"Shit." "I'm still only in Saigon." "Every time, I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle." "When I was home after my first tour, it was worse." "I'd wake up, and there'd be nothing." "I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said yes to a divorce." "When I was here, I wanted to be there." "When I was there," "All I could think of was getting back into the jungle." "I'm here a week now... waiting for a mission, getting softer." "Every minute I stay in this room," "I get weaker." "Every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger." "Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter." "Everyone gets everything he wants." "I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one." "Brought it up to me like room service." "Captain Willard, are you in there?" "Yeah, I'm coming." "It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I'd never want another." "What do you want?" "Are you all right, Captain?" "What's it look like?" "Are you Captain Willard, 505th Battalion?" "Affirmative." "173rd Airborne, assigned to Salk?" "Hey, buddy, are you going to shut the door?" "We have orders to escort you to the airfield." "What are the charges?" "Sir?" "What did I do?" "There's no charges, Captain." "You have orders to report to Com-Sec Intelligence," "Nha Trang." "All right?" "Nha Trang for me." "That's right." "Come on, Captain." "You still have a few hours to get cleaned up." "Captain?" "Dave, give me a hand." "We got a dead one." "Come on, Captain." "Let's take a shower." "We're going to take a shower, Captain." "ln we go." "Now, stand underneath this, Captain." "Aah!" "Ohhh..." "I was going to the worst place in the world, and I didn't even know it yet." "Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river snaking through the war like a main circuit cable plugged straight into Kurtz." "It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's memory... any more than being back in Saigon was an accident." "There is no way to tell his story without telling my own, and if his story is really a confession, then so is mine." "Come in." "Thank you, sir." "Stand at ease." "Want a cigarette?" "No, thank you, sir." "Captain, have you ever seen this gentleman before?" "No, sir." "Met the general or myself?" "No, sir." "Not personally." "You've worked a lot on your own?" "Yes, sir, I have." "Your report specifies intelligence with Com-Sec." "I'm not disposed to discuss those operations." "Did you not work for the ClA and I Corps?" "No, sir." "Did you not assassinate a government tax collector," "Quang Tri province, June 18, 1968?" "Captain?" "Sir, I'm unaware of any such activity or operation... nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir." "I thought we'd have lunch while we talk." "I hope you brought a good appetite, Captain." "I noticed that you have a bad hand there." "Are you wounded?" "A little fishing accident on R and R, sir." "Fishing on R and R?" "Yes, sir." "But you're ready for duty?" "Yes, General." "Very much so, sir." "Well, let's see what we have here." "Roast beef." "Usually it's not bad." "Try some, Jerry, and pass it around." "To save a little time, we might pass both ways." "Uh..." "Captain..." "I don't know how you feel about this shrimp, but if you'll eat it, you'll never have to prove your courage in any other way." "Why don't I just take a piece here?" "Captain, you've heard of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz?" "Um... yes, sir, I've heard the name." "Oh..." "Jesus." "Operations Officer, 5th Special Forces." "Luke, would you play that tape for the captain, please?" "Listen to this carefully." "0430 hours." "Sector Peter Victor King." "This was monitored out of Cambodia." "This has been verified as Colonel Kurtz's voice." "I watched a snail crawl along the edge... of a straight razor." "That's my dream." "That's my nightmare." "Crawling...slithering... along the edge... of a straight razor... and surviving." "Transmission 11 received 68 December 30, 0500 hours, sector King Zulu King." "But we must kill them." "We must incinerate them." "Pig after pig, cow after cow... village after village, army after army, and they call me an assassin." "What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin?" "They lie." "They lie, and we have to be merciful to those who lie." "Those... nabobs..." "I hate them." "I do hate them." "Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country has ever produced." "He was brilliant." "He was outstanding in every way, and he was a good man, too." "A humanitarian man, a man of wit and humor." "He joined the Special Forces." "And after that, his... ideas, methods became... unsound." "Unsound." "Now he's crossed into Cambodia with this..." "Montagnard army of his that worship the man like a god and follow every order, however ridiculous." "Well, I have some other shocking news to tell you." "Colonel Kurtz was about to be arrested for murder." "I don't follow, sir." "Murdered who?" "Kurtz had ordered the execution of some Vietnamese intelligence agents, men he believed were double agents." "So he took matters into his own hands." "Well, you see, Willard, in this war, things get..." "confused out there... power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity." "But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to...be God." "Because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph." "Sometimes... the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called" ""the better angels of our nature"." "Every man has got a breaking point." "You and I have one." "Walt Kurtz has reached his, and very obviously, he has gone insane." "Yes, sir." "Very much so, sir." "Obviously insane." "Your mission is to proceed up the Nung River, pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at Nu Mung Ba, follow it, and learn what you can." "When you find the colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command." "Terminate... the Colonel?" "He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct, and he's still in the field commanding troops." "Terminate..." "with extreme prejudice." "You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist... nor will it ever exist." "How many people had I already killed?" "There were those six I knew about for sure, close enough to blow their last breath in my face." "But this time, it was an American and an officer." "That wasn't supposed to make any difference to me, but it did." "Shit, charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500." "I took the mission." "What the hell else was I going to do?" "But I really didn't know what I'd do when I found him." "I was being ferried down the coast in a navy PBR, a type of plastic patrol boat, pretty common sight on the rivers." "They said it was a good way to pick up information without drawing much attention." "That