While this is of course a forum for the discussion of all things audio/hi-fi and music, pretty much all of us are also lovers of movies, the enjoyment of which is effected by the reproduction of the sound they contain (with the exception of silent movies ).
I've been focused on David Lynch movies since his death, but with current events so much a part of our lives at the moment, I plan on re-watching a movie I’ve seen only once, and years ago. That movie is:
@gano, because I believe in safe and responsible gun ownership. That begins with knowing everything you can about them and the responsibility that comes with it. Want to know another reason to not like Florida? Know what’s the only paperwork required to buy a pistol from a private individual down there? Money. That’s it. No background check, no government paperwork, no registering it, nothing. If you’ve got the cash, you get the gun. Even crazier? They just did away with requiring a concealed/carry permit. That’s right! No safety class to pass, just strap that loaded thing on and go! So, any yahoo with absolutely no idea about firearms can legally carry around a loaded gun. They passed that right before they started banning books. That state is a hot, steaming mess.
Actually, a blank is a fully functioning cartridge without the bullet.
But you see, @thecarpathian, what the action of a semi or a full auto requires to function is the gases from the combustion within the cartridge portion of the round routed back into the bolt. On a direct impinged AR15, for example, the path of the exhaust gas is through an orifice in the barrel that runs directly above the rifled portion of the barrel. Versus, for another example, the AK47, which routes the gas into a cylinder directly above the barrel where it drives a piston that operates the action. (A M1A also has a smaller cylinder with a piston that is located below the barrel.) And then, of course, you have the blowback principle where the force exerted on the cartridge portion of the round pushes it (the cartridge) back, and that is what racks the action and leaves it ready for another shot. This is common with handguns.
So what this means, is if the bullet is not traveling down the barrel IN FRONT OF THE GAS (as in a blank), the gas has no reason to route back and recock the action after firing the first shot as the gas is simply expelled out the muzzle (and obviously NOT back into the action). That doesn’t mean a semi auto cannot fire blanks, but as opposed to operating in the semi auto mode, but it needs to be manually recocked after each shot. Hence, a modification (some type of obstruction) needs to be made to the muzzle so the gas will be routed back where it needs to go. BUT, if a live round happened to be introduced to that scenario, I would think that the result would be a catastrophic barrel failure.
I will point out that although I own several semi autos, I do not and never have fired blanks out of my semis or my firearms that are not semiautos, nor do I have any desire to fire blanks, so what I know about this is from what I have read on gun forums. However, if you understand how a semi-automatic functions, and you think about it, that does make sense. If that explanation up above does not make sense, I’ll try again, just let me know. No sarcasm intended.
@gano, have you seen American Dreamer (2022)? Matt Dillon has a major supporting role, and he kills it. Excellent.
. . . going back to the differences between a direct impingement AR and an AK variant (a "piston gun"), that is why the DI AR is considered a "dirtier" firing gun. Possibly one of the reasons that in the early days of the AR, they had a rep for being a bit unreliable. However, that has all been worked out, and the DI AR is an extremely efficient platform, and quite a few years ago, they started making piston ARs. However, all of my (ARs) are DIs. From what I have read, there were other reasons that the early ARs were unreliable, and part of the reason was the government insisted on using a round for that weapon system that was not compatible with the way the system operated best.
What goes into a gun is called a cartridge. It consists of 4 parts- the casing, the primer, the powder, and the projectile (bullet). A blank consists of 3 out of the four so it sounds and acts identically to a full cartridge without discharging a projectile.
Well, @thecarpathian, as I attempted to explain a couple of posts ago (and probably butchered the explanation), a blank does NOT act exactly identical to a live round when used in a semi-automatic. A semi-auto requires back pressure on the expelling gas (gas produced by the ignition and combustion within the cartridge) and the bullet in front of the expelling gas is what creates that back pressure; without that back pressure, ALL the gas will simply expel out the muzzle in lieu of returning back to operate the semi automatic action. Hence, the modification needed at the muzzle in order to fire blanks in a semi-auto mode versus re-cocking between shots fired. (Manual re-cocking can be done, but then you are no longer operating in semi-auto.) The same would hold true for a semiauto handgun operating in blowback--without backpressure the fired cartridge would not be pushed back and the handgun would have to be racked manually in order eject the spent round and to fire the follow up shot. One of my semi-auto hand guns is basically junk, and I have to rack it manually after each shot, because, for whatever reason, what is supposed to be going on in there with the blow back is not working as per what I just attempted to explain.)
