Rating: 
Summary: child of the 60's
Review: IN 1968,IT SEEMED EVERYONE WAS ANTI THE VIETNAM WAR. EVERY NIGHT ON TELEVISION THAT WAR WAS AIRED OVER AND OVER AGAIN. FAMILIES WERE AFFECTED LEFT AND RIGHT WITH THEIR SONS DYING OVER THERE OR
JUST BEING SENT THERE. I REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY. FOR JOHN WAYNE TO HAVE STOOD HIS GROUND AND MADE A MOVIE LIKE THIS, TOOK IMMENSE PATRIOTISM AND COURAGE.AT THE TIME I WAS SHOCKED AS I LEARNED ABOUT HOW WELL THE NORTH VIETNAMESE FIGHTING FORCE WAS
ARMED AND CAPABLE OF DEMOLISHING ANYTHING IN ITS PATH. THE FRENCH ARMY FOR ONE.THE WAR WAS DOOMED TO BE IN THEIR FAVOR WITHOUT AMERICAN PUBLIC SUPPORT AS IT WAS.LOOKING BACK NOW, JOHN WAYNE WAS IN IT ALL THE WAY WITH HIS BELIEFS AND IDEALS. HIS MOVIE WAS EXCELLENT IN TELLING ONE THING BEYOND ALL OTHER THINGS,
THAT IS THAT IF YOU'RE NOT IN SOMETHING FOR THE LONG HAUL IE...TO WIN A WAR, YOU SHOULDN'T BE IN THERE AT ALL.THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE HIS CHARACTER'S IDEALS NEVER WAIVER. AMERICA WILL FIGHT TO WIN OR DIE TRYING.YOU CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM THE MOVIE. IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST PATRIOTIC MOVIES EVER MADE.
ALTHOUGH I WAS YOUNG AT THE TIME I KNEW THEN HOW MUCH HE LOVED
AMERICA AND DEMOCRACY BY MAKING THIS MOVIE.I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO HIM FOR THAT EVEN THOUGH IN REAL LIFE VIETNAM SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN OUR QUAGMIRE WAR.HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS 20/20.SO IS PATRIOTISM.
Rating:
Summary: Take that, Uncle Ho!
Review: If you ever read Gustav Hasford's "The Short-Timers" (which "Full Metal Jacket" was based on) you know how he felt about this movie: "Let's watch the Duke and Mr. Sulu karate-chop Victor Charlie in a Kodicolor fantasy about Vietnam." In other words, he thought it was bunk. So does everyone else on the left, who have bought into the myth that Vietnam was a purely guerilla war and that the human-wave assaults employed by the NVA/VC on Col. Kirby's camp in the film would never have happened in real life. In point of fact almost 90% of the fighting in Vietnam was of the conventional type in the Central Highlands or the valleys ("We Were Soldiers") while only 10% of the troops were employed in the rice paddies you see in movies like "Platoon." Whenever the NVA fought out in the open, a la the Tet Offensive, they were well and truly beaten, but their leadership was ruthless and understood that by trading 5 Vietnamese lives for one American, the U.S. will to fight would eventually break. They knew the American public had only tepid support for Vietnam and would not accept the losses. The result, of course, we all know. Hanoi Jane what she wanted and so did Uncle Ho. Too bad Jane didn't go back in say, 1975 and spend some time in a re-education camp. They could have taken pics of her in a tiger cage, eating bugs and rotting from typhus.If you are reading this you probably know the story of the movie.
