Posted by
Old Bill on Friday, August 08, 2008 7:58:38 PM
I just watched an old movie on the VCR with my nephew and a couple of neighbor kids. It was "The Steel Helmet" (1950), written and directed by Sam Fuller, a brutally honest depiction of the then-raging Korean War. But this is not a movie review--I'll do that another time.
This is a reflection on the men depicted in the film, the men to whom the film was dedicated by Fuller: the opening shot shows news footage of GIs in Korea, marching somewhere, looking very tired as they slog single-file down a dusty road, weapons slung indicating they are not in contact, just on the way there. I am reminded of the line by Bill Mauldin: "You get just as tired advancing as retreating, and you get shot at both ways." As the men plod along, Fuller overlays this credit: "THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THE UNITED STATES INFANTRY"
What follows is a character-study of the men in an American patrol in the alternate boredom and hell of war. The film contains far too much quiet conversation for the taste of the kids (ages 13, 18, 22), some of it comic relief worthy of Shakespeare, some of it pure cinema verite/slice of life realism. Fuller uses his characters' dialogue to address such dynamite hot-button issues as racism, patriotism, loyalty, morality, and incompetent leaders without ever being preachy--always by letting the action raise the topics, and letting the men react to them as they naturally would. Not a word rings false.
The youngsters put up with the talking heads because, as with all Fuller films, it is only a prelude to slam-bang action depicting the highest drama of which life is capable: a life-and-death struggle between evil men fighting to conquer, and good men fighting to protect, the innocent. Of course, Fuller made this film in 1950, for an audience of all ages from 6 to 90, including combat veterans of two world wars; he wasn't constrained by the attention-span of video-game addicted 21st century teenage boys. On one level, the film works as an action-adventure; but because Fuller was Fuller, it also addresses a key question of moral import: Why Do We Americans Go Overseas and Fight Wars?
The first time I saw this movie it made quite an impression on me. I was about 8 years old, and I saw it with my father in a theater. The last frame of the film shows more American GIs, different yet essentially the same as the ones we saw in the first frame, again marching to battle, and instead of the the customary "THE END" Fuller puts up the tag:
"THERE IS NO END TO THIS STORY"
I remember asking my father: "Dad, why does it say "There is no end to this story?" Does it mean there are always gonna be wars?" My father replied: "Yeah, it means that. But it means more, too. It means we Americans are always gonna have to go overseas and fight Bad Guys who want to conquer the world--Bad Guys like the Nazis and the Commies." "Why do they want to conquer the world?" "Because they're Bad Guys--that's just the way they are. That's why they're Bad Guys." "Why do we have to fight them? Why don't people over there fight them?" "They do, son, but they can't beat 'em without our help--the World Wars proved that. We have to beat 'em over there, not wait till they get over here. You're never safe from Bad Guys no matter how far away they are--they never want to stop conquering people until they've conquered everybody. That's why you have to be strong." "Is that why we have to have an army even in peacetime?" "The only reason it's peacetime now is because we've got the strongest army in the world. And Atomic Bombs. That's how President Eisenhower made the Commies stop fighting in Korea--because we've got Atomic Bombs. Ike understands the Commies. As long as we've got the strongest army, there'll be peace."
No further explanation was necessary, because it was obvious even to my 8-year old mind why our strength--America's strength--ensured peace: we Americans--me, my father, my uncles, my grandfather, my mother and my aunts--we all wanted peace. We didn't want anything else. Well, just "...liberty and justice for all." We were Good Guys. We, the American people, and my family--this was no idle boast, nor any purely theoretical proposition.
My father and my uncles--all of them except Uncle Dave who had a bad heart, had fought in WWII. My grandfathers had fought in WWI. Uncle Ray had just fought in Korea. Most had been wounded, some crippled, one killed. None of my family, and no one in America, had benefitted in any way from the wars they had fought in, or had expected to. Nobody made a fortune, received a house or a piece of land, or got a job as a result of fighting in the war. They had fought, as Americans have always fought, simply in order to be able to return home to their families and allowed by our erstwhile enemies to resume living in peace.
Even at the age of 8, I knew--because it had been explained to my by my parents, aunts and uncles--why they had had to go and fight: to stop the Nazis and the Japs ('Japs' had the same relationship to 'Japanese' as 'Nazis' did to 'Germans'--it meant Bad Guys with guns and bombs), who were trying to conquer the world by massacre and slaughter. Then we had to stop the Commies who were trying to do the same in order to enslave everyone, including us. I have since been taught to use the terms 'genocide' and 'totalitarianism' to describe the aims of these systems, but these words do not convey the emotional impact--nor, indeed, are they as literally accurate--as 'massacre', 'slaughter' and 'slavery'. This, then, was what I knew my father and uncles and grandfathers had been fighting against. This was why they had had to go overseas and fight and kill and get wounded and crippled and die. And their victory over our enemies was the only reason I was alive. And a lot of other people around the world, as well. This was why they had fought.