I think that may be a clearer explanation than my last one. And "backpressure" is generally an automotive exhaust term, and I don’t know if the gun guys use it, but off the cuff it was what I could think of for explanation purposes. I know how different mechanical things work, but sadly, I am often challenged when trying to use words to describe. I often draw pictures instead.
Want to know another reason to not like Florida? Know what’s the only paperwork required to buy a pistol from a private individual down there? Money. That’s it. No background check, no government paperwork, no registering it, nothing.
Fl is not the only state like that. Tn as well, or at least I know it used to be.
Even crazier? They just did away with requiring a concealed/carry permit. That’s right! No safety class to pass,
Again, this is not only in Fl. In Vt no CCW is required. (But Vt does require a FFL for private handgun sales.) In Pa no classes are required, but one does have to pass the same background check required to purchase a handgun. That and $20 and you are good for five years.
Actually, a blank is a fully functioning cartridge without the bullet.
What most people refer to as ’bullets’-aren’t. That is just the little projectile that comes out of the gun. What goes into a gun is called a cartridge. It consists of 4 parts- the casing, the primer, the powder, and the projectile (bullet). A blank consists of 3 out of the four so it sounds and acts identically to a full cartridge without discharging a projectile.
@thecarpathian, this is what I was trying to describe to @ganoa few hours ago when he and I were discussing negligent discharges on movie sets and war re-enactments/thanks to google:
"Dedicated Blank Firing Adapter (BFA): A BFA is crucial for reliable cycling. This device attaches to the muzzle of the firearm and constricts the gas pressure, providing the necessary backpressure for the bolt to cycle properly. BFAs are usually designed to be caliber specific and readily identifiable. Using the incorrect BFA can cause damage to the firearm or create a dangerous situation."
And evidently "backpressure" was an okay descriptor. From what I read on the site where I just found this, there are a few other ways to modify a barrel or muzzle in order to fire blanks in a semi-automatic mode, but the one above was the one I was thinking about at the time. But the thing is, with all of the methods, a live round (meaning one with a bullet attached to the neck of a cartridge) fired through a barrel modified as such, would absolutely have to result in a catastrophic barrel failure. I think it would be pretty nasty.
@immatthewj, ah! Thank you for that information. It makes perfect sense and I stand corrected. Didn’t think of that, and I love learning something new!
Now the question: If the gun was modified to fire blanks, how did it manage to fire a live round without a problem??
Yes, @thecarpathian, Baldwin had (what I believe was a single action type of) a revolver chambered in .45 Long Colt (which is not a round to be sneezed at, although not as powerful as a .44 magnum) and blanks and live rounds would have fired interchangeably out of that. I am not at all familiar with the make that they stated that the revolver was.
Another example of what I was attempting to explain would be the rifles that the Honor Guards typically use at military funerals. Not that I go to that many, the last one was my dad’s almost ten years ago to the day, but at my Dad’s, the Guard was using M1 Garands (which are semi-automatic) for the three-volley salute, and after each volley they had to manually re-cock their rifles prior to the next volley. Meaning that their Garands had never been modified to fire blanks in a semi-auto mode, but had they been firing live rounds at my Dad’s funeral (almost surprised they were not, considering the nature of that town) they could have fired their volleys in a semi-auto mode without manually re-cocking.
Anyway, I am glad that the explanation I attempted worked for you, as I frequently struggle converting my mechanical understandings into words. Just a couple of more "fun facts" if you are interested--on the subject of the .45 LC and the .44 mag, a .44 mag will drop right into the cylinder of a .45 LC (but not vice versa). I only know this because I have tried it with mine, and it would PROBABLY discharge, but I would never try to actually fire a .44 mag out of a .45 LC because I am about 99.9% positive that the .45 LC frame would NEVER withstand the pressure.