John Wayne's Col. Kirby and his elite Special Forces "A" Team (no, not the one with Hannibal and Face and B.A. Barracus)is sent to Vietnam to establish base camps which offer protection to the local farmers from the murderous Viet Cong (whose crimes against their own people are well documented here). The soldiers teach the locals how to fight while providing basic medical care and 20th century improvements to their primeval way of life. There is the usual big John Wayne type battle as the VC try to overrun the camp, followed by a commando raid deep into enemy territory, and a tragic-heroic ending. But the movie is more than the sum of its parts. It is not mere entertainment, it is personal propiganda, designed to present the Duke's argument for why America was fighting in Vietnam at all. The only failing is its sappiness and jingoism, which make it easy for opponents to ridicule. But making fun of it doesn't take away the fact that the Duke's argument was based on something he is rarely credited for -- human decency. What "right" did we have in Vietnam? I guess the same "right" we had to land on the beaches of Normandy. We had no "right" at all -- it was just the "right thing to do", to support a bad government (South Vietnam) against a much worse government (North Vietnam) that used methods like mass killings of teachers, civil servants, nuns, missionaries, and village chiefs to destabilze the South and forcibly unite the country. You can argue about the legitimacy of taking sides in a civil war all day, but any country that uses methods like burying people alive and raping women to death as a matter of military policy probably deserves to be opposed, yes? Anyway, let me take a moment to say I LOVE THIS FREAKIN' MOVIE. Growing up, good old Washington D.C. Channel 20 (remember when you only had ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and your one local channel? Channel 20 was ours) played this movie, (along with "The Battle of the Bulge" and "The Bridge at Remagen" and some other classics) about once every other day. Even the thought of it brings a smile to my face. Here was a guy, John Wayne, who had the guts to make a film this flag-shakingly right wing at a time when patriotism was growing unfashionable and millions of people were abandoning and spitting on the ideals that he embodied -- which, by the way, a few of us still hold true. As a movie, "The Green Berets" has a hard ideology of anti-communism and shows the newfangled Special Forces as a sort of elite brotherhood consecrated to fight against it. I think a lot of the hate directed against this movie comes from the surity of Kirby's (meaning John Wayne's) beliefs. They are rock-solid and not up for debate or negotiation. He understands what will (and did) happen to Vietnam if the North wins the war, and fights bitterly to prevent this from happening, while simultaneously trying to win over a stubborn journalist who has legitimate doubts about our involvement. No question, this movie is jingoistic and predictable, a Vietnam war movie packed in WWII casing, but who cares?
Rating:
Summary: Good Movie
Review: Watching this movie will make you want to be a member of the Army Special Forces. I joined the Army because of this movie!
Rating: 
Summary: A solid, well-made film
Review: John Wayne like any other American had the right to promote his opinion. Period. ... Now, the film is as accurate as any other Vietnam film made in that last 30 years because films are created to promote an opinion. (I've known Vietnam Vets who were not dope smoking, gun-totting genocidists.) As far as action and commitment, the Green Berets succeeds as a solid "war film." No one who cares about good film making can argue that, unless they believe in censorship. The film is panoramic and energetic in cinematic quality. The characters are strong male types (like Vets I've known.) The film chose its side and promoted it. There is one strong element that the film brings home. The US military was better at killing, and it had to be. Most US detachments were generally outnumbered, fighting an opposition armed by numerous totalitarian countries from Europe to Asia. That is a historical fact, which interestingly enough, was introduced into a film over 35 years old. The Green Berets, again, is a solid war-film and interestingly enough, is less fancifully than Platoon. The Green Berets is worth the time to see.
Rating:
Summary: John Wayne's personal salute to the troops
Review: "The Green Berets" is certainly not the best war film ever made, or the best John Wayne film ever made, but no one can doubt the personal courage it took to make this film at the heigth of the Vietnam war when anti-war sentiment was running high. The film has a lot of wrinkles, in plot, dialoug and special effects, but its got a big heart and displays a deep appreciation for American's soldiers, a genuine concern for the people of South Vietnam, and an unflappable love for freedom. Call it corny, right-wing, old fashioned, cliche or any other liberal bromide you can conjure up, the simple fact remains that people will be watching and enjoying this film for a long time because... (a) it stars John Wayne and (b) its a reminder that not everyone in the U.S. was a flag-burning war protester during Vietnam; a false image that today's liberal baby-boomers have been screeching for far too long.
Rating: 
Summary: the neandrathal man raises his ugly, facistic head again
Review: wayne was no patriot.
this movie is as blatanlty obvious and dumb (the sun rising in the east) as they get.
wayne's 'sentiments' are as phony and maudlin as he was.
strange that wayne NEVER served himself (oh, that's right, he had a bad back! while, one of the hollywood ten that he 'ratted out' to joseph mccarthy was a decorated WWII soldier).
even this type of disgusting right wing propoganda aside, the movie is sooo bad it's unintentionally funny.
the movie is as (thankfully) outdated as wayne's type of thinking is (yes we dooooo evolve. wayne and his ilk now seem as oudated as the neandrathal).
