Platoon
JUNIOR (a whining high voice) Hey Big Harold, gimme your peaches for the fruitcake man.
BIG HAROLD (laughes loudly) Fuck you bitch.
JUNIOR C’mon man, didn’t I do you right that time I give you the turkey loaf for the ham and lima beans shit.
BIG HAROLD Tricky bitch, reason you gimme dat turkey loaf is nobody else can eat that shit ‘cept me so don’t start your game playing with me Junior.
They’re both black, Junior with huge goggle eyes and a face of pimples and pockmarks, his teeth yellowed and decayed, some of them missing. Harold is about twice his size, about 250 pounds, a baby huey concentrating real hard on preparing his stove to eat with.
JUNIOR Youse a pig man. I hope Manny get dat laundry gig for’ you do.
BIG HAROLD De fool think he’s gonna get it but he ain’t known for his thinking.
JUNIOR He’s a fool alright but you a bigger fool. Hey, whiteboy, watcha waiting for – dat hole ain’t gonna dig itself …
Chris looks up, continues working, as Junior chuckles.
JUNIOR (CONT’D) Hey Taylor, you don’t know it but I saved your ass today. I killed a shit-eating dog. (laughing)
BIG HAROLD (getting up) That reminds me, I gotta take a shit.
JUNIOR You gonna wipe your ass dis time?
BIG HAROLD Yeah if you let me have your shirt.
CHRIS (VOICE OVER, as he digs) Somebody once wrote Hell is the impossibility of Reason. That’s what this place feels like. I hate it already and it’s only been a week. Some goddamn week, grandma … (checking his raw blisters) … the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done is to go on point, 3 times this week – I don’t even know what I’m doing. A gook could be standing 3 feet in front of me and I wouldn’t know it, I’m so tired. We get up at 5 a.m., hump all day, camp around 4 or 5 p.m., dig foxhole, eat, then put out an all-night ambush or a 3-man listening post in the jungle. It’s scary cause nobody tells me how to do anything cause I’m new and nobody cares about the new guys, they don’t even want to know your name. The unwritten rule is a new guy’s life isn’t worth as much cause he hasn’t put his time in yet – and they say if you’re gonna get killed in the Nam it’s better to get it in the first few weeks, the logic being: you don’t suffer that much. I can believe that … If you’re lucky you get to stay in the perimeter at night and then you pull a 3-hour guard shift, so maybe you sleep 3-4 hours a night, but you don’t really sleep … I don’t think I can keep this up for a year, grandma – I think I’ve made a big mistake coming here …
As he speaks, we cut around to various shots of the platoon members on the perimeter – shaving, eating, cooking, playing, etc …
EXT. PLATOON PC – NIGHT
Towards the end of this voice over, we cut to Sgt. BARNES moving towards the PLATOON PC. A powerful face, a quiet, angry fixed stare, a thick trimmed moustache that helps conceal a network of plastic surgery grafts and scars. The distortion from the jaw up the left side of his face to his forehead, punctuated by a severe indentation above the left eye where a bullet once penetrated his skull.
Walking with him is Sgt. O’NEILL as they join WOLFE, Sgts. ELIAS and WARREN at the PLATOON PC where they’re huddled over maps. Warren is a black, thin, tall, paranoid man with untrusting eyes, silent and bitter.
BARNES (to all, almost pleased about it) We got boo-coo movement. 3rd Battalion just got hit 15 kliks north of here. (the MEN react with wary silence)
O’NEILL (eager to elaborate) Yeah, they had claymores strung up in the trees, blew a whole fucking platoon to pieces. BAAD SHIT.
Barnes inflects his next words at Wolfe, who is worried.
BARNES Yeah, they got two Lieutenants and a Captain.
WOLFE Jesus.
Elias quiet. Barnes studying the map.
WOLFE (CONT’D) (to Barnes) Who do you want on ambush, Sergeant?
Barnes doesn’t bother acknowledging the question, barely glancing at the Lieutenant, to him a necessary evil. Everybody knows who’s really in charge of the Platoon. Barnes flicks his gaze to Elias.
BARNES Elias – you take your squad and I’ll take Tex and Francis from your squad. (to Warren) We move out in two-zero mikes. (concluding)
ELIAS I thought it was O’Neill’s turn tonight.
They all look at each other. O’Neill spits in the dust, a freckled, short red head with a hard worried face, a lifer, 30 going on 60.
O’NEILL Shit! Morehouse and Sal are short. Fu Sheng’s going on R&R, you don’t want to send their asses out on an ambush. You got the fresh meat Elias.
ELIAS (to Barnes) They don’t know shit Barnes, and chances are we gonna run into something.
O’NEILL So what am I going to do! Get one of my guys zapped so some fuckface fresh from the World can get his beauty fucking sleep!
ELIAS Hey O’Neill why don’t you cool it, you don’t have to be a prick everyday of your life, you know.
O’NEILL Fuck you Elias.
BARNES You get your men ready Elias …
Concluding the debate, no further argument, Barnes rises. The meeting’s closed. Lt. Wolfe hasn’t said a word, looking as Elias departs, without a word.