And back to semiautomatic rifles and rifles that are not semiautos (such as a manually operated bolt action), given that explanation I attempted a few posts ago, if you were to take one of each with a barrel of identical length firing an identical load, the semiauto (the "gas gun") would have a somewhat lower muzzle velocity (although I do not know the actual specs) than the bolt action, because a percentage of the expanding gas (and I don’t know the actual percentage) is bled off to work the action of the semiautomatic. Although with that typed, back maybe 13 or 14 years ago when I was spending a lot of time at the range, I would frequently run into this guy I liked who practically lived there. One of his (many) guns was an AR10 chambered in .308, and the last time I talked to him he told me he had gone from being able to hit eggs at 600 yards with it to golf balls! I guess I sounded a bit skeptical, because he said, "I never said that I was hitting them with EVERY shot, Matt." But a gun that would do that is a pretty good shooting gun regardless of whether a "gas gun" or not. And I suppose it is possible that maybe he was making those shots--after all, guns were his thing and maybe his only thing and he had an EXTREMELY nice scope and he worked up his own loads.
The last "fun fact" I’ll throw out is about the loads. Understanding what I was attempting to explain about the expanding gas pushing the bullet down the barrel, for every given load there is an ideal barrel length. As with a barrel that is shorter than ideal for a given load, the bullet will exit the muzzle while the gas behind it is still expanding and energy will be unused and wasted. While with a barrel that is too long for a given load, the bullet will be still traveling down the barrel after the gas behind it has ceased expanding, and now the barrel is acting as a drag on the bullet. So the barrel with a chambered cartridge is basically like a calibrated open-ended pipe bomb, and in the case of a semiauto, some of the energy is designed to be bled off to make the gun fire without being MANUALLY re-cocked between shots.
@immatthewj Elephant may bowl you over; it’s gripping. Snowpiercer is a rollercoaster ride, a genre in which I think Bong Joon Ho excels. Get out the popcorn and hold on. I haven’t seen American dreamer, but I’m a big fan of Matt Dillon. And, I, too, am a current Peacock subscriber. I’ll throw it into negotiations with my wife.
Elephant is now on top of my short list. It will be happening this week I am pretty sure. As far as Matt Dillon, Haunted Heart (2024) actually has Matt Dillon as a main star of the movie, and it seems to be sort of intended to be a bit of an intense psychological thriller, but after watching American Dreamer (2022) last night, with Matt Dillon in a supporting role as Peter Dinklage’s (with Shirley Mac Laine as a costar) real estate agent, I thought that Dillon was better in the latter. American Dreamer is a bit of a dark comedy, and imo this was Matt Dillon at his best (even in a supporting role) with his vocal inflections and the way he would annunciate certain words and the facial expressions (grimaces and such) that he would put on when he delivered his lines in excellent form. (Danny Glover also had a smaller supporting role as a private detective that Matt Dillon arranged for Peter Dinklage, and he was quite good as well. There were many laugh out loud moments in this one.)
I will watch the Elephant and the American Dreamer. I also should add Albino Alligator to the Matt Dillon list. Irresistible in my opinion.
WHY????????????? WHY WAS IT REMOVED????????????????????????
is someone so mentally sick and debilitated that having this removed make them feel less pain from their failed pathetic life?
The other two comments were equally on topic for the discussion, polite, and harmless. Perhaps too harmless.
I have had it with the moderation. (They/Tammy ignored my last 3 emails.)
This is the hill worth dying on as there are so many lowlife despicable acts here that ruin our civilized conversations. I don’t normally swear but I would for sure now.
@gano, first off, there are a couple of members I am trying not to interact on the threads that they are on, because when I do my posts seem to have about a 75% deletion rate. I won’t mention any screen names, because that would probably be enough to get this post deleted, but the responses of mine that got deleted were no worse than the posts I was replying to. Think skinned snowflakes. Then there was texas-jerry, who seems to be back in another reincarnation, and I was trading caustic responses’ with him on a thread, and guess who’s got deleted. The post you alluded to is actually back, and my curiosity is piqued as to what the two that are still gone were about. Although this thread has meandered on & off topic, I felt it was one of the more civilized threads going on A’gon and the disagreements (if there were any) were stated reasonably.
