Phillip Vietri

I do not always share Stone's point-of-view, but this film is an exