"Right on!" "I got a care package!" "It is about time!" "Listen up!" "Mail call!" "All y'all ready to defend democracy this morning?" "Whole state of Mississipi's sleeping better because they know we're beating up on the dinks." "We ought to be defending the chastity of American womanhood." "I ain't fighting for that." "All right, everybody just relax, now." "We got one little patrol this morning, then we got passes to go into the ville." "Yay!" "Woo!" "That's what I like to hear!" "Give me that purple one." "I know that's for me." "Ooh, she's still using that horrible perfume, Marcus." "Do you mind, Horn?" "You got more rabbit-pill cookies." "Chocolate chip cookies, Ru, and stay away from them." "Damn." "Wanda says she don't love me anymore." "That don't mean nothing." "You were close, too, huh?" "Yeah." "That don't mean nothing." "I still got Iris, Sheena, and Doretta on the string." "Let's see what Marlene got to say." ""Dear Marc." I like that." "Let me see. "Dear Marc"," ""I was sorry to hear about your being wounded."" ""You're such a brave man,"" ""risking your life to save your friends."" ""I've been watching television every night,"" ""hoping to see the ceremony you told me about"" ""where the general gives you the medal for bravery...?"" "Medal for bravery?" "Can I have my letter?" "Do you mind?" "Ain't nothing sacred around here no more?" "I guess not!" "What are you laughing at?" "A medal for bravery!" "Hey, hey, hey, look at this." "Sergeant Clayton Z. Anderson." "Who's that?" "It's the sarge." "Who do you think?" "Whoa, he never gets any mail." "He ain't got no family." "That's why." "He had a wife and a baby daughter, but they split." "Is that really from them?" "Damn, he's going to be happy to get that." "We'll find out." "Yeah, we will." "Here, Baker." "Hey, sarge, there's one here for you." "One what?" "A letter, and it looks like it's from your wife." "Dear Zeke, I know it's been a long time, but I just wanted to let you know how Katy is doing." "She's a healthy little girl who eats like a horse and looks like an angel." "She just had her third birthday." "She's growing up so fast, Zeke." "Before I know it, she'll be going out on dates." "We moved back to Chapel Hill last summer." "We're living at my mom's again." "Not the greatest, but it'll do for now." "Zeke, Katy's asking questions about her daddy." "I know she's still very young, but something from you would mean so much to her down the road." "Please, if you can, write to her." "Love..." "Anderson!" "The war's waiting on you." "And roger, Foxtrot." "Echo Tango Alpha, one minute." "All right, Bluebird, copy." "We need your position." "Eagle One." "Eagle One." "This is Eagle Three." "Request your location." "Over." "No, no, negative." "Negative." "You have to be looking to your Sierra, over." "There's something out there, LT." "Looks pretty clear to me." "Horn, turn down that radio." "Can you hear that?" "I don't hear a thing." "Wait till the wind dies down." "There's something out there in that treeline, LT." "Could be that ARVN platoon." "There's only one way to find out." "Horn." "Bravo Six, this is Bravo Two Six." "Over." "This is Bravo Six." "Go ahead." "Six, I've got a possible contact to my November." "Do you have any friendlies in our sector, over?" "Negative, Two Six." "You've got no friendlies in your area." "Keep tracking." "Two Six, Roger out." "Let's move." "LT, I think we ought to go around." "Sergeant, we're on a schedule." "We're going to move straight across." "No." "I'll check it out first." "Incoming!" "Mortars!" "Get out!" "Mortars!" "They're walking in on us!" "Spread out!" "Spread out!" "Don't bunch up!" "Spread out!" "They stopped!" "Lieutenant, the sarge!" "Where's the sarge?" "Sarge!" "Turn him over." "Anderson?" "Sergeant?" "Sergeant?" "He's not wounded." "He's just knocked out." "Come on, get him up." "We got to get him out of here." "Get him up." "Aah!" "Sarge, are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm all right!" "I'm all right." "I'm all right." "Woo." "Woo!" "All right, we're wide open here." "Come on, let's move out." "Okay, y'all go on." "We'll catch up." "Come on, sarge." "We can't let anything happen to you." "We got a date back in town." "You're a real lucky man, Caldwell, you know that?" "You pulled a free trip to the mysterious Orient." "Got assigned to a strack outfit like this." "Yeah, it's a trip, all right." "Yeah." "Well, now you've been a warmonger three full days, Caldwell." "You got any questions?" "Yeah." "Is it always this hot?" "No, Caldwell." "This is very unusual." "Yeah." "Very unusual." "You know, it's usually a real refreshing 72 degrees here, Caldwell." "So, what do you guys do, you know, with your free time?" "On our free time, Caldwell, we improve our minds." "Yeah." "Like tonight, we all got passes to go into the ville." "Ah." "What do you do there?" "Caldwell... we improve our spiritual being." "It's a profound experience, man." "You got to do it." "Damn straight." "I tell you what, Caldwell." "Get yourself dressed, and it'll be our pleasure to show you around." "Well, all right." "Okay." "All right, Caldwell!" "All right, Caldwell!" "Caldwell!" "Caldwell!" "Caldwell!" "Caldwell, you... idiot." "Fresh fatigues, clean socks, shoes that damn near fit, and a payday, too." "Have mercy." "Caldwell, I'm gonna spend every dime of this money on cold beer and warm women." "You with me?" "I'm with you, sir." "That's good, Caldwell." "Here's our limo." "Go ahead." "Hey, Taylor, man, I got that tall girl, what's her name again?" "That's her." "Wham blam cling bong bam." "Coming, sarge?" "You coming?" "Uh... no." "Uh-uh." "I got to get this brush cut down." "I got to get the fields of fire cleared off here." "Sarge, what you need is some time away from this pile of stink." "Yeah, you're right, Percell." "It's just the CO's got laborers coming in, and I got to look after 'em." "Hold that truck, sergeant." "What?" "What?" "I said hold that truck." "LT, I don't need these guys now for the work detail." "We've got it all together." "I'm sorry, guys." "All passes are cancelled." "Hey, how about it, man?" "We've been humping 30 straight days without a break." "They're right." "The men are beat." "They need a break." "I just got the order from Battalion." "We're going to a hot spot in the Dong Ho." "The Dong Ho valley?" "What are you talking about, LT?" "Charlie owns that valley." "We're going to need a week's supplies and all the bang we can carry." "The men aren't up to that, LT." "You get Battalion to send somebody else." "Just get the men ready." "We got a few hours." "We all set?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "Pretty much." "Is there a problem, sergeant?" "Yeah." "Yes, sir." "Well, what is it?" "The Dong Ho valley." "I was up there with my last unit, the 11th Cav." "Good." "Then you know your way around." "We had three companies and almost a full battalion of ARVN." "They hurt us bad, LT" "God, they butchered us." "I've never seen anything like it in my life." "And now... now we're going back up there with just a squad..." "Wait." "Let me show you something." "Now, there's going to be major bombing raids up north this week." "Command knows from experience some of those planes are going to go down." "What's that got to do with us?" "Well, just calm down, and I'll tell you." "Now, we're part of an operation called Silver Crown." "There's flight corridors right through here." "Now, if one of those pilots gets in trouble and has to bail out, he's going to work his way to one of these coordinates." "Our job's going to be to go in there and get them the hell out of there before the dinks get ahold of them." "What?" "Are you crazy?" "That whole valley's swarming with NVA." "Sergeant, we have got the mission." "Now, these men have saved a lot of American lives." "We go back in the Dong Ho valley with one squad and no air support, no support at all, we are dead men." "138 of us out of three companies and a whole battalion came out of there alive last time." "Half the bodies weren't even accounted for." "You know what that means?" ""Not accounted for"?" "Huh?" "That means we left them up there." "We left them up there to rot." "My God, I'd rather go to hell than go back up that valley." "Well, you'll have to take that up with General Westmoreland." "Excuse me, Father." "Did I come at a bad time?" "I'm celebrating Mass in about 20 minutes, but come on in and sit down, sergeant." "Something I can do for you, sergeant?" "I don't know." "I'm not much of a churchgoer, but, uh... well, I need a favor." "I've got this little girl, Katy... uh, Katrina we call her." "Uh, I haven't seen her in a long time." "In fact, I only saw her once." "You see, her mom and I couldn't work things out." "I'm sorry, sergeant." "Yeah." "I am too." "I am too." "I, uh... uh, we're going on this mission, you know, and... and I wanted to write her a letter." "I mean, I want her..." "God, I want her to hear from me." "I'll see to it that she gets your letter, Sergeant." "Would