Back in the 50s and 60s, war on the silver screen, valor galore.
We always won the war, exciting fun to kill enemies, always went home singing victory songs.
Rousing entertainment while nonchalantly munching buttered popcorn and juicy fruits in cushy movie seats.
Never lost, nobody really hurt. A few died but not the main characters, unknown extras usually, their deaths a blip on the silver screen.
Besides in the movies, less personal, less real, didn’t register. Nobody got Agent Orange, maimed, shell shocked or PTSD.
Nobody came back in wheelchairs or missing limbs.
The real Vietnam war changed it all.
A high school classmate, Joe Drew, joined the marines back then, unlikely candidate, gentle Joe never got in a fight.
Sweet personality seemed incapable of harming anything. First one in my city home dead in a body bag, lost his young life, and his future, in that faraway Southeast Asian jungle.
More deaths followed. Not like the movies. Sons, daughters, brothers, fathers and mothers dying.
Many came home maimed in body and in mind, others in wheelchairs, some with arms and legs blown off.
Agent Orange and PTSD plagued many. No cures.
The 50s and 60s war movies were never like that.
Bob Boyd