done." "Sergeant." "Good luck." "Luck ain't got nothing to do with it." "You know that." "Hey, Percell." "So, Johnson, what are you going to do, become mayor of Mississippi?" "Hey, look, I don't have to be governor, but you know what?" "Maybe I can work for him, huh?" "Yeah, doing what, Johnson?" "His gardening?" "No way, Ru." "This here nigger don't pick no cotton, no more." "Where'd this come from all of a sudden, Johnson?" "I wouldn't say it's all of a sudden, Percell." "I'm just starting to see the world through better eyes." "You mean with blinders." "Hey, Marcus, look, they already killed Kennedy and King, got the whole country rioting." "Now, the Army ignores Phu Nhuan and then gets rid of Brewster?" "This war's just going on for ever and ever." "So, what's your point?" "See, that's what I mean." "See, maybe there ain't no point to us being here, and changes need to be made back in the world." "Oh." "And I guess the sharecropper's son is just the boy to do it." "Look, I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but the government's willing to give me" "$130 a month just to go to college." "If I decide to go back to the world," "I might just take that." "Make something of myself." "Yeah, you do that, Johnson." "And I'm going to make something of Susanna Lozada." "Who's that?" "Some surgical assistant WAC Ru met in Saigon." "We hump tomorrow." "That means I got one more night to pursue and conquer." "Hey, Ru, maybe I should come along and give you a hand with that." "I don't need no help, brother." "I'm on automatic pilot." "A heat-seeker, armed and deadly." "Oh, man." "Slow down, slow down." "Watch it." "I got a license." "I know." "I remember when you took your driver's test." "Oh, yeah?" "Well, your mother told me." "Yeah, I can even tell you what you were wearing." "Maybe, but you still weren't there." "We had a president who felt I should be somewhere else." "Oh." "Well, how did he feel on my bar mitzvah?" "Look, Myron, anything I could say to you now is going to ring kind of hollow, but believe me, at the time," "I had very good reasons." "Well, I didn't think so." "I just thought you didn't like me." "Well, that's silly." "No, it's not." "It's the way I felt, and don't dump on my feelings just because you don't understand them." "If you're going to kvetch at me for the next 48 hours, maybe you should turn this thing around and go back." "Okay, I'm sorry." "I just thought I'd let you know how I felt." "Maybe I can keep you from making some of the same mistakes that I did." "Don't worry." "I'm nothing like you." "You don't even know." "You look wonderful tonight." "Thank you." "You told me." "You're welcome." "So how was your morning?" "In the operating room?" "I didn't know what I was getting myself into, coming over here." "Those boys... there are pieces of them everywhere." "Yeah, I..." "I heard that 750 Evac gets all the bad ones." "After a while, they stop being soldiers." "You look at them, and they've just become things." "I'm so afraid that someone I know is gonna come into the OR." "I don't know what I would do." "I have these dreams about it sometimes." "You're lucky." "Dreams are the first things people lose when they come over here." "I am so glad that I met you, Susanna." "Me too." "Spend the night with me?" "What?" "We both fear the same things." "Now is what matters." "This is a place where..." "Where you don't think too much about tomorrow." "Tu eres un desgraciado." "I'm telling you my feelings, and you're trying to use them to get me into bed!" "No." "You expect me to sleep with you because you buy me dinner?" "No, but what's wrong with being attracted, Susanna?" "It's the natural order." "You're just like every other cabrón" "I've ever met." "Well, maybe I'm proud of being a man with normal, healthy desires." "Well, I hope you have a healthy appetite too!" "Susanna!" "They must want this Russian chopper pretty bad to be training us this hard." "If we pull this off, we ought to get two weeks in Hong Kong." "No, no, no." "Put mine on the back end of my tour." "Johnson, it sounds like you pretty much made up your mind." "Well, not yet." "Just thinking." "Well, while you're thinking, think about this." "You're going to be going back to a place where people are going to be calling