you do that for me, please?" "Sure." "Here." "Sergeant?" "This is just the address." "Where's the letter?" "I don't have one." "I've never been very good at that, you know?" "You want me to write the letter to her?" "What would you like me to say?" "Just say, uh... tell her I'm sorry, uh..." "Sergeant, I'll tell her that you love her." "Yeah." "Do that, would you?" "Would you, please?" "Sure." "What did you boys do to get the colonel so mad?" "What are you talking about?" "You're the third outfit we've brought up here this week." "None of 'em's come back yet." "Perfect spot for Charlie to smoke us." "Let's get out of here." "Let's get out of here." "He's lost it, man." "He's afraid to step out in the open." "Come on!" "Let's take five, sergeant." "No way, no way." "There's no cover here, LT." "We've got to keep moving." "Look, the men need a break." "We've got a half an hour before we're set up." "LT, you want to take a break, you should've taken it back in there." "We didn't need a break when we were back there." "No, no, no." "We'll take a break up here." "There's cover up here." "Come on." "Ain't he ducking too soon, man?" "Man almost got his head blown off in a rice paddy." "Cut him some slack." ""Two can make A dream come true"" ""It takes two, baby It takes two, baby"" ""Just me and you"" "Hey, how come we get stuck digging here when everybody else is in Sin City digging Marvin Gaye?" "Shut up!" "What are you doing out here?" "What are you doing?" "Why don't you just invite Ho Chi Minh to dinner?" "He wouldn't eat none." "All I get is this bone chicken." "How come I never get no beanie weenies?" "Anybody want to trade some beanie ween..." "Shut up." "I'm not telling you again." "You shut up." "I hear one more word out of you," "I'm talking about one more word, Taylor, and you're on the DMZ." "You hear what I'm saying to you?" "Damn." "Hey, what's wrong with the sarge, man?" "I mean, he just yelled at me too, said I was digging too loud." "This is Indian country, man." "We've got to be quiet." "I tell you what's wrong." "The man's going Asiatic." "That's what it is." "No, no." "The sarge just doesn't seem like the sarge lately, you know?" "Look, the guy's just sick or something, all right?" "He ain't cracking up." "The man's on his third tour." "You know, maybe he's been here too long." "Hi." "Night perimeter's all set." "All right, I want two hour watches." "Every other man on alert, all night." "I already told them." "I just hope to God we haven't already been spotted." "What's wrong with you, sergeant?" "Nothing." "What do you mean, nothing?" "I mean nothing." "I'm just tired of getting set out on a limb for nothing." "Air Force spends a lot of money and a ton of time on each one of those flyboys." "They're not about to lose one unless it's absolutely necessary." "Oh yeah, LT?" "Well, tell me something, then." "Where do we fit in that value system, huh?" "How much are we worth?" "Batwing Three, this is Mother Hubbard." "Have your greenstamps ready at objective Delta Zulu." "Report your status." "Over." "Batwing Three, you copy?" "Mother Hubbard, this is Batwing Three." "The store will be open." "Over." "Roger, Three." "The race is on." "Out." "Delta Zulu." "Possible flyovers tomorrow at 0800 hours, Lieutenant." "Everything okay?" "So far." "Hey, sarge?" "You know, Charlie might see you sitting up here like this." "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah." "You're right, you're right." "You're supposed to be asleep, ain't you?" "It's too cold." "Look, sarge, if you want to talk about this," "I mean, what's happening, I'm here, okay?" "No, it'll be all right." "I just got a fever of some sort." "I just..." "I just can't sleep." "I'll be okay." "That's not what I'm talking about." "I know it ain't my business, but that letter, it's got you thinking, ain't it?" "She called me Daddy, Johnson." "You know what?" "In my whole entire life," "I never even thought about being called Daddy." "I never even thought about it." "How's your wife doing?" "You mean my ex-wife." "Yeah." "Well, she moved back in with her mama." "The guy that she was living with..." "I guess that didn't work out." "Is that what the letter said?" "Not exactly." "Look, sarge, you sure you're going to be okay?" "I'm going to be fine." "I just can't sleep." "I just can't sleep." "Look, how about if I run over to Matsuda and get some of that GI gin?" "I'm going to be fine." "It'll take the edge off, man." "I'm going to be fine." "Just leave me