was OK." "I needed the air and the time." "Only problem was, I wouldn't be alone." "Morning, Captain." "The crew were mostly just kids, rock 'n' rollers with one foot in their graves." "How old are you?" "17." "The machinist, the one they called Chef, was from New Orleans." "He was wrapped too tight for Vietnam... probably wrapped too tight for New Orleans." "Lance was a famous surfer from the beaches south of L.A." "To look at him, you wouldn't believe he'd ever fired a weapon." "Clean..." "Mr. Clean... was from some South Bronx shit hole." "I think the light and space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head." "Then there was Phillips, the chief." "It might have been my mission, but it was the chief's boat." "There's about two points where we can get into the Nung River." "They're both hot." "They belong to Charlie." "Don't worry about it." "I don't smoke." "I pulled a few special ops in here." "About six months ago," "I took a man who was going up past the bridge at Do Lung." "He was regular army, too." "I heard he shot himself in the head." "[ It's the Central Highlands AFVN ]" "[ Man, it's really hot ]" "Good morning, Vietnam." "I'm Army Specialist Zack Johnson on AFVN." "It's 82 degrees in downtown Saigon and also very humid." "We have an important message from the mayor of Saigon." "Yeah!" "Hang your laundry indoors instead of on the window sills." "The mayor wants you to keep Saigon beautiful." "Here's another blast from the past going out to Big Sam who's with 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry." "Dedicated by the fire team at An Khage." "The Rolling Stones..." "Satisfaction." "Ooh." "All right!" "Watch out, Clean!" "Get down, bubber!" "[ I can't get no ]" "[ Satisfaction ]" "[ I can't get no ]" "[ Satisfaction ]" "[ 'Cause I try ]" "[ And I try ]" "[ And I try ]" "[ And I try ]" "[ I can't get no ]" "[ I can't get no ]" "[ When I'm driving in my car ]" "[ And a man comes on the radio ]" "[ He's tellin' me more and more ]" "[ About some useless information ]" "[ Supposed to drive my imagination... ]" "All right!" "Look out, Lance!" "Sayonara!" "At first," "I thought they handed me the wrong dossier." "I couldn't believe they wanted this man dead." "Third generation West Point, top of his class, Korea, Airborne, about a thousand decorations, et cetera, et cetera." "I'd heard his voice on the tape, and it really put the hook in me, but I couldn't connect up that voice with this man." "Like they said, he had an impressive career, maybe too impressive." "I mean perfect." "He was being groomed for one of the top slots in the corporation... general, chief of staff, anything." "ln 1964, he returned from a tour in Vietnam, and things started to slip." "His report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Lyndon Johnson was restricted." "Seems they didn't dig what he had to say." "He made three requests for transfer to airborne training, Fort Benning, Georgia, and was finally accepted." "Airborne." "He was 38 years old." "Why the fuck would he do that?" ""1966," ""joins Special Forces, returns Vietnam"." "What's that?" "Arc light." "B-52 strike." "What's that?" "Arc light." "Every time I hear that, something terrible happens." "Charlie don't never see them or hear them." "There they are!" "Concussion sucks the air from your lungs." "Something terrible's going to happen." "Smoke!" "Secondary burn." "Hueys over there, lots of hueys." "Let's have a look, Chief." "It was the Air Cav." "1st of the 9th." "That's them." "Our escorts to the mouth of the Nung River." "But they were supposed to wait another 30 kilometers ahead." "Well, Air Mobile... those boys just couldn't stay put." "1st of the 9th was an old cavalry division." "It traded its horses for choppers and gone around Nam looking for the shit." "They'd given Charlie a few surprises in their time." "What they were mopping up hadn't even happened an hour ago." "Keep going." "Don't look at the camera." "Just go by like you're fighting." "It's for television." "Just go through." "Keep on going." "Don't look at the camera." "Where can l find the C.O.?" "Over there." "Roll up the tanks." "It's all right, Captain." "Captain Willard." "I carry priority papers" "From Com-Sec Intelligence 11 Corps." "I understand that Nha Trang briefed you on my mission." "What mission?" "I haven't heard from Nha Trang." "Your unit is supposed to escort us." "OK, but stay out of my way until this is done." "All right." "Let's see what we have." "Two of spades." "Three of spades." "Four of diamonds." "Six of clubs." "Eight of spades." "Isn't one worth a jack in the whole bunch." "Hey, Captain, what's that?" "Death cards." "What?" "Death cards." "Lets Charlie know who did this." "Cheer up, son." "We will not hurt you." "Fire in the hole!" "Fire in the hole!" "We are here to help you." "We are here to extend a welcome hand..." "Come on." "Everybody in?" "Get in." "Hurry up." "Move it out." "Hey!" "Hey, what's this?" "What is this?" "This man's hurt pretty bad, sir." "The only thing holding his guts in is that pot lid." "What do you have to say?" "He is dirty V.C." "He wants water." "He can drink paddy water." "Get out of here!" "Give me that canteen!" "He's a V.C." "Any man brave enough to..." "Get out of here before I kick your fucking ass!" "He killing our people!" "Any man brave enought to fight with his guts hanging out can drink from my canteen any day." "Colonel, that sailor is Lance Johnson, the surfer." "Where, here in Chua?" "Down there." "Repeat." "We have a body count..." "What's your name, sailor?" "Gunner's Mate Third Class," "L. Johnson, sir." "Gunner's Mate..." "Lance Johnson, the surfer?" "Yes, sir." "Well, it's an honor to meet you, Lance." "I've admired your nose-riding for years." "I like your cutback, too." "Thank you, sir." "You cut the "sir" crap, Lance." "I'm Bill Kilgore." "I'm a goofy foot." "This guy with you?" "Yeah." "This is Mike from San Diego," "Johnny from Malibu." "Pretty solid surfers." "Not anywhere near your class, though." "We do a lot of surfing around here." "I like to finish operations early, fly down to Vuong Tha for the evening class." "With Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit... all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father." "Let us pray in the words" "Our Savior gave us." "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name." "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done..." "Kilgore had had a pretty good day." "They choppered in T-bones and beer and turned the L.Z. into a beach party." "The more they tried to make it like home, the more they made everybody miss it." "Make my meat rare." "Rare, but not cold." "Well, he wasn't a bad officer, I guess." "He loved his boys, and you felt safe with him." "He had that weird light around him." "He knew he wouldn't get hurt." "What happened to