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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tonight's episode: I wept the whole way through.  OMG.[/quote]

I wanted to react that way, but for me, it just fell flat.  It didn’t seem realistic to me.  I couldn’t suspend disbelief.  Jack should have had a military buzz cut, especially as he seemed to be a natural leader and straight arrow.  Getting the foot shot off?  It seemed sensational, like a patient on Grey’s Anatomy impaled on their bicycle’s handlebars.  Those are just a couple of little things.  Maybe post Private Ryan and Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary, etc., we have a more realistic idea of what war looks like, and this just seemed like a Hollywood creation.[/quote]

Grooming standards for various branches of the military have changed for garrison and theater over the years. Yes, Marines traditionally and since the Vietnam era have adhered to the traditional buzz cut.  Other branches is services may have had more relaxed standards of grooming while in theater. Jack wasn’t a marine and in a few google searches, you can see some soldiers (not marines) have hair that would be out of standards by today’s grooming standards.  And as for your comment balling at the foot being blown off, as someone who served at a hospital in Afghanistan and having seen someone, many in fact,  who had their leg blown off, it’s not sensationalized. One second he was patrolling hoping for an uneventful duty, expecting to go to lunch chow, then not 12 minutes later he was being wheeled through our doors with his leg blown off. Nothing sensational about it, it’s war.   Below is a pic of a Soldier in Vietnam with seemingly shaggy hair under his Kevlar. 
https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/vietnampatrol.jpg[/quote]

PP here. I take your points, although those were just two little things. Even if they were different, it still felt like they were on a set, for whatever amorphous reasons.

Regarding the foot— of course a foot blown off was not unusual.  It was more the way it was treated in the scene.  The soldier asking for Jack to find his foot, holding it under his arm, passing it to Jack almost in jest as they awaited the helicopter.  Some of that just seemed gratuitious, which weakened the dramatic effect.  I googled the hair. Jack’s hair still seemed a little long on the sides. I didn’t expect a full on buzz cut, but I think the scene would have worked better if he didn’t have the exact same haircut, minus some sideburns, as he had before enlisting.

But the set-like feel was more intangible than those two things.[/quote]

Also, this was in 1970 or 1971.  No one really gave a **** about grooming standards in Vietnam by then.  I found it completely plausible.  This was guerilla warfare by the VC.  One minute you could be walking along, the next blown to bits.[/quote]

That’s a good point, towards the mid to end of the war, It was a different ball game. Vietnam was such an interesting era and sad for veterans who returned, tragic even. [/quote]

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