Anyway:
I will watch the Elephant and the American Dreamer. I also should add Albino Alligator to the Matt Dillon list. Irresistible in my opinion.
Elephant is on my list for this week (thanks to @hce1) as the trailer looked mesmerizing. As far as American Dreamer, if you like Matt Dillon, you are going to love this one. As I previously typed, he has a supporting role as a real estate agent, but this is classic Matt Dillon. If I had ever forgot why I like him so much, this film reminded me. Man, but he is a great actor. On edit: I just googled Albino Alligator, and I am pretty sure I have watched that one before.
Anyway, I hope you don’t bail; your perspective is well stated and interesting. Regardless, I understand that you gotta do what you gotta do--there is a reason I will never click on audio asylum again, and that reason is quite similar to what you are stating. And I will only say, fwiw, that the moderation is way better here than there. But I wish you well and hope you reconsider.
In other words, I think that the snowflakes report and the mods delete
I argued this 100s of times here. After I contact the mods about why my comment was deleted (at this point it's probably 30+ times) I receive a response that I violated A rule. I try to clarify that said rule is not listed anywhere and then the response is: someone was offended by it. And 29 out of 30 times, even though my comment couldn't offend a soul, it's still not restored. So, yes, the mods play a role in this too.
Like @immatthewj, I’m a liberal progressive who was raised in a home with firearms. My dad made my brother and I take NRA firearm safety courses back when it was just that, safety courses and not a lobbying firm on the take for gun manufacturers.
Having said that, I don’t believe Alec Baldwin was at fault, even if he was the producer. He can’t be everywhere at all times and besides, being a producer just means you helped secure funds to have a movie made or know someone who does.
The job of armorer is very important and Reed was young, connected and incompetent. Actors act, amoreres maintain and arm guns, cameramen run cameras, etc. When an actor is handed a gun, the armorer and another person have to have inspected and/or loaded the gun. Live ammo is never allowed on set. "Cold gun" was announced when the gun was handed over. That meant no ammo in it. "Hot gun" means there’s blanks in it. Reed said she checked "most of the time" Her testimony! It’s one of the cushiest jobs in film making you can get and she couldn’t even take it seriously enough to do it right.
Even if there were blanks, there’s no way for an actor to tell if a six gun is safely loaded with blanks unless they look down the front of the gun and rotate the cylnder chamber by chamber and I know of no one who would do that. You can only tell by looking at the buisness end of the bullet. You just can’t swing open the cylinder like on a modern gun and you can’t tell by looking at the primer end of the bullets even if you could swing it open.
Blanks are still deadly. I’ve seen 9mm blanks go halfway through a phonebook and a .45 punch threw a can at close range. That actor who put a gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulled the trigger thinking nothing would happen shoved a half dollar size of his skull halfway into his head.
Reed gave a bag of cocaine to another crew member so it wouldn’t be found on her. Off set she did coke, pot and booze (that’s her business but it speaks to her character). She and/or her subordinate brought the live ammo on the set. As for pointing the gun at the camera, that’s what the scene called for (you see it all the time in movies).
Cinematographer Hutchins was lining up her camera for the shot as Baldwin held the gun. It went off like it did about a week earlier with another actor prompting several crew members to say" f*ck it, I’m outta here".
In the trial Hannah was found guilty of negligent manslaughter but charges of tampering with evidence was dropped after many people suddenly started handling the guns and ammo. That should tell you something. Hannah also faces charges of bringing one of her loaded guns into a bar as well. As for Baldwin, he was exonerated after finding the prosecution hid evidence that there was live ammo on the set. Prosecutorial misconduct as they call it. They had it in for him since he’s a liberal. Go figure.
@ganoBaldwin wasn't playing with the gun. He was holding it like he was supposed to according the script, aimed at the camera.