your mission, Captain?" "Nha Trang forget all about you?" "Sir?" "Two places we can get into the river." "Here and here." "These are the only two spots" "I'm really sure of." "That village is hairy." "What do you mean?" "It's hairy." "Got some heavy ordnance." "I lost a few recon ships there." "What's the name of that damn village?" "Damn gook names all sound the same." "Mike, you know anything about this point at Vinh Dinh Drap?" "That's a fantastic peak." "Peak?" "About 6 foot." "It's got both the long right and left slide." "It's unbelievable." "It's just tube city." "Why didn't you tell me that before?" "There aren't any good peaks in this whole country." "It's all god damned beach break." "They shot the hell out of us there." "That's Charlie's point." "Sir, we can go in at dawn." "There's offshore breezes then." "The boat may not make it." "The draft at the river's mouth may be too shallow." "Hell, we'll put your boat down right where you want it." "This is the Air Cav, son." "Air Mobile." "I can hold that point." "You can get anyplace up that river that suits you, Captain." "Hell, a 6-foot peak." "Ha ha!" "I'd like to take a gunship back to the division." "Lance, go with Mike." "Pick out a board." "Bring my 8'6"." "What is it, soldier?" "It's pretty hairy in there." "That's Charlie's point." "Charlie don't surf!" "Jesus, Clean, you ain't going to believe this." "Look." "Hey, man, they're picking up the boat!" "How you feeling, Jimmy?" "Like a mean motherfucker, sir!" "All right, son, let her rip." "I've never gotten used to a light board." "I'm used to a heavy board." "I know." "It's a real drag." "What do you prefer?" "Heavier." "Really?" "I thought the young guys liked lighter boards." "You can't ride the nose." "Big Duke 6, this is Eagle Thrust." "We've got it spotted." "Big Duke 6, put on heading 2-7-0." "assume attack formation." "That's a roger, Big Duke." "OK, we're going in." "We'll come in low out of the rising sun." "A mile out, we'll put on the music." "Music?" "Yeah, I use Wagner." "It scares the hell out of the slopes." "My boys love it." "They're going to play music!" "How come all you guys sit on your helmets?" "So we don't get our balls blown off." "Big Duke 6 to Eagle Thrust." "Put on psy-war-op." "Make it loud." "This is a Romeo Foxtrot." "Shall we dance?" "Surf!" "Run, Charlie!" "There's an automatic 50 cal!" "50 cal in the open!" "I've spotted a large weapon below." "We'll go check it out." "Outstanding, Red Team, outstanding." "Get you a case of beer for that one." "6-4-1-0, we're over the village." "I see a vehicle." "I'll check it out." "Well done, Hawks, well done." "I want some 20-mike-mike right along those tree lines." "Ripple the shit out of them." "Got a vehicle on the bridge, 50 caliber on board." "Big Duke 6." "Clear the area." "I'm coming down myself." "These people never give up." "Nice shot, Bill." "Un-ash that shit." "Get it out of here!" "It's just a flare." "It's all right." "Just a flare." "Everybody OK?" "Lance, you all right?" "Fine!" "I'm not going!" "I'm not going!" "I'm not going!" "We just got secondaries down there on the plaza." "Hold on to our position..." "Duke 6, Duke 6." "We've got wounded down there." "Ah!" "Oh, my God!" "Oh, my God!" "Get a stretcher over here!" "I can't stand it!" "Please, God, help me!" "Aah!" "Give him some morphine." "7-4-2..." "Where's that stretcher?" "I want my wounded out and in the hospital in 15 minutes." "Somebody stay in there tight with Big Duke." "She's got a grenade!" "She's got a grenade!" "The fuckin' savages." "Holy Christ!" "She's a sap." "I'm going to get that dink bitch." "Get over there, Johnny." "I'm rolling this skid right up her ass." "There's goddamn heat over there." "I'm taking fire." "I'm taking hits all over." "3 o'clock!" "Drawing fire." "Drawing fire." "Drawing fire." "Drawing fire." "Mayday!" "Mayday!" "I'm going in." "My tail rotor's out." "What do you think?" "It's really exciting, man." "No, no!" "The waves!" "Oh, right." "Look at that." "Breaks both ways." "Watch!" "Watch!" "Sheeew!" "Look!" "Good 6-foot swells!" "Go, reds, go!" "Go on, pump it!" "Come here, Lance." "lncoming!" "This L.Z.'s still pretty hot." "Maybe you should surf somewhere else." "What do you know about surfing?" "You're from goddamn New Jersey." "Come here." "Mike, come here!" "Change." "You mean right now, sir?" "I want to see how rideable that stuff is." "It's still pretty hairy out there." "You want to surf, soldier?" "Yes, sir." "Good." "Because you either surf or fight." "ls that clear?" "Now get going." "I'll cover for you." "Bring a board for Lance." "Can't do shit till the boat gets here!" "Lance." "I'll bet you can't wait to get out there." "What?" "See how they break both ways?" "One guy can break right, one left, simultaneously." "What do you think of that?" "We should wait for the tide to come up." "Lance, come here." "Look!" "Look!" "lncoming!" "The tide doesn't come in for six hours." "You want to wait here for six hours?" "Yo!" "Hey!" "Chief!" "OK, fellas, quit hiding." "Come on." "Let's go." "Goddamn it!" "Don't you think it's risky for R and R?" "If I say it's safe to surf this beach, it's safe to surf this beach." "I'm not afraid to surf this place." "I'll show you something." "Give me that R.T., soldier." "This is Big Duke 6." "Goddamn it." "I want that tree line bombed." "Big Duke 6, roger." "1, 2, 3 standby." "Bomb them into the stone age, son." "They need some napalm down near the tree line." "Can you put it down there?" "Roger, 1-3." "Going to suppress some mortar fire off the tree line down there." "Roger." "Here we come." "Good." "Give it all you got." "Bring in all your ships." "Don't worry." "We'll have this place cleaned up and ready for us in a jiffy, son." "Big Duke 6, this is Dove 1-3." "You got about a 30-second stall." "Get your people back and heads down." "It's going to be a big one." "Lance, look at that." "Do you see that?" "Look." "Do you smell that?" "Do you smell that?" "What?" "Napalm, son." "Nothing else in the world smells like that." "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." "One time we had a hill bombed for 12 hours." "When it was all over, I walked up." "We didn't find one stinking dink body." "But the smell..." "You know, that gasoline smell, the whole hill." "It smelled like... victory." "Someday this war's going to end." "Lance." "Light it up, man." "Come on." "Let's get high." "Smoke?" ""Someday this war's going to end"." "That'd be fine with the boys on the boat." "They were just looking for a way back home." "Captain?" "Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore." "Puddin' time." "All right!" "That's great, isn't it?" "Yeah." "If that's how Kilgore fought the war," "I began to wonder what they really had against Kurtz." "It wasn't just insanity and murder." "There was enough of that to go