alone." "Okay, look." "I'll be back to check on you later, okay?" "You keep your head down, Johnson." "Okay." "Any action?" "The zoomies are raising all kinds of hell up there." "We don't know how close." "Any word from Battalion?" "Yeah." "Stay put." "Great." "Batwing Three, this is Mother Hubbard." "We've got a customer for you." "His name is Coyote Two." "Repeat, the customer is on the way." "That's it." "There's a plane down in our sector." "Get the men ready." "Let's rock 'n' roll." "Mother Hubbard, this is Batwing Three." "Affirm Coyote Two." "Out." "Let's go." "Anything?" "Can't see a damned thing." "Well, keep looking." "No, no, check it out, it's over there." "That chute's just like a signal flare." "It's going to bring anybody within 10 miles right on top of us." "Sure hope they can bring him down right on top of us." "Well, he'd better." "Come on, Coyote, come on." "Damn it, a crosswind's got him." "All right, saddle up." "We're going after him." "He's a goner, LT" "They're gonna be all over him." "I said saddle up." "LT, they're just waiting for us to take the bait." "He's got no way out of there, and neither do we." "We are going after him, sergeant." "Let's move." "Looks like 9 or 10 bad guys having a rat-and-rice break." "Once we're down in that valley, they'll never see us." "You got it." "No way, LT." "We oughta stay up on this ridge, use it for cover." "I don't want to hear that." "LT, once we're down in there, we can move real quick." "I can stay and cover you with the 60, LT." "Maybe." "Maybe put Johnson up there on that other ridge." "Then if we had to haul out of there, at least we'd have some blocking fire." "All right, we'll wait about five minutes for you to get into position, and then we'll move out." "Gotcha." "All right, let's pull back." "LT!" "LT!" "There he is." "I don't see him." "He's hung up on that cliff." "There!" "He's still moving." "He's probably alive." "All right, let's go." "All right, let's get him down." "What about them dinks on the hill, LT?" "Let's just hope they haven't seen him yet." "Percell?" "Yes, sir." "Captain, you all right?" "Listen, we're going to get you out of here." "Just hang tight." "We'll tie off, sir, and we'll get you down." "Sir, now, I'm going to ask you to get on my back." "I'm going to take you down." "You on there, boss?" "Now, get up." "Hang on." "Horn, Baker, give him a hand." "Unhook him." "He's hooked up on the back." "I got him." "I got him." "All right!" "Zoomie's a brother." "Give that to Anderson." "Taylor, go rig a litter." "My leg!" "My leg!" "Captain Slaney, I'm Lieutenant Goldman." "Where's your co-pilot?" "The cannon went off in the rear cockpit." "Jerry must have bled to death." "All right, stay calm." "Try not to move." "You're going home." "You'll be fine." "He's going into shock." "A lot of internal bleeding, possible ruptured spleen." "I got some plasma here..." "What about his leg?" "Compound fracture." "He'll probably lose it." "He's in real bad shape." "I could have stabilized him if we got here sooner." "All right, do what you can." "All right." "LT, now, you don't expect us to carry that man out of here, do you?" "Damn!" "Sounds like Dr. Johnson opened the clinic." "We'll have the whole regiment of NVA on us by now." "Lift the litter." "We've got to get out of here." "He's going to bleed to death, lieutenant." "Baker, Percell, come on." "Let's go." "You made it, man." "Nothing to it." "I told you to stick by me." "Baker, I need more ammo." "How's the patient?" "I'm running out of plasma." "The man needs surgery." "Can we get a dust-off?" "LT said they won't come in here." "Too many heavy machine guns." "Great." "There's nothing down there, Anderson." "It's just your imagination." "No, they're down there." "I don't see anything." "If they're down there, we're going to have to wait until tomorrow, and then we'll just try and outrun them." "Yeah, they're down there." "They are down there." "Doc... got a smoke?" "Yeah." "Thanks." "What do you think?" "Battle fatigue?" "Anderson?" "Classic case." "Anything we can do for him?" "I don't know." "Rest." "A few days rest should pull him right out of it." "Well, there's no chance of that." "Hey, how you doing there, buddy?" "A little rough around the edges." "You want me to get Doc?" "I'll get him up." "That's all right." "Let him sleep." "You have any water?" "Here you go." "I was dreaming." "Yeah?" "I wish I was." "You ever think about dying, sergeant?" "I try not to." "Sometimes I wonder what it's like." "I grew up in a