Rating:
Summary: Wayne Sticks It To The Antiwar Left
Review: The Green Berets offends a lot of movie critics. Leonard Maltin's comments pretty much sum up the "right thinking" attitude toward John Wayne's filmed tribute to the Army's Special Forces. It shows that Wayne got them where it hurt most - he affronted their worldview. This, ultimately, was and is the point Wayne hoped to make. Inspired by Robin Moore's superlative nonfiction novel about the Green Berets in Vietnam circa 1964, Wayne didn't set out to make an overly realistic portrayal of the fighting in Vietnam - his purpose was to put to the big screen a sympathetic portrayal of American soldiers and the American effort in Vietnam at a time when the term baby-killer was becoming an all-too-familiar libel pasted on those in the service. Wayne had his own misgivings over how the war was handled at the top level of government, but he noted over the years that the US did make a commitment, and the idea for the film came after a USO tour of the country and chats with soldiers. Wayne wanted the film made in Vietnam itself, but could not get permission and thus had to settle for filming it at Fort Benning, Georgia. Wayne and Ray Kellogg strove hard to make the film as believable looking as they could given the constraints they were working under. Nitpickers will of course uncover a lot wrong with the film - the overly stylized battle scenes, the stylized and sometimes cliched portrayal of the soldier-characters - notably Jim Hutton's Sgt. Peterson and Also Ray's Sgt. Muldoon. They'll note, as a recent biography of Wayne quite unfairly does, the differences between the events in the film and similar events in Robin Moore's book. But the film has aged much better than the leftist fraudulence of such works as Vietnam: Hearts & Minds and the quasi-surrealism of Apocalypse Now have. This is because Waybe and company made it without any pretense, and because the film's pro-American view of the war is far more accurate an historical gauge given the disasterous events that befell Indochina after the fall of Saigon. As an action film, The Green Berets is quite entertaining, as Wayne assembled an engaging cast including Hutton, Ray, David Janssen in one of his first projects after the completion of The Fugitive television series, Luke Askew - reportedly Askew was a reallife antiwar activist, so how he signed onto this film is a puzzle - Edward Faulkner, Jason Evers, George Takei, and Jack Soo. The action for two-thirds of the film centers around a Forces basecamp that is in the heart of 'Cong territory, and which the NVA assaults and finally destroys only to be slaughtered by an AC-47 gunship. Following this mini-Khe Sanh seige Wayne signs on to lead a mission to kidnap a well known 'Cong general. The film ultimately is an action yarn that pops the antiwar left right in the eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Remember, this film was filmed on location
Review: John Wayne's Green Berets succeeds in that it was indeed filmed on location at Fort Bragg, NC during the time that U.S. Army Special Forces made their big entry into the world scene...view this film as a docu-drama of the old Gabriel demonstration area, an actual Caribou static-line parachute jump, a Fulton STAR "Skyhook" extraction and Huey helicopter flying footage. If you study the topography of Vietnam there are wooded areas that could pass for looking like NC pine forests, it wasn't all jungles as is the common misconception. Most that nit-pick this movie do so out of knee-jerk anti-everything-about-the-Vietnam-War-and I question their morality, what if we fought the war and casualties were under 1,000 over a 10 year period, would these folks still oppose the war? I'd say yes, because to them "me-first" is their guiding mantra. John Wayne is right on target in this movie because he shows the essential truth that the VC/NVA were trying to enforce their communist will on the South, whether the South's government was perfect is irrelevent. A nation like the U.S. that can stand up for freedom, had better protect the weak and innocent like the Vietnamese boy or else someday we will get our "just deserts" because we squandered away our blessings on self-indulgence. Its only by providence that you or I were not born in Vietnam, and if I were a south Vietnamese, I would welcome American Green Berets to my country to help us defend ourselves from tyrants internal and external.