around for everyone." "This lady became his mistress." "I mean, he never was hurting for pussy here." "Ha ha ha ha!" "I'm walking through the jungle gathering mangoes." "I meet Raquel Welch." "Make a nice mango cream pudding." "You know, kind of spread it around on us." "Hey, Captain, I want to get some mangoes." "Don't go out by yourself." "You don't want to go in there alone, not unless you really know the territory." "Any poisonous snakes around here?" "Fuck it." "I want to go get some mangoes." "Chef." "Yes, sir?" "How come they call you that?" "Call me what, sir?" "Chef." "Because you like mangoes and stuff?" "No, sir." "I'm a real chef." "I'm a saucier." "Saucier?" "Yes, sir." "See, I come from New Orleans." "I was raised to be a saucier." "Great saucier." "What's a saucier?" "We specialize in sauces." "Got to be a mango tree here somewhere." "Then I was supposed to go to Paris, study at the Escoffier school." "Then I got orders for my physical." "Hell, I joined the navy." "Heard they had better food." "Cook school, that did it." "Yeah?" "How's that?" "Oh, you don't want to hear about that." "They lined us up in front of a hundred yards of prime rib." "All of us lined up looking at it." "Magnificent meat." "Really." "Beautifully marbled." "Magnifique." "Next thing they're throwing the meat into these big cauldrons." "All of it." "Boiling it." "I looked inside, man." "It was turning gray." "I couldn't fucking believe that one, so I applied for radioman's school, but then they gave me the engine mach..." "What is it?" "Charlie?" "Aah!" "Look out!" "Aah!" "It's a fucking tiger!" "It's a tiger, man!" "A tiger!" "Lance, get up front!" "Behind the 60, Clean!" "Got it, babe." "Oh, shit." "Chef, come on!" "Fucking tiger!" "Captain, come on!" "Move out!" "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "Man." "You were right!" "Never leave the boat!" "Clean, bring that 60 forward!" "What?" "I got to remember, never get out of the boat!" "Never get out of the boat!" "Get out of here now!" "How many is it?" "Fucking tiger!" "What?" "Tiger?" "I didn't come here for this!" "I don't want this goddamn fucking shit, man!" "You can kiss my ass because I'm fucking bugging out!" "I didn't come here for this!" "I don't fucking need it!" "I don't want it!" "I didn't get on the goddamn train for this kind of shit!" "All I want to do is fucking cook!" "I just want to learn to fucking cook!" "You're all right." "It's all right." "What happened, bro?" "Ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha!" "It's going to be all right." "All right." "It's going to be all right." "It's going to be all right." "Never get out of the fucking boat." "Hi, tiger!" "Bye, tiger!" "Goodbye!" ""Never get out of the boat"." "Absolutely goddamn right." "Unless you were going all the way." "Kurtz got off the boat." "He split from the whole fuckin' program." "How did that happen?" "What did he see here that first tour?" "38 fucking years old." "If you joined the Green Berets, there was no way you'd ever get above colonel." "Kurtz knew what he was giving up." "The more I read and began to understand, the more I admired him." "His family and friends couldn't understand it, and they couldn't talk him out of it." "He applied three times and put up with a ton of shit." "When he threatened to resign, they gave it to him." "The next youngest guy in his class was half his age." "They must have thought he was some far-out old man humping over that course." "I did that when I was 19." "It damn near wasted me." "A tough motherfucker." "He finished it." "He could have gone for general... but he went for himself instead." "Dear Eva, today was really a new one." "Almost got eaten alive by a fucking tiger." "Really un-fucking-believable, you know?" "We're taking this guy Captain Willard up the river, but he hasn't told us yet where we're taking him." "[ Come on, baby ]" "Thought you might have heard by now from..." "October, 1967." "On special assignment, Kontum province, 11 corps." "Kurtz staged Operation Archangel with combined local forces." "Rated a major success." "He received no official clearance." "He just thought it up and did it." "What balls." "They were going to nail his ass to the floorboards for that one, but after the press got hold of it, they promoted him to full colonel instead." "Ah, man." "The bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it." "This sure enough is a bizarre sight in the middle of this shit." "They expecting us this time?" "Damned if I know." "Anybody hear me?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "1... 1..." "Jesus." "Let's back up into this truck." "What?" "We got to get all this stuff off the truck." "You ever been up here before, Chef?" "I bet you could score up here." "Yo, man." "Check out the bikes, man." "Yamahas." "Suzuki." "Yeah, that's a good one." "Yeah." "Sukiyaki." "Hey, man." "This is..." "This must be the guy." "Right up there." "Three drums of diesel fuel." "Come on, man, move." "We don't have time." "What do you want?" "Can I get some panama red?" "Panama red?" "Yeah." "Sergeant." "Destination?" "I don't have no destination." "I can't do nothing without a destination." "Sergeant." "Without a destination, I can't do a goddamn thing." "Hey, sarge, these guys are with me." "Destination's classified." "Here are priority papers from Com-Sec lntelligence." "OK." "Right, sir." "Listen, it's a real big night." "8 bucks for that Camel." "Hey!" "Just give him some fuel." "You got it." "Hey, listen, Captain." "I'm really sorry about tonight." "It's really bad around here." "Just take this over to the man at the supply desk, and you got it." "Would you guys like some seats for the show?" "You want those?" "The show." "The show out here." "The bunnies." "What bunnies?" "The Playboy bunnies?" "You got it." "Hey, listen, Captain." "On the house." "No hard feelings, huh?" "How you doing out there?" "I said, how you doing out there?" "We want to say hello to all of you out there who worked so goddamn hard on Operation Brute Force." "Hello to all you paratroopers out there!" "And the Marines!" "And the sailors!" " Yay!" " Boo!" "We're proud of you." "We know how tough and hard it's been." "Yeah." "To prove it, we're going to give you some entertainment we know you'll like!" "Miss August..." "Miss Sandra Bayne." "Miss May..." "Miss Terri Turee!" "Yeah!" "And the Playmate of the Year..." "Miss Terri Foster!" "Yeah!" "Let's go!" "[ Oh, Suzie Q ]" "[ Oh, Suzie Q ]" "[ Oh, Suzie Q, baby, I love you ]" "[ Suzie Q ]" "[ I like the way you walk ]" "[ I like the way you talk ]" "[ I like the way you walk ]" "[ I like the way you talk ]" "[ My Suzie Q ]" "[ Whoa, Suzie Q ]" "[ Whoa, Suzie Q ]" "[ Oh, Suzie Q ]" "[ Baby, I love you ]" "[ Suzie Q ]" "Grease my gun!" "You're cute." "I like you." "I'm here, baby!" "I'm here." "You fucking bitch!" "Take