I know you hate guns but that's quite the leap of logic to say he "pulled" the trigger as if he knew it was loaded. How else does one hold the gun?
Actors aren't remotely supposed to be armorers. Only some know their way around a gun. That's why there's supposed to be safety on the set with the armorer in charge of the gun and the actor using it as a prop.
Horrible as it was, it's not Baldwin's fault for trusting what's supposed to be a professional. At least two armorers are required to check it. A court of law saw it that way too.
@nonoiseagree to disagree. I would not point a functioning gun at a person. Point a freaking ruler or water bottle. No one has died from that. Build non-functioning pistols, jam them, whatever it takes.
To put it in context, how would you value eliminating all risks if it was the mother of your child? Wouldn't you want all precautions taken? When things CAN go wrong they WILL. Humans make mistakes. That's why we create safety protocols.
Guns have been in movies since the beginning of movies. That's why it's a well regulated industry. All it took was an amateur with experience gained from working with real professionals to slip through the cracks and slack off. She was a big fish in a small pond who wouldn't make it in a big budget Hollywood film.
Imagine if Baldwin was shooting a Viking movie and had to swing a battle axe at the camera for the script. Is he supposed to be an expert on battle axes and inspect it or does he rely on the expertise of the armorer?
So he swings it for the camera and the head comes off striking and killing the camera operator. Is he at fault for that as well? Things can go wrong and will forever continue to do so despite the safety protocols we put in place.
Baldwin was supposed to have been given an unloaded gun since it was to be pointed at the camera and that was with safety protocols. The armorer screwed up badly and was lucky she only got 18 months in prison considering she did the same thing a week earlier to another actor, was probably high and despite the dropped charge of tampering with the evidence to hide the live ammo and get it off the set.
I know this is a touchy subject so I'll let this be the last I say on it.
@nonoiseright, I would just repeat myself. But I would like to point out you started a sentence with "All it took was "
I don't want to be on an airplane or in a movie set with guns ending in the tragedy where "All it took was ". It should take many many things to go wrong and massively unlikely events to happen all at once. Such as: gun can't go off, TWO people checking, etc. etc.
Love the (off) topic post. I don't watch that many movies these days as I prefer to listen to music. I think Whipsaw's list is formidable, that is to say, I like your taste in cinema. I'm a big Jim Jarmusch fan and happy to see other's have enjoyed, "Only Lovers Left Alive," as much as I did. Let's not forget Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and his protagonist, "the man with no name". Three films I highly recommend to those interested: "Incendies", directed by Denis Villeneuve, "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", (by the great filmmaker Werner Herzog), and "Mr. Jones". Happy viewing.
the game began @immatthewj , they are removing comments that mention removing comments and the painful and disruptive moderation.
Wow, they got one of mine also, @gano. I have no idea what I would have typed in that one that offended the dainty sensibilities of some thin skinned snowflake.
@gano, momentarily back to Matt Dillon, did you enjoy Crash (2004)? That movie turned into another one of my Matt Dillon favorites. I thought that the casting was quite good, which included Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Tony Danza, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner (who is an actor I really like), Brendan Fraser, Terrence Howard, Michael Pena, Ryan Phillippa. . . .
As we were discussing Phil Spector and Rebecca Pidgeon's roles several posts ago, here is something you may enjoy--her doing a live cover of Spanish Harlem:
@immathewj yes, I like the Crash. Saw it a few times. It's a bit different 20 years later, a bit simplistic and doesn't give me as much hope as it used to. We need more movies and discussion about the subject and progress maybe?
yes, he was. He can play the scumbag and the nice guy in one person like very few.
Also: Wild Things. Something was off in that movie. It was a great script, great casting, enjoyable pace and suspense but I never loved it. I guess too many stars don’t work for me, in general
On the Crash subject. One of Them Days. Delightful. Predictable in a disturbing way. Funny and said and touching.
He can play the scumbag and the nice guy in one person like very few.
