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Home WINTER SOLDIER -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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He said, "Never in Vietnam has any Infantry Unit been withdrawn," and he said, "You people can do it by yourself. I don't care if you've been there nine hours or nine weeks. You're going to stay out there until there is none of you left or until we come and get you."
Later on that night I took the casualty report. It was fourteen pages. There were 43 killed and about 30 wounded, and a lot of them were my friends.
They claimed they killed a hundred Viet Cong, but Gordon says they killed two or three hundred. Stars and Stripes claimed that only 35 Americans were killed and wounded. I know they're pretty confused out there, but it's pretty fucked up when not even Stars and Stripes can figure out how many people were there.
GORDON STEWART: I'd like to add on that, since I was there and wounded there, that they wouldn't bring any ammunition into us, food or water. The helicopters were afraid of getting hit because the one helicopter that came in for a medevac was shot down in the river. We managed to get all the dead and wounded out but one. It was a gunner, I believe. I don't really want to talk about it.
I think one of the biggest ways that the guys who personally fight the army or any policy is what is termed "malingering" or "shamming." Any way you could damage yourself.
The first time I walked into my unit, I walked in and a brother was laying on a bed stoned out of his mind. And another brother came down with a baseball bat on his leg, and broke it right in front of me. And I asked, "What's happening?" And he says, "You just go out and hump bush for a while and you'll find out."
And you're scared. You're so scared that you'll shoot anything. You look at your enemy, you look at them as animals, and at the same time you're just turning yourself into an animal, too.
And I'd say that's got my head spinning a little right now, the fact that I was actually one time an animal, and that now I have to come back and be civil again. And people sort of expect a purpose, and expect you just to have a definite purpose: "Are you going to school?" "Yeah." "Are you going to work?" "Yeah." |