it off!" "Hey, lover, you want us to come over?" "I sure do!" "Sign my centerfold!" "Take it off!" "Take it off!" "Take it off!" "Take it off!" "Get the girls!" "Let's go!" "So long." "Charlie didn't get much USO." "He was dug in too deep or moving too fast." "His idea of great R and R was cold rice and a little rat meat." "He had only two ways home... death... or victory." "No wonder Kurtz put a weed up command's ass." "The war was being run by a bunch of four-star clowns who'd end up giving the whole circus away." "Do you believe I got to come here and find her here?" "Ho!" "Shit!" "Like shit." "Chicken time." "You ain't shitting, brown motherfucking..." "Who is that?" "What's going on?" "What the fuck is that?" "ls that you, Lazaro?" "Come on, man." "Don't chicken out now." "Fire on the canvas!" "I got it!" "I got it!" "I got it!" "Get out of there!" "Lance!" "Lance!" "Late summer." "Autumn, 1968." "Kurtz's patrols in the highlands coming under frequent ambush." "The camp started falling apart." "November." "Kurtz orders assassination of three Vietnamese men and one woman." "Two of the men were colonels in the South Vietnamese Army." "Enemy activity in his old sector dropped off to nothing." "Guess he must have hit the right four people." "He joined the Special Forces, and after that, his, uh..." "The army tried one last time to bring him back into the fold." "If he'd pulled over, it all would have been forgotten, but he kept going." "And he kept winning it his way." "Montagnard army..." "And they called me in." "...man like a god, and follow every order, however ridiculous." "They lost him." "He was gone." "Nothing but rumors and random intelligence, mostly from captured V.C." "The V.C. knew his name by now, and they were scared of him." "His men were playing hit and run all the way into Cambodia." "I'm going to the Vietnam White House to have dinner with the president of the United States." "That's where I'm going." "Hey, Chef, put the cover on that." "Clean." "How long has that kid been on this boat?" "Seven months." "He's really specializing in busting my balls." "It's very possible, Captain, he thinks the same of you." "Oh, yeah?" "What do you think, Chief?" "I don't think." "My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this boat, but one look at you, and I know it's going to be hot, wherever it is." "We're going upriver about 75 clicks above the Do Lung Bridge." "That's Cambodia, Captain." "That's classified." "We're not supposed to be in Cambodia, but that's where I'm going." "Get me close to my destination, and I'll cut you loose." "All right, Captain." ""Dear son," ""I'm afraid that both you and your mother" ""will have been worried at not hearing from me," ""but my situation here has become a difficult one." ""I have been officially accused of murder by the army"." ""The alleged victims were four Vietnamese double agents." ""We spent months uncovering them and accumulating evidence"." ""When absolute proof was completed," ""we acted like soldiers." ""The charges are unjustified." ""They are, in fact," ""and in the circumstances of this conflict, quite completely insane"." ""ln a war, there are many moments" ""for compassion and tender action." ""There are many moments for ruthless action..." ""what is often called ruthless..." ""but may in many circumstances be only clarity..." ""seeing clearly what there is to be done" ""and doing it..." "directly, quickly, awake." "Looking at it"." ""I will trust you to tell your mother" ""what you choose about this letter." ""As for the charges against me," ""I am unconcerned." ""I am beyond their timid, lying morality, and so I am beyond caring"." ""You have all my faith." "Your loving father"." "Shut the fuck up!" "I'm sure sorry about that." "If I'd known, I'd take you to New Orleans." "I'll get you fixed up." "Lay off, Chef." "I want to break your fucking head!" "Lay off, Chef!" "When are you going to do it?" "Chef!" "I said now!" "Chef!" "Knock it off!" "Give him a break!" "What did I say?" "And give your jaws a rest!" "And this ain't the army." "You're a sailor!" "Get out of that army shit and stop smoking that dope!" "You hear me?" "Lance, what's with all the green paint?" "Camouflage." "How's that?" "So they can't see you." "They're everywhere." "Stay awake up there, man." "You got a job to do." "Sampan off the port bow." "Sampan off the port bow." "Let's take a look." "Lance, bring 'em in!" "Clean, on the 60." "Chef, get a 16." "Clean, get on that 60!" "What's up, Chief?" "We're going to take a routine check." "Let's forget routine now and let them go." "These boats are running supplies." "I'm going to take a look." "Chief, my mission's got priority here." "You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me." "Until we reach your destination, you're just on for the ride." "Stand by, Lance." "Throw the rope!" "All right, come on." "Let's bring it over." "Look in that hold." "Bring the people out of there." "Come on." "Hurry up, motherfucker!" "Move it, gook!" "Keep your eyes open, Clean." "I got you, Chief." "That's them." "Yeah, they're OK." "Board and search it." "Ain't nothing on it." "Board it and search it." "Just baskets and ducks." "Bananas." "Ain't nothing on it." "What's wrong with you?" "Board and search." "Look." "Just a goat and some fish." "Chef..." "There's nothing..." "Get on that boat!" "There's nothing on it!" "Get on it!" "All right!" "Move it, asshole!" "Goddamn it!" "Pigs." "Look." "Mangoes." "What's in the rice bag?" "Rice." "Well, look in there!" "Fucking fish." "More coconuts." "Rice." "Here's rice." "What's in that vegetable basket?" "Get out of here!" "Come on." "Aah!" "Chef, check that vegetable basket." "Shut up, slope." "Nothing." "What's in the boxes?" "Nothing." "Look in that tin can." "Just fucking rice!" "That's all!" "Check the yellow can." "Nothing!" "She was sitting on it." "Chef!" "Motherfuckers!" "Motherfuckers!" "Motherfuckers!" "Cocksuckers!" "Come on!" "Let's kill them all!" "Huh, idiots?" "Fucking cocksucking mothers!" "Hold it!" "Let's shoot the shit out of all of them!" "Hold it!" "Why not?" "Jesus Christ!" "Why the fuck not?" "Clean." "I'm good." "You OK, Lance?" "Fucking shit!" "Look what she was hiding, huh?" "You all right?" "See what she was running for?" "It's a fucking puppy." "It's a fucking puppy." "Give me that dog!" "No!" "Give it to me!" "No!" "Give me the fucking dog, asshole!" "Fuck you!" "Take the fucking mango, too!" "You want that?" "Chef, she's moving behind you." "She's alive." "Check her out." "Fucking..." "Chef!" "She's moving behind you!" "Check her out!" "All right." "Come on, Clean." "Give me a hand." "Give him a hand." "Fucking..." "Take it easy." "Just take it easy." "Slow down and take it easy." "Calm down." "Wait a minute." "ls she breathing, Chef?" "She's hurt." "She's bleeding." "Bring her on board." "We'll