you "boy,"" "and "baby-killer."" "A soldier in a peacenik's world." "Yeah, how about a black man in a white man's world?" "Yeah, well, we all got places we're trying to fit into, Johnson." "You want to talk about not fitting in, let's talk about doc." "Come on, doc's all right." "I ain't saying he ain't all right, but we got eight guys out there dropping hot, and he won't carry a weapon?" "That kind of screws up with the odds." "Why don't you cut him some slack?" "You've seen him in action." "The man's willing to die for you." "Yeah, well, I want somebody that's willing to kill for me." "Well, I can tell you one thing:" "War was a heck of a lot simpler in those days." "The enemy was the enemy, and you stayed on different sides of the line." "No fraternizing with people who might be trying to kill you." "Yeah, well, the Army's sending a lot of mixed signals these days." "Yeah?" "You sound disillusioned." "No, I care." "Don't marry the Army, Myron." "Yeah, I know, I know." "But for what it's worth, my recommendation is keep your career in perspective." "Find yourself a nice wife, have a family, because you can have both." "You can be both." "Well, then you tell me why your career always came first." "I don't know." "Maybe it was just something I understood." "Something I was comfortable with." "No matter how bad it got, at least you always had a chance." "You could outthink the enemy, outmaneuver him, outgun him." "Hell, you could even outrun him if you had to." "I thought you never ran as a soldier." "Soldiering never scared me like having a family did." "So here we are." "Show me something I've never seen before." "All right, we're dead center." "We'll recon all quadrants from this point." "There's two sensors close." "Close only counts in horseshoes." "And dancing." "And hand grenades." "Knock it off." "Let's go." "Hit the dirt!" "Take cover!" "Sergeant, I think we should definitely check out this quadrant first." "Hi." "Thanks." ""Querida Susanna."" "I didn't want to leave without writing you this note." "I'm sorry for the things I said last night." "I was raised a certain way, and it's hard to change sometimes, even when you know you should." "As a soldier, I was taught to conquer an objective." "Perhaps that is not the best way to go out with a lady." "I can only hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me." ""Tu amigo, Alberto."" "He's hemorrhaging, Lozada." "Get back in here!" "About 300 meters around, left side." "About 700 meters around on the right side." "Okay, that's settled, then." "We go left." "Shortest way around wins it." "Excuse me, sir." "That'd be a mistake, now." "Shortest route isn't the best route." "Look here." "Sergeant, we're deep in Cambodia." "Yes, sir." "They don't expect us, and they don't booby-trap their own turf." "Yes, sir, but there will be sentries around that chopper." "Sergeant, I know the master sergeant said go slow, but I don't want to lose a chance at this bird." "I mean, what if they take off?" "We'll track it down again, sir." "No, we got to go around left." "Sir, I strongly advise we don't..." "I know, sergeant, but I'm pulling rank." "Yes, sir." "What are you doing?" "I'm giving the lieutenant every opportunity to give the appropriate order." "Okay, Sergeant Anderson, what would you suggest we do?" "What did you say to him?" "Nothing." "I said the coast is clear." "There is a whole lot of stuff floating here in this swamp we don't have cures for yet." "Tough, Hockenbury." "This is the least likely approach to the area, so it's the least likely to be guarded." "Just keep pumping." "My favorite day... with you?" "Do you have any?" "Yup." "Labor Day." "I was 12 years old, and you were shipping out for Japan the next day, and you took me miniature golfing." "Do you remember that?" "We played 18 holes, and you beat me on the last shot." "But then you said," ""You still think you can take me?"" "And I said, "Yes, sir."" "So we played another 18 holes." "Who won?" "I did." "Last shot, last hole." "And you know why I remember that day?" "'Cause there were so few of them." "For that day, you were my dad." "But then we got back to the car, and you started giving orders about what to do when you were gone." "You were always the damn general." "Myron, you have a knack for