Rating:
Summary: THE DUKE HAS THE LEFT TIED IN KNOTS
Review: In 1969, John Wayne infuriated the Left with "The Green Berets", a film that made no apologies in its all-out support of America's effort in Vietnam. It was lambasted by critics, but in a very interesting sign, sold out at the box office. It plays today and while it is heavy-handed, there is little about it that rings untrue. The soldiers do not swear, complain or bastardize their uniforms like the actual guys did, but their patriotism and military professionalism was the real deal. The Communists they fight in the film are shifty little pissants. This does not deviate from the essential truth. STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
STWRITES@AOL.COM
Rating:
Summary: Take that, Uncle Ho!
Review: If you ever read Gustav Hasford's "The Short-Timers" (which "Full Metal Jacket" was based on) you know how he felt about this movie: "Let's watch the Duke and Mr. Sulu karate-chop Victor Charlie in a Kodicolor fantasy about Vietnam." In other words, he thought it was bunk. So does everyone else on the left, who have bought into the myth that Vietnam was a purely guerilla war and that the human-wave assaults employed by the NVA/VC on Col. Kirby's camp in the film would never have happened in real life. In point of fact almost 90% of the fighting in Vietnam was of the conventional type in the Central Highlands or the valleys ("We Were Soldiers") while only 10% of the troops were employed in the rice paddies you see in movies like "Platoon." Whenever the NVA fought out in the open, a la the Tet Offensive, they were well and truly beaten, but their leadership was ruthless and understood that by trading 5 Vietnamese lives for one American, the U.S. will to fight would eventually break. They knew the American public had only tepid support for Vietnam and would not accept the losses. The result, of course, we all know. Hanoi Jane what she wanted and so did Uncle Ho. Too bad Jane didn't go back in say, 1975 and spend some time in a re-education camp. They could have taken pics of her in a tiger cage, eating bugs and rotting from typhus. If you are reading this you probably know the story of the movie.
John Wayne's Col. Kirby and his elite Special Forces "A" Team (no, not the one with Hannibal and Face and B.A. Barracus)is sent to Vietnam to establish base camps which offer protection to the local farmers from the murderous Viet Cong (whose crimes against their own people are well documented here). The soldiers teach the locals how to fight while providing basic medical care and 20th century improvements to their primeval way of life. There is the usual big John Wayne type battle as the VC try to overrun the camp, followed by a commando raid deep into enemy territory, and a tragic-heroic ending. But the movie is more than the sum of its parts. It is not mere entertainment, it is personal propiganda, designed to present the Duke's argument for why America was fighting in Vietnam at all. The only failing is its sappiness and jingoism, which make it easy for opponents to ridicule. But making fun of it doesn't take away the fact that the Duke's argument was based on something he is rarely credited for -- human decency. What "right" did we have in Vietnam? I guess the same "right" we had to land on the beaches of Normandy. We had no "right" at all -- it was just the "right thing to do", to support a bad government (South Vietnam) against a much worse government (North Vietnam) that used methods like mass killings of teachers, civil servants, nuns, missionaries, and village chiefs to destabilze the South and forcibly unite the country. You can argue about the legitimacy of taking sides in a civil war all day, but any country that uses methods like burying people alive and raping women to death as a matter of military policy probably deserves to be opposed, yes? Anyway, let me take a moment to say I LOVE THIS FREAKIN' MOVIE. Growing up, good old Washington D.C. Channel 20 (remember when you only had ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and your one local channel? Channel 20 was ours) played this movie, (along with "The Battle of the Bulge" and "The Bridge at Remagen" and some other classics) about once every other day. Even the thought of it brings a smile to my face. Here was a guy, John Wayne, who had the guts to make a film this flag-shakingly right wing at a time when patriotism was growing unfashionable and millions of people were abandoning and spitting on the ideals that he embodied -- which, by the way, a few of us still hold true. As a movie, "The Green Berets" has a hard ideology of anti-communism and shows the newfangled Special Forces as a sort of elite brotherhood consecrated to fight against it. I think a lot of the hate directed against this movie comes from the surity of Kirby's (meaning John Wayne's) beliefs. They are rock-solid and not up for debate or negotiation. He understands what will (and did) happen to Vietnam if the North wins the war, and fights bitterly to prevent this from happening, while simultaneously trying to win over a stubborn journalist who has legitimate doubts about our involvement. No question, this movie is jingoistic and predictable, a Vietnam war movie packed in WWII casing, but who cares?
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