take her to some ARVNs." "What are you talking about?" "I'm taking her to some friendlies." "She's wounded." "She's not dead." "Get out of there, Chef." " The book says, Captain..." "Aah!" "Fuck you." "Fuck them." "I told you not to stop." "Now let's go." "It was a way we had over here of living with ourselves." "We'd cut them in half with a machine gun and give them a Band-Aid." "It was a lie." "And the more I saw of them, the more I hated lies." "Those boys would never look at me the same way again, but I felt like I knew a few things about Kurtz that weren't in the dossier." "Do Lung Bridge was the last army outpost on the Nung River." "Beyond it, there was only Kurtz." "Lance." "Hey, Lance, what do you think?" "It's beautiful." "Huh?" "What's the matter with you?" "You're acting kind of weird." "You know that last tab of acid I was saving?" "Yeah." "I dropped it." "You dropped acid?" "Far out." "Friendly!" "Friendly!" "Friendly!" "Take me home!" "Goddamn it!" "Fucking shore police!" "Shit!" "You want to die?" "Take me home!" "Motherfuckers!" "Hey!" "You fucking police!" "Don't leave me!" "Fuck you!" "You'll get what you deserve!" "ls there a Captain Willard on board?" "Yeah." "Who's that?" "Lieutenant Carlson, sir." "Get that light off me!" "I was sent from Nha Trang with these three days ago, sir." "Expected you here sooner." "This is mail for the boat." "You don't know how happy this makes me, sir." "Now I can get out of here..." "if I can find a way." "You're in the asshole of the world, Captain!" "Captain, where you going?" "I got to find somebody." "I need some information." "Meet me at the other side of the bridge." "Somebody go with him." "Chef." "I'll go." "I want to go." "Man, listen to the music, man." "Where can l find the C.O.?" "You came right to it, son of a bitch!" "Lance!" "Get down here!" "You still got a commanding officer here?" "Beverly Hills." "What?" "Straight up the road, there's a fucking bunker called Beverly Hills." "Where the fuck else do you think it would be?" "Goddamn it!" "You stepped in my face." "I thought you were dead." "You thought wrong, damn it." "I told you to stop fucking with me!" "Think you're so bad, huh, nigger?" "What are you shooting at, soldier?" "What the fuck do you think?" "I'm sorry, sir." "There are gooks by the wire." "I think I killed them." "You ain't shot shit, man." "Listen." "He's trying to call his friends, man." "Send up a flare." "You think you so bad, nigger?" "They're all dead, stupid." "There's one still alive underneath them bodies." "Who's the commanding officer?" "Ain't you?" "You think you so bad, huh?" "I got something for your ass, nigger!" "I got something for you now!" "He's underneath the bodies, man." "Go get the roach, nigger!" "I'll get the roach." "Go get him." "Roach." "Roach." "Roach." "You got slopes on the wires." "You hear him?" "Lance!" "Do you hear him?" "Well, bust him." "Hey, G.I.s!" "Fuck you!" "You hear him out there on the wire, man?" "Yeah." "I kill you, G.I.s!" "You need a flare?" "No." "He's close, man." "He's real close." "G.I.s, fuck you!" "G.I.s!" "G.I.s!" "Fuck y..." "Motherfucker." "Hey, soldier." "Do you know who's in command here?" "Yeah." "Aah!" "Aah!" "Holy shit." "Chief, two guys just got blown off that bridge." "You hang on, man." "You're going to be OK." "What's that?" "Mail, man." "Later on mail." "Watch them trees." "There's no diesel fuel," "But I picked up some ammo." "Move out." "Did you find the C.O., Captain?" "There's no fucking C.O. here." "Let's just get going." "Which way, Captain?" "You know which way, Chief." "You're on your own, Captain." "still want to go on?" "Like this bridge..." "we build it every night," "Charlie blows it up again." "Just so the generals can say the road's open." "Think about it." "Who cares?" "Just get us upriver!" "Chef, on the bow." "Stand by, Clean." "Let's go!" "Whose package is that?" "You got another one, Clean." "No shit." "Wait, is that it?" "That's it for you." "Lance!" "Mr. L.B. Johnson." "There you go." "Far out, man." "All right!" "I've been waiting for this one." "I got another one." "I got a box from Eva." ""Lance, I hope you're fine"." "I'm fine!" "I'm going to get back to Antoine's." "How could I fucking forget, man?" "Man, you know, that's the best." ""There could never be" ""a place like Disneyland, or could there?" "Let me know"." "Jim, it's here." "It really is here." ""There has been a new development" ""regarding your mission" ""which we must now communicate to you." ""Months ago, a man was ordered on a mission" ""identical to yours." ""We have reason to believe" ""that he is now operating with Colonel Kurtz." ""Saigon was carrying him mia" ""for his family's sake," ""but they assumed he was dead." ""Then they intercepted a letter he tried to send to his wife"." "Captain Richard Colby." "He was with Kurtz." "Disneyland." "Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland." ""Charles Miller Manson" ""ordered the slaughter of all in the home as a symbol of protest"." "That's really weird, ain't it?" "Purple Haze." "Look." "Lance, give me that smoke." "I got a tape from my mom." "Reality, man." "Hey, Chief, get a good whiff." "Eva can't picture me in Vietnam." "She pictures me at home having a beer, watching TV." "Hey, Lance, man." "Ooh!" "Hot potato!" "Hot potato!" "So glad you decided to join the..." "Hey, Eva's not sure she could have a relationship with me." "Here I am, 13,000 fucking miles away, trying to keep a relationship with my ass." "...that's more than I can say for some of your friends." "If this tape is any good," "I will have dad and the family send you a tape." "Hey, Lance." "There!" "Over there!" "Motherfucker!" "Chef!" "Chef!" "Check out Clean!" "Captain, he's hit." "Clean's hit!" "Where'd the dog go?" "Lance, check out Clean!" "Where's the dog?" "We got to go back and get the dog!" "Hey, Clean!" "Hey." "Hey, bubba!" "Bubba, you can't die, you fucker!" "Hey, bubba!" "And so I'm hoping that pretty soon, but not too soon, but pretty soon," "I'll have lots of grandchildren to love and spoil." "Then when your wife gets them back, she'll be mad with me." "Ha ha ha." "Even Aunt Jessie and Mama will come to celebrate your coming home." "Granny and Dad are trying to get enough money to get you a car, but don't tell them because that's our secret." "Anyhow, do the right thing, stay out of the way of the bullets, and bring your heinie home all in one piece because we love you very much." "Love, Mom." "Can't see nothing." "We're stopping." "You're not authorized to stop this boat, Chief." "I can't see a thing, Captain." "I'm stopping this boat." "I ain't risking no more lives." "I'm in command here, goddamn it." "You'lI do what I say." "You see anything, Chef?" "Why don't they fucking attack, man?" "Watch it over here, Chief!" "Let's do it." "Lance, on the 50." "He was