remembering things only from one side." "I could say the same." "At least I've tried to understand your point of view." "What about my mother's?" "Did you ever think she didn't give a damn about your career, or your Medal of Honor?" "How dare you?" "Did you ever even consider her point of view the night that she killed herself?" "I've accepted my responsibility for my part in your mother's life and her death." "Well, what about my life?" "I always tried to treat you with respect." "You popped me." "You were hysterical." "My mother was dead." "And you blamed me!" "That's right." "I blamed you, and I blamed myself." "We were both feeling the same things, and we should have been feeling them together, but you just stood there and gave orders, like always." "When you hit me back..." "I knew I'd lost my whole family." "Oh, no." "You lost us years before that." "You just weren't paying enough attention to know it." "This sucks." "They're all up and down the river." "Yeah, they kept a perfect relief schedule all night." "Why don't we just pop them, sergeant?" "Too risky from this distance." "We lay here another 24 hours and look for a weakness." "That's all we can do." "Aw, man..." "One of my favorite parts is going to sleep." "What's wrong with you?" "You used to like these little field trips, man." "Ain't nothing changed." "Sarge." "Yeah?" "I can take him out." "All right." "See you on the other side." "What's he doing?" "That's it." "All right, let's go." "About twice as many of them as we thought." "Okay, sergeant, what do you think?" "I say we go for it." "All right, just like practice, only better." "Ruiz, Percell," "Johnson, you clear the quadrants, lay claymores as you go." "Burke, Taylor, lieutenant, you mind this approach here." "This is our way out." "Doc... you keep your eyes open, now." "You're our back door." "Five minutes after roto-turn, we rendezvous at PZ Delta." "If you miss your ride, gentlemen, you're on your own, escape and evasion." "So don't miss the bus." "Let's do it." "Excuse me, Major Duncan." "Have you seen the general?" "He came back at 0630." "He took his bags into your hooch." "Thank you, sir." "Okay, you guys set?" "Taylor, off over here." "Burke, off over here." "Come on, Burke." "Sing for me, baby, come on." "Come on." "No!" "What the hell's going on there, lieutenant?" "Come on, LT, crank it!" "Broken oil line!" "No good." "We got to get out of here!" "Give me a chance!" "Come on, they'll hear the claymores!" "Hurry up and get him out of here!" "Burke, get out of there, I'm going to blow it!" "Go, go, go, go, go!" "Okay, Flytrap is sprung." "Move into PZ Romeo." "See your smoke, Flytrap." "Coming in." "Heavy contact." "Sierra-Sierra-Whiskey on the clearing." "We could use some help." "Roger." "We'll cover you as close as we can." "I'm hit!" "Get up, let's go, let's go, let's go." "Move, move, move!" "Go!" "Go!" ""If we should fail?" "We fail." ""But screw thy courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail."" "Shakespeare." ""I am what I am."" "Popeye." "Bank books, self-explanatory." "Military pension, life insurance, property deeds." "The lawyer will handle the transfers." "Uh... safety-deposit key." "Copy of my will." "Sir?" "I don't want any of this." "I'd like you to come home on compassionate leave, when..." "I used to think about you every night." "I was sure you knew." "Some nights I did." "The world is yours for the asking, Myron." "All you have to do is be man enough to stare it right in the eye." "In retrospect... on some occasions... both your mother and I flinched." "That's your Medal of Honor." "These things..." "represent the man I was." "This represents the man I wanted to be." "I love you, son." "How's the arm, doc?" "Fine, just a graze." "There's something I gotta tell you." "Taylor, I've been thinking about this a long time..." "All right, everybody, First Lieutenant John J. McKay has an announcement to make here." "Gentlemen... it's a pleasure traveling in your company." "This bar tab picks up your bar tab." "That means go, go, go!" "All right!" "Sarge!" "Sarge, look!" "She wrote me back." "You believe that?" "Ru." "Ru!" "Guys, come on." "Guys." "Why you all excited, Ru?" "It's just a stupid letter." "Well, guys..." "I made up my mind." "I'm going home."