place called Bedford-Stuyvesant." "It's a pretty rough neighborhood in Brooklyn." "Yeah." "Oh, God, I worked like a bastard to get out of there." "When I finally got accepted to the Air Force academy, man, I thought I'd grabbed ahold of the gold ring." "I couldn't wait to get out of there, get away from the junkies, the pimps, and the killing." "Look where I ended up." "Taylor and I will take the lead." "You and Anderson bring up the rear." "Yes, sir." "Lieutenant, every little bump and jolt is going to aggravate the internal bleeding." "I only got one pint of plasma left." "Doc, there's nothing I can do about that." "Where the hell is Anderson?" "Time to hit the road, sarge." "I don't know, Johnson." "I got a bad feeling about this thing." "Okay, look." "Just stay low and stay behind me." "Let us handle this gig, okay?" "Come on." "We're moving too slow, LT." "We don't stand a chance like this." "Johnson, hold up!" "Lieutenant, bleeding's real bad." "Just keep him alive, Doc." "LT, we cannot make it carrying this man." "We're gonna try." "With your permission, LT," "Ruiz and I can circle around up there." "Maybe we can slow 'em down." "Go." "Let's get the hell out of here." "Taylor." "Set up a claymore." "Let's give 'em something to think about." "Lieutenant!" "We gotta stop." "Hold it up." "Set him down." "Lieutenant, we got NVA all around us." "We've got to cross that ridgeline before he cuts us off." "Stash your packs." "We're moving out." "Stash your packs." "Lieutenant, come here." "Yes, sir." "No, no." "What's the situation, lieutenant?" "Do we have a chance?" "Yeah, we got a chance." "Tell me the truth, lieutenant." "We got dinks crawling all over us." "Then leave me." "No, sir." "My orders are to get you the hell out of here." "Come on, lieutenant." "You can't risk your men's lives like that." "You're not going to make it with me." "Sir, I won't even consider it." "You got no choice, lieutenant." "Now, I got rank here, and I just gave you a direct order." "Now, you leave me!" "Now!" "I'll mark your coordinates." "I'll send a chopper back for you." "You'll be all right, sir." "Let's go!" "Captain." "Yeah." "I thought you might want your weapon." "It is loaded." "Sergeant." "Sir." "I want you to do me a favor." "Yes, sir." "I want you to write my little girl." "Just tell her last time you saw me, I was okay." "Oh, I don't know." "I'm not the right guy to do this." "You should have the lieutenant..." "Just promise me you'll do it... please." "I'll do it." "I'll do it." "I promise." "Come on, sergeant." "My God, they're everywhere." "Looks like the whole company." "We wouldn't have a chance." "They're going to find him for sure." "We can't help him now." "We'd be lucky to get out ourselves." "Let's go." "Come on, saddle up." "Let's go." "Let's move." "Hey, sarge!" "Anderson!" "Johnson, let's go." "We can always say we doing it because the pilot's a brother." "I don't know what excuse these honky boys got." "I don't need excuses." "Let's go tear something up, lieutenant." "Let's go." "Lieutenant, I gave you an order!" "I can't hear you." "We've got to get out of here." "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "Move it!" "Let's go!" "Mother Hubbard, this is Batwing Three." "How do you read?" "Over!" "Loud and clear." "We've been waiting for you." "Over." "Mother Hubbard, Coyote Two is down." "We've got dinks crawling all over us." "We'll be passed the ridge with machinegun fire in a few minutes." "We need an immediate extraction." "Over!" "What is your position, Three?" "Alpha Lima 3-4-0-9-9, over." "The jaybird's on its way." "Come on." "Get up there." "Let's move." "Let's go." "Get out!" "Get out!" "Lay down fire!" "Lay down fire!" "Percell, look on your right!" "They think it's too much!" "Man, those flyboys ain't coming down!" "Get your butt down here, hotshot!" "Negative." "Negative You've got a LZ cooking." "I've got a wounded man." "I'm giving you maximum rate of firepower, over." "Say again?" "Get the hell down here, or I'll shoot you down myself!" "That's a roger." "Come on, he's coming down." "Put him on my back." "Get my weapon." "Come on, move out!" "Get the shotgun!" "Keep firing!" "Keep firing!" "1:00!" "1:00!" "Get 'em!" "Get 'em!" "Keep firing!" "1:00!" "Dear Melissa, my name is Zeke." "Your daddy is a friend of mine." "I met him in Vietnam." "I only knew him for a short time, but I respect him very much." "Your daddy's a brave man." "He loves you very much, and he'll be home soon." "I hope we'll all be home soon."