close." "He was real close." "I couldn't see him yet, but I could feel him, as if the boat were being sucked upriver and the water was flowing back into the jungle." "Whatever was going to happen, it wouldn't be the way they called it back in Nha Trang." "Arrows!" "Chef!" "Chef, open up fire!" "Lance, fire!" "Chef!" "Chef, it's OK!" "Quit firing!" "They're just little toy arrows!" "Cut it out!" "Quiet!" "Chief, tell them to hold their fire!" "They're just trying to scare us." "Quiet!" "You can't get us out of this mess" "Because you don't know where the hell you're going." "Do you?" "You son of a bitch!" "A spear." "My mission was to get into Cambodia." "There's a Green Beret Colonel up there who's gone insane." "I was supposed to kill him." "That's fucking typical." "Shit!" "Fucking Vietnam mission." "I'm short, and we got to go up there so you can kill one of our guys." "That's fucking great!" "That's just fucking great, man!" "Shit!" "That's fucking crazy!" "I thought you were going in to blow up a bridge or some fucking railroad tracks or something." "Sorry." "No." "No, wait." "We'll go together on the boat." "We'll go with you." "We'll go up there, but on the boat." "OK?" "Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there." "I knew the risks... or imagined I knew." "But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him." "Just keep moving." "Lance, keep your hands away from the guns." "It's all right!" "It's all right!" "It's all been approved!" "I ain't coming in there!" "Them bastards attacked us!" "Come on!" "Zap them with your siren, man!" "Zap them with your siren!" "There's mines over there and over there, too!" "And watch out." "Those goddamn monkeys bite you." "Wow." "That's a pretty one." "Move it right in toward me." "I'm an American." "Yeah!" "American civilian." "Hi, yanks." "Hi." "American." "American civilian." "It's all right." "You got the cigarettes." "That's what I've been dreaming of." "Chef..." "Who are you?" "Who are you?" "I'm a photojournalist." "I've covered the war since '64." "I've been in Laos, Cambodia, Nam." "A-phew-whee!" "Phew-whee, baby!" "I'll tell you one thing." "This boat is a mess, man." "Who are all these people?" "They think you've come to... to take him away." "I hope that isn't true." "Take who away?" "Him!" "Colonel Kurtz." "These are all his children, man," "As far as you can see." "Hell, man, out here, we're all his children." "Could we, uh, talk to Colonel Kurtz?" "Hey, man, you don't talk to the colonel." "You listen to him." "Uh...the man's enlarged my mind." "He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense." "I mean, sometimes, you'll say hello to him." "He'll just walk right by you." "He won't even notice you." "Then suddenly he'll grab you, throw you in a corner, and say," ""do you know that if is the middle word in life?" "If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you..."" "I can't..." "I'm a little man." "He's a great man." "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas." "Stay with the boat." "Don't go without me, OK?" "I want to get a picture." "He can be terrible, and he can be mean, and he can be right." "He's fighting the war." "He's a great man." "I mean..." "I wish I had words." "I wish I had words." "I could tell you something like the other day, he wanted to kill me." "Why did he want to kill you?" "Because I took his picture." "He said, "if you take my picture again," "I'm going to kill you"." "And he meant it." "So you just lay cool, play it cool," "Lay back, dig it?" "He gets friendly again." "He really does." "But you don't..." "You don't..." "You don't judge the colonel." "You don't judge the colonel like an ordinary man." "OK, watch it now." "These are Americans!" "American!" "Feel the vibe of this place." "Let me take your picture." "Hey, could you..." "Hello?" "Could you hold it a minute?" "Colby." "The heads." "You're looking at the heads." "Hey, sometimes he goes too far." "He's the first one to admit it." "He's gone crazy." "Wrong!" "Wrong!" "If you could have heard the man just two days ago... lf you could have heard him then." "You're going to call him crazy?" "Fuckin' A." "I just want to talk to him." "Well, man, he's gone away." "Disappeared out in the jungle with his people." "I'll wait for him." "He feels comfortable with his people." "He forgets himself with his people." "He forgets himself." "Captain." "Maybe we should wait back at the boat." "OK, Chef." "We'll go back to the boat for a while." "Yeah." "Stay with Lance." "This colonel guy, he's wacko, man." "He's worse than crazy..." "He's evil." "That's what the man's got set up here." "Man, it's fucking pagan idolatry!" "Look around you." "Shit, he's loco." "Then you'll help me?" "Help you?" "fuckin' A, I'll help you." "I'lI do anything to get out of this joint." "We could blow all them assholes away." "They're so fucking spaced out, they wouldn't even know it." "I ain't afraid of all them fucking skulls and altars and shit." "I used to think if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't be able to make it to heaven." "But now..." "Fuck." "I mean, I don't care where it goes as long as it ain't here." "So what do you want to do?" "I'll kill the fuck." "Get out of here." "I'm going to need you to wait here." "I'll go up with Lance, scrounge around, check the place out, see if I can find the colonel." "OK?" "What do you want me to do?" "Damn it." "Here." "Here, take the radio, and if I don't get back by 2200 hours, you'll call in the air strike." "Air strike?" "The code is "Almighty,"" "coordinates 0-niner-2-6-4-7-1-2." "It's all in there." "0-niner-2-6-4-7-1-2." "Everything I saw told me that Kurtz had gone insane." "The place was full of bodies..." "North Vietnamese, Vietcong, Cambodians." "If I was still alive, it was because he wanted me that way." "Hey!" "It smelled like slow death in there." "Malaria..." "Nightmares." "This was the end of the river all right." "Where are you from, Willard?" "I'm from Ohio, sir." "Were you born there?" "Yes." "Whereabouts?" "Toledo, sir." "How far are you from the river?" "The Ohio River, sir?" "Uh-huh." "About 200 miles." "I went down that river once when I was a kid." "There's a place in the river..." "I can't remember." "Must have been a gardenia plantation or a flower plantation at one time." "It's all wild and overgrown now, but for about 5 miles, you'd think that heaven just fell on the Earth in the form of gardenias." "Have you ever considered... any real freedoms?" "Freedoms from the opinion of others... even the opinions of yourself?" "Did they say why..." "Willard... why they want to terminate my command?" "I was sent on a classified mission, sir." "It's no longer classified, is it?" "What did they tell you?" "They told me... that you had gone... totally insane." "And, uh... that your..." "methods were... unsound." "Are