War - What is it good for?
This was probably one of the first war movies that I saw that painted a truer picture of what it would actually be like. Including the horrors and a lot of the insanity that occurred during the Vietnam war.
Here we have a young naive college man (Chris Taylor) that enlists, not sure what he was thinking. Once he arrives in Vietnam it becomes clear that he is the platoon's leader by name only. The actual leaders are two older more experienced non-commissioned officers, the hard Robert Barnes and the more friendly Elias Grodin.
During one outing the come across a local village that has been helping the enemy, and during the interrogation an illegal killing occurs. This splits the platoon and the two NCOs, one of them was directly involved in the killing.
In a war that doesn't have absolute commitment from the western forces things will only every be division between men fighting it. Therefore Chris finds himself trying to deal with all the shades of grey that are occurring as well as fighting two enemy's. The soldiers on the other side and the conflict that is growing between his own men.
Basically, as the song goes "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing." To get a sense of the horrors experienced during war people should watch this and remember the soldiers were doing their best to stay alive. So blame the people that sent them there, not the people actually on the front lines.