Platoon
CUT TO:
EXT. CHRIS’ POSITION – NIGHT (RAIN)
Later. A pool of muddy water has formed, in which a pair of buttocks sit. Move up to Chris still on duty, looking at his watch, drawn, drenched, pathetic, rainwater coursing down his face.
CHRIS (V.O.) (continuing his letter) … ‘Course Mom and Dad didn’t want me to come, they wanted me to be just like them – respectable, hard- working, making $200 a week, a little house, a family. They drove me crazy with their goddamn world, grandma, you know Mom, I don’t want to be a white boy on Wall Street, I don’t want my whole life to be predetermined by them.
A large RIPPING SOUND as the wind blows down a big tree branch onto the jungle floor. He starts, peering out. Nothing. He looks at his watch again.
CHRIS (V.O.) (CONT’D) … I guess I have always been sheltered and special, I just want to be anonymous. Like everybody else. Do my share for my country. Live up to what Grandpa did in the First War and Dad the Second. I know this is going to be the war of my generation. Well here I am – anonymous all right, with guys nobody really cares about – they come from the end of the line, most of ’em, small towns you never heard of – Pulaski, Tennessee, Brandon, Mississippi, Pork Bend, Utah, Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years’ high school’s about it, maybe if they’re lucky a job waiting for ’em back in a factory, but most of ’em got nothing, they’re poor, they’re the unwanted of our society, yet they’re fighting for our society and our freedom and what we call America, they’re the bottom of the barrel – and they know it, maybe that’s why they call themselves ‘grunts’ cause a ‘grunt’ can take it, can take anything. They’re the backbone of this country, grandma, the best I’ve ever seen, the heart and soul – I’ve found it finally, way down here in the mud – maybe from down here I can start up again and be something I can be proud of, without having to fake it, maybe … I can see something I don’t yet see, learn something I don’t yet know … I miss you, I miss you very much, tell Mom I miss her too – Chris.
He moves towards Junior, shakes him, but Junior seems to be out of this world.
CHRIS (CONT’D) Wake up!
Junior opens one dead eye.
CHRIS (CONT’D) It’s your shift, man …
Junior scowls, swears, looks around for his rifle in the mud.
Chris crawls back to his position, curling himself up in his soaked poncho, teeth chattering from the cold, rain splattering over him. A long beat. He sighs, the sigh kicking off the next image.
EXT. CHRIS’ POSITION – NIGHT
Chris jerks awake – very suddenly, very frightened. THE RAIN HAS STOPPED. The jungle sounds are loud. Cicadas, night animals, water dripping hypnotically from leaf to leaf. And the whirr of a million mosquitoes out after the rains, chewing at Chris’ face. He looks around, startled.
Tex is asleep. Junior is asleep. What happened? He looks at his watch. The mosquitoes are eating him alive. He buries his head in his green towel which he wears around his neck, but he can’t see. A beat. He moves again, miserable from the bites. Another beat. Then suddenly the sounds of the jungle shift – some of the animals dropping out. A different tone. A piece of wood is stepped on, a rustle of bush …
Chris sees something, lifts an edge of the towel to peek out.
A shoadow of a figure is frozen there in front of him about 15 yards. It looks like a man. But it doesn’t move. At all. It listens.
Chris, his heart in his mouth, tries to peer through it. It’s a bush. It has to be. No human being could stand that still. His heartbeats are up. The moments take forever. But deep down – somewhere in his psyche – he knows who it is.
The figure now shifts, ever so slightly – and moves. It IS a human being. Oh my God!
Chris looks around. Tex seems like a mile away. Why doesn’t anyone fire! He casts a desperate look at his rifle, at his grenades encrusted with mud, but in spite of all his training, he is frozen with indecision and fear at the sight of his enemy.
The figure seems to whisper something back, then turns and comes down the trail. Now a second and third figure appear behind him – all in helmets and packs. All coming right past Chris’ position. Ten yards. Nine.
Chris is rigid with terror. Stark eyes. Pleading with Tex to wake up, but out of reach. He is about to have an anxiety attack, his heartbeats so far up he is sure they will hear him.
The first figure is now directly in front of Chris on the trail, looking left and right. A rattle of his equipment, a creak of leather. A smell. The man’s face now catches the moonlight and his eyes come around on Chris.
Oriental eyes. Looking right at him. Startled. Chris staring back, hypnotized. It all happens very fast. The figure murmurs something in Vietnamese. A warning. He swivels.
A flash of muzzle fire. A raking cough of automatic fire. A grenade explosion.
Chris is hurled to the ground, helmet bouncing off, scattered, confused, jarred. All hell breaks loose around him with NOISE and SHOUTS.
Tex, kissing the ground, is yelling at him.
TEX THE CLAYMORE! GET THOSE FUCKERS!
Chris, not knowing what he’s doing, is fumbling with the claymore handles, presses them. INSERT: They won’t give. He tries again and again to the squeeze the life out of them. Tex is screaming at him.
TEX (CONT’D) THE SAFETY! TAKE THE SAFETY OFF YOU …
Lunges over and grabs the handle from Chris. Clicks the safeties off and blows them.
Three EXPLOSIONS rip out into the night – and one of the ENEMY is caught in a brief instant looking like an X-ray, his body lifted and swirling in the air, then enveloped in swirls of smoke.