I agree with you that he completely nailed that in Crash, @gano. He always comes off to me as real--often as someone who I think it would be fun to know. Or maybe it is that he comes off as someone who I think would be fun to know in real life because of the way he comes off in movies. It’s the little things and scenes he does, things and scenes that can go almost unnoticed that are part of why I appreciate him to the extent I do. For example, after the intense interaction/confrontation at the beginning of shift he had with his ex-rookie partner after they were split up, the jovial interaction that immediately followed with his new Hispanic partner he was going to be riding with that day. He is a master at delivering his lines.
As a matter of fact, although I thought that some of the vignettes or sub-stories were stronger than others, I felt that the whole cast did a fine job.
William Fichtner is another actor who I have really come to appreciate after watching him over the years, and although his role wasn’t really that big, I thought that he also was one who nailed it when interacting with Don Cheadle. I am also generally a fan of Sandra Bullock.
yes what I like about him is his range, that you wouldn't assume from his smug charm, from Something About Mary to Singles. Fitchner is cool, The Company You Keep was a great show. I suspected they wouldn't renew it, it was too good!
Watched "Transsiberian" yesterday. I was very impressed. Had some plot twists that were kind of unexpected. Emily Mortimer was excellent and Ben Kingsley usually is.
^ Woody Harrelson spreading his wings. He's similar to Hanks in that they are unlikely looking stars but are always able to pull off a wide variety of roles
yes what I like about him is his range, that you wouldn’t assume from his smug charm, from Something About Mary to Singles.
@gano, Something About Mary is a great example in my opinion. It did not affect me in any profound way, it had no deep meaning or underlying serious message that I could ascertain, but I certainly did not consider watching it a waste of time because I found it entertaining (sometimes hilarious) and I am sure that I laughed out loud frequently. Ben Stiller was good (as he frequently is) but I maintain that there are other actors who probably could have done well with his part. Matt Dillon brought something to his role of a devious/sleazy PI who was infatuated/obsessed with Mary that had a flavor to it that I am not sure who else would have done it as nicely.
I remember this particular interaction so well that I found it on a site that quotes dialogue from films:
Matt Dillon: Really, it’s only a side thing for my true passion.
Cameron Diaz: And what’s that?
Dillon: I work with retards.
Diaz: Isn’t that a little politically incorrect?
Dillon: Yeah, maybe, but hell, no one’s gonna tell me who I can and can’t work with.
And that is great dialogue, and anyone could have delivered it, but not everyone would have pulled it off as casually and easily while expressing how shallow his character is as Matt Dillon did.
In American Dreamer, which is basically a lighthearted comedy with some warm fuzziness and redemption worked in as it progressed, there was a subtle interaction between Dinklage and Dillon that particularly stuck with me. Not a spoiler, but Dillon plays a somewhat flamboyant and successful real estate guy who is helping his not so successful and cynical (versus flamboyant) friend, who is played by Dinklage, check out what appears to be the deal of a lifetime on a property that would normally be way out of Dinklage’s league. Part of the deal is that the current owner, Shirley Maclaine, gets to live in the main portion of the estate while Dinklage is relegated to a small room within the house until Maclaine’s death. Over drinks in a bar, Dillon explains to Dinklage that Maclaine wants to die in her own home and not in a convalescent home. I cannot find the direct quote, but he relates to Dinklage that convalescent homes are horrible; he briefly pauses and says that his mom is in one. That loses a lot in translation, but basically this wealthy real estate guy just told his buddy, "Nursing homes are horrific--I know because I put my mom in one." Then the film pans to another scene. A tiny scene that said a lot to me as a viewer, and part of why it worked so well for me was the subtle inflection in his voice, not sad but impressed by how miserable the condition of the place he put his mom in, and the momentary expression on his face.
Subtle.
Anyway . . . ramble on . . . but what I was getting at was that with that quick scene Dillon successfully continued to paint more of the picture of who he was portraying, and he made me laugh at the same time. Which is getting back to what I said about the little/subtle things that I think he frequently does as an actor that makes him so good, and I felt that Something About Mary had many of those Matt Dillon moments.
I just watched Warfare last night and highly recommend it for anyone that has romantic thoughts of combat. This is not a rah-rah portrait of war. It's written by the former SEAL who was there. He was concussed but kept on going and they relied on the memory of all the other SEAL team members to helped piece it together.