my methods unsound?" "I don't see... any method..." "at all, sir." "I expected..." "someone like you." "What did you expect?" "Are you an assassin?" "I'm a soldier." "You're neither." "You're an errand boy... sent by grocery clerks... to collect a bill." "Why, huh?" "Why would a nice guy like you want to kill a genius?" "Going in pretty good, huh?" "Why?" "You know... do you know that the man... the man really likes you?" "He likes you." "He really likes you." "But... he's got something in mind for you." "Aren't you curious about that?" "I'm curious." "I'm very curious." "Are you curious?" "There's something happening out here, man." "You know something, man?" "I know something that you don't know." "That's right, jack." "The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad." "Oh, yeah." "He's dying, I think." "He hates all this." "He hates it." "But the man's, uh..." "He reads poetry out loud, all right?" "And a voice..." "A voice..." "He likes you 'cause you're still alive." "He's got plans for you." "I'm not going to help you." "You're going to help him." "You're going to help him." "What are they going to say when he's gone?" "'Cause he dies when it dies..." "When it dies, he dies." "What are they going to say about him?" "That he was a kind man, he was a wise man?" "He had plans, he had wisdom?" "Bullshit, man!" "Am I going to be the one to set them straight?" "Look at me..." "Wrong." "You." "Almost eight hours." "God." "I'm asleep." "I'm asleep and dreaming I'm on this shitty boat." "Fuck." "Has it been eight hours?" "Hello, Almighty, Almighty." "This is PBR Street Gang." "Radio check, over." "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty standing by, over." "Ooh!" "Ooh!" "Oh, Jesus!" "Oh, Christ!" "Oh!" ""We are the hollow men," ""We are the stuffed men," ""Leaning together headpiece filled with straw." ""Alas!" "Our dried voices when we whisper together" ""Are quiet and meaningless" "As wind in dry grass..."" "Oh, he's out there." "He's really out there." ""Shape without form..."" ""Shade without color." ""Paralyzed force..." "Gesture without motion"." "Do you know what the man's saying?" "Do you?" "This is dialectics." "It's very simple dialectics..." "One through nine." "No maybes, no supposes, no fractions." "You can't travel in space." "You can't go out into space with fractions." "What are you going to land on?" "1/4, 3/8?" "What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus?" "That's dialectic physics." "Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate." "You either love somebody or you hate them." "This is the way the fucking world ends." "Look at this fucking shit we're in, man!" "Not with a bang..." "a whimper." "And with a whimper, I'm fucking splitting, jack." "On the river," "I thought that the minute I looked at him" "I'd know what to do." "But it didn't happen." "I was in there with him for days, not under guard." "I was free." "But he knew I wasn't going anywhere." "He knew more about what I was going to do than I did." "If the generals back in Nha Trang could see what I saw, would they still want me to kill him?" "More than ever, probably." "What would his people back home want if they learned how far from them he'd really gone?" "He broke from them, and then he broke from himself." "I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart." "I've seen horrors, horrors that you've seen." "But you have no right to call me a murderer." "You have a right to kill me." "You have a right to do that." "But you have no right to judge me." "It's impossible for words... to describe... what is necessary... to those who do not know what horror means." "Horror." "Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror." "Horror and moral terror are your friends." "If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared." "They are truly enemies." "I remember when I was with Special Forces." "It seems a thousand centuries ago." "We went into a camp to inoculate some children." "We'd left the camp... after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying." "He couldn't say..." "We went back there." "They had come and hacked off every inoculated arm." "There they were in a pile, a pile of..." "little arms, and I remember..." "I..." "I..." "I cried." "I wept like..." "some...grandmother." "I wanted to tear my teeth out." "I didn't know what I wanted to do." "And I want to remember it." "I never want to forget it." "I never want to forget." "And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead." "I thought, "My God!" "The genius of that, the genius..." "the will to do that"." "Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure." "Then I realized they were stronger than we because they could stand it." "These were not monsters." "These were men, trained cadres." "These men fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love, but they had the strength, the strength... to do that." "If I had 10 divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly." "You have to have men who are moral, and at the same time, who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment." "Without judgment." "Because it's judgment that defeats us." "I worry that my son might not understand what I've tried to be, and if I were to be killed, Willard," "I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything." "Everything I did, everything you saw." "Because there's nothing that I detest more than... the stench of lies." "And if you understand me, Willard, you... you will do this for me." "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty, over." "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty standing by, over." "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty standing by." "How do you copy?" "They were going to make me a major for this, and I wasn't even in their fucking army anymore." "Everybody wanted me to do it... him most of all." "I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take the pain away." "He just wanted to go out like a soldier..." "Standing up." "Not like some poor wasted rag-assed renegade." "Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that's who he really took his orders from, anyway." "[ Come on, baby, take a chance with us ]" "[ Come on, baby, take a chance with us ]" "[ Come on, baby, take a chance with us ]" "[ And meet me at the back of the blue bus ]" "[ Do the blue rug on the blue bus ]" "[ Do the..." "Do the... ]" "[ Come on, yeah ]" ""We train young men to drop fire on people," ""but their commanders won't allow them" ""to write fuck on their airplanes because it's obscene"." "The horror." "The horror." "Calling PBR Street Gang." "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty." "Do you read me?" "Over." "PBR Street Gang," "PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty..." "The horror." "The horror."