Chris, trying to keep up, grabs his M-16, lays out a stream of fire. The sound all around him is deafening.
EXT. GARDNER’S POSITION – NIGHT
Gardner, freaking out, stands crouched, confused, tries to run, collapses.
EXT. O’NEILL’S POSITION – NIGHT
O’Neill throws a grenade, wild.
EXT. CHRIS’ POSITION – NIGHT
An explosion. Chris hits the deck.
Tex is now on the M-60 machine gun, yelling at Junior who is cringing on the ground.
TEX Feed me!
He lays out red tracer bullets like laser beams, then suddenly reels back, whiplashed, screaming. A grenade explosion rocks them.
TEX (CONT’D) AAAAAGHHH! MY ARM! MY ARM!
His hand and wrist are gone, his face in the dirt. Junior is fumbling around, trying to stay down and help him at the same time.
JUNIOR (grabbing Tex’s gun) DOC! GET UP HERE! TEX IS HIT!
Chris, looking out to his front, has no clue what’s going on. Except the fire is slacking. Relayed shouts of ‘Medic! Medic!’ Other SHOUTS.
SHOUTS HOLD IT UP! HOLD IT UP!
The firing has ceased. A silence, punctuated by occasional shouts and fast moments, has enveloped once more the cemetery. Doc crashes through the bush, kneels over Tex, who continues to howl in deep pain.
TEX (freaked out) MY ARM! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
DOC Easy Tex easy boy!
Trying to sound calm but his voice is on the edge, examinging the mutilation with a pen flashlight, he whips out his morphine in a big hypodermic.
VOICE (next position) Doc over here! Gardner’s hit.
DOC ‘Right there.
As he slips the morphine into Tex’s arm.
TEX (muttering at Chris) … godamn! Godamn! DUMB FUCKER, DUMB FUCKER!
Chris watching, suddenly feels himself dizzy, instinctively runs his hands over the back of his neck. Feels the warm blood there. A moan comes from his lips. Junior looks at him.
JUNIOR Oh shit, Doc he’s hit too.
CHRIS (weakly) I’m hit …
Barnes and Big Harold come hustling up.
Doc finishes tourniquetting Tex, cradles Chris onto the earth, his flashlight probing the wound. Tex in background continues to thrash and moan.
Chris waits, tensely for the verdict, his eyes big with fear on Doc, who takes out his morphine.
JUNIOR (to Barnes, pointing at Chris) That dumb fuck didn’t blow his claymore!
Chris hearing this. Barnes looks at him.
DOC (to Chris) … it’s a scratch, nothing to worry about.
CHRIS (suspicious) Doc … tell me the truth, don’t lie to me.
The needle goes in. Tex lets out this strange keening moan that sets everyone’s teeth on edge.
JUNIOR (to Barnes) He let’em walk right up on us. He was sleeping on his shift.
CHRIS (muttering weakly) I was not … it was your …
DOC (leaving, to Harold and Junior) Self-preservation’s the first law of nature. Gotta learn how to work your shit Taylor. Watch me, don’t let’em go into shock.
Tex’s moans are maddening and scary. Barnes suddenly clamps his hand over Tex’s mouth shutting him up and from way down deep in his throat, chokes out the words.
BARNES Shut up! Shut up – and TAKE IT! TAKE THE PAIN!
Tex’s eyes roll wildly, uncomprehending. Doc and Big Harold looking at Barnes, wondering. Tex is suddenly silent, shocked. Barnes stands, an icy glare, goes. Junior scrambles over to Tex’s side. Doc runs off.
Big Harold cradles Chris, his big black hands like a mother, reassuring him.
BIG HAROLD You gonna be okay Taylor, okay, don’t you start worrying now.
Chris looking up at him, eyes blinking slowly, dazed already by the morphine. He’s very scared.
CHRIS Do you … do you know you’re gonna die … Big Harold? … do you feel like … like … everything’s gonna be fine and then …
BIG HAROLD Bullshit man, you gettin outta the field, man. Three hots a day, white sheets, dem pretty white nurses give you blowjobs too you pay em enough, I heard tell bout dem white bitches. Better save yo strength Taylor.
JUNIOR (muttering darkly) Don babytalk him man. Cocksucker fell asleep. They walked right up on us, he don do shit.
BIG HAROLD Shaddup bitch.
Chris is gettin woozier, feeling he is dying but starting to grin, not caring about it anymore. Yet he is nowhere close to dying.
CHRIS It’s not … so bad … dying. How long .. it …
EXT. TRAIL – RUINS – POSITION #1 – NIGHT
Barnes stands over a moaning, ripped up ENEMY SOLDIER. FIRES his M-16 point blank into the head. The Soldier bucks and dies, quivering.
EXT. TRAIL – RUINS – POSITION #2 – NIGHT
ELIAS, checking out a blood trail some distance away, shifts on the shot, looks back.
EXT. TRAIL – RUINS – POSITION #3 – NIGHT
FRANCES, MANNY, BUNNY and KING are huddled over another mangled enemy corpse.
BUNNY (stripping the corpse) That’s no NVA man. That’s a chink – look at ’em, the cocksucker’s six and a half feet tall. Look at his gear – good as ours.
FRANCIS Shit I blew my claymore right in one dude’s face and I seen him walking around afterwards.
MANNY What we fighting here, vampires?