It's directed by the same guy who did Civil War and is actually pretty far removed from that in comparison. The military advisor on that was the same SEAL who wrote Warfare with the help of the director. There's no music soundtrack. In the end, things look rather fruitless considering what they sacrificed but that is basically the cost of war. It should be required viewing for all the gung-ho wannabes out there.
I just took a look, @nonoise, and it appears I can rent Warfare for 5.99. I have got Elephant at the top of my "pay for list", but I will put Warfare as #2. (You may be interested in Elephant yourself; the trailer makes me think that it is based on Columbine.)
In the end, things look rather fruitless considering what they sacrificed but that is basically the cost of war. It should be required viewing for all the gung-ho wannabes out there.
That was me when I was growing up. From reading some of your posts, I think I am about 5 years younger than you, meaning that I was growing up under the shadow of Vietnam and the draft, but in the end the US was out before I was old enough. But I was like Tom Cruise’s (nationalistic in his youth) character in Born On The Fourth Of July--I thought it was my duty, and I guess I couldn't wait to be old enough to go somewhere and be a hero. Many times since then I have given thanks that I was born in ’59 and not ’49 . . . talk about fruitless.
@immatthewj I'm in the same boat as you, or thereabouts. I was 6 months out from being drafted for Nam before the war ended. My older brother went in but he ended up in Germany as an MP. I, too, was gung-ho what with my dad being a Seabee in the Navy in WWII and my uncle was in intelligence. Raised as a good Republican in a Republican household and extended family until I first voted, and never looked back.
Born in '54 and I used to think it was too early but the way things are going now, at least I got to live a good, normal American life.
You were closer than I was, @nonoise. I didn’t graduate HS until ’77 and by that time I actually had a pretty good part time job (36 hours a week for a high school kid!), and after I did graduate they gave me a raise (five and change an hour!) and put me on full time. So when I did join the AF in ’78, it was more because I needed to get out of a certain small town in Montana and didn’t see higher education as something that would work for me, as opposed to it being my waning sense of nationalism. A month or so before I was inducted I went to see The Boys In Company C (1978), and I remember thinking to myself that I was glad: 1) that Vietnam was over, and 2) that I did not join the Marine Corps.
but the way things are going now, at least I got to live a good, normal American life.
My sentiments exactly. At least I got to live the best days of my life when things here were not perfect, but all in all, still pretty good in comparison.
@immathewj and @nonoise: I’m just ahead of you guys, being born in 1950. By 1968 (when I started college, and therefore had a student deferment) everyone knew the Vietnam war was already lost, and skeptical (at best) about Nixon’s claim of having a secret plan to end the war (with "honor"). That was when my cynicism regarding politicians was fomented.
My Dad served in the Army Air Corps in World War 2, as a navigator on a bomber (the Air Force was created after WW2), and was a staunch Republican (my Mom a Democrat, a typical family voting situation in the USA). But even he knew Vietnam was a lost cause, and was not willing to sacrifice his only son for it.
In 1969 the military instituted the draft lottery---based on date of birth, and my number (249) was quite away from the highest number than year (around 210 iirc). After your first year in the lottery, your military obligation was fulfilled. My younger sister’s boyfriend wasn’t so lucky, and ended up in Nam. But not for long; he took a bullet to his forehead on his first trek into the jungle..
That sister joined the Navy in 1978, being deployed first in Hawaii then in Germany. Her military benefits have come in handy, as she suffers from a lot of health issues. When I take her to her doctor’s appointments at the local Vet facility I see lots of Vietnam Vets, and it’s not a pretty sight. My Dad refused to talk about WW2, typical of Vets who saw combat.
I found the statement made by Francis Ford Coppola about his film Apocalypse Now extremely despicable: "My film is not about Vietnam. My film is Vietnam." Unbelievable! In addition to his statement being so offensive and ridiculous, his film is a bloated, pompous, pretentious pos. IMO Full Metal Jacket and The Deer Hunter are much better movies about the war.
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