O’NEILL (watching him) Fucking guy’s got 3 years in and he thinks he’s Cochise or something …
His resentment directed partly at the way in which Elias carries himself, the natural sense of grace – and the dignity it bestows.
CUT TO:
EXT. PLATOON PERIMETER #1 – SQUAD ASSEMBLY POINT – DUSK
Later. On the very edge of the perimeter, darkness coming down fast, the men in the ambush patrol rustle into their packs, all of them bitching.
Tex, carrying the M-60, looks up at the glowering sky.
TEX Shit, looks like rain. All night too. Gonna grow mushrooms in your bad-ass crotch Junior.
JUNIOR (under his breath) Goddamn ain’t no justice round here, you break your ass for de white man … gonna get our act together, do some rappin’ wid de brothers, change things …
CRAWFORD What’s O’Neill have a nose up the lieutenant’s ass already, how come we always get ambush.
FRANCIS Politics, man, politics. We always getting fucked around here.
Chris is scared, nervous with his last-minute equipment adjustments, his pack obviously overweight for a night mission as he hauls it up.
Gardner, the other new boy, is jovial in contrast, his wallet extended towards Chris.
GARDNER Hey Chris, I show you a picture of Lucy Jean?
CHRIS (not to be bothered) No …
Gardner shows him his girl. She’s real dog u-g-l-y, and what makes it worse is Gardner’s put the standard photo of Raquel Welch alongside it, tits and all. But he misses the irony of it.
GARDNER (admiring) Yeah she’s the one all right … that’s Lucy Jean. She’s a-waiting for me.
CHRIS (nodding) Yeah she’s real pretty, you’re lucky …
Gardner puts it away. Elias appears alongside them, checking their packs out, takes out Chris’s poncho liner and other items. He carries a modified M-16 with a short barrel and a collapsible stock.
ELIAS (to both boys) Don’t need this or this … you’re doing okay. Just stick close to Tex, do what he does. (calling out to Tex) Tex you got Junior and Taylor here on your position.
Tex is a sour Texas Ranger type, chews tobacco, spits.
TEX Damn, ‘Lias this gun’s boss. Put Taylor someplace else.
Chris feels the words like lashes on him.
ELIAS You got Taylor … (to Gardner) … Gardner you go with me (to Chris and Gardner) ‘Case somethin’ happens to you, you get separated or lost don’t yell out okay. Sit tight. We’ll get to you.
His eyes. Chris watching them. A smile in them. Elias moves off, a quality to the man that Chris admires. A natural sense of leadership.
BARNES Okay, let’s move out.
As he follows King, on point, out the perimeter. A single file.
EXT. THE AMBUSH NIGHT (RAIN)
Night is coming down. The tone of the jungle sounds has subtly shifted – mellower, more sinuous and certainly scarier.
The file stops. King, an experienced point man, listens.
Chris – carrying Tex’s linked ammo – looks around, tense. Behind him is Gardner, trying to smile, starts to whisper something (‘Hey Taylor …’) when he’s abruptly shushed.
The file moves on. Gardner’s pack rattling a little too loud. A weird rush of cold wind now rattles the trees and the MONSOON comes. A hard slanting rain, sudden, tropic.
EXT. RUINS – JUNGLE – NIGHT (RAIN)
A piece of an old Buddhist temple, under a sulky moonlight now in a state of decay, the jungle surging to engulf it.
The Men are setting up quickly and relatively quietly in the ruins – alongside a miniscule trail. The rain is coming down harder than ever.
Chris and Tex setting out their claymore mines, raveling back their detonating cords to their position, drenched. In the far distance, an ILLUMINATION ROUND brightens the sky for a brief moment. Various ad lib curses and directions are lost in the sound of the rain.
EXT. AMBUSH – BARNES’ POSITION – NIGHT (RAIN)
At the Ambush CP, Ace whipsers into his radio. A soft hissing sound.
EXT. AMBUSH – CHRIS’S POSITION – NIGHT (RAIN)
Later. Close on Chris being shaken awake.
TEX Taylor, you’re on.
CHRIS (groggy) Uh hunh.
The rain continuing to pelt them. Tex hands him an infrared scope.
TEX (suspicious) You sure you know how to work the claymore?
CHRIS (offended) Sure.
Tex curls up as best he can in his poncho to sleep.
TEX Okay … don’t catch no zzz’s on me buddy or I’ll sling your motherfucking ass … You hear me?
CHRIS (grits his teeth) Yeah. (looking at his watch) Hey Tex – you’re ten minutes fast.
TEX Sin Loi. (‘tough luck’, closes his teeth)
Chris lets it go, scans the jungle and trail with the scope. The POV is greasy and blurred. He puts it aside.
Suddenly a series of resonant SNORES crack through the jungle. Chris starts, then sees it’s from JUNIOR lying out there, spreadeagled in the rain. Chris prods him.
CHRIS Junior!
JUNIOR Unh? … Unh.
CHRIS Shaddup! You’re snoring … Shhh.
Bending low into his eardrum. Junior never wakes, rolls over with a growl. Silence.
