“Any film that portrays the military as negative is not realistic to us.” This character was significantly transformed at the request of head liaison officer Captain Matt Morgan, who believed it featured conduct that was ‘un-Marine’ and ‘more representative of a conscript force’. Yet there is no question that such practices did occur during the war. Eugene Sledge’s firsthand memoir, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (recently adapted for screen as The Pacific with surprising frankness by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, which suggests that some filmmakers might be beyond even the Pentagon’s reach), provides a revealing account of such an act: ‘But the Japanese wasn’t dead. He had been wounded severely in the back and couldn’t move his arms; otherwise he would have resisted to his last breath. The Japanese’s mouth glowed with huge gold-crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his KA-BAR [a military knife] on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim’s mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slash cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer’s lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier’s mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, “Put the man out of his misery.” All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy soldier’s brain, and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed.’ Key to the management and operation of the military’s image is Philip M Strub, head of the Pentagon’s liaison office and a regular name among film credits. It was Strub who revealed the military’s definition of an ‘accurate’ film when it came to getting their approval: “Any film that portrays the military as negative is not realistic to us.”
058 T h e A p o c a l y p s e N o w I s s u e
“They make prostitutes of us all because they want us to sell out to their point of view,” director Oliver Stone once carped, having been refused assistance for his Vietnam War films Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. “They don’t want to deal with the downside of war. They’ll assist movies that don’t tell the truth about combat, and they don’t assist movies that seek to tell the truth about combat. Most films about the military are just recruiting posters.” The fact that Stone believes military-assisted films are recruiting posters should be no surprise, given that the military handbook, A Producer’s Guide to US Army Cooperation with the Entertainment Industry Industry, clearly states that the military’s aim is for every film to ‘aid in the recruiting and retention of personnel.’ And the United Kingdom is no better. “Recruiting is often a substantial driver in the issue of providing assistance, especially when you’re dealing with films and TV shows aimed at a young audience,” explains Nick Pope, who worked for the Ministry of Defence for over 25 years. “PR is another big factor. Generally speaking, the MoD is likely to provide assistance in a situation where it and/or the Armed Forces are portrayed in a positive light: well-trained and equipped, well-led, able, moral, courageous – that sort of thing.” But it was Army Major Ray Smith who provided the most comprehensive and apt explanation as to why Francis Ford Coppola’s script didn’t receive military assistance in the foreword to David Robb’s Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies. ‘I’m the guy who turned down Apocalypse Now Now,’ he writes. ‘I read the script and said, “We can’t do this. The army doesn’t lend officers to the CIA to execute or murder other army officers.” Besides, even if we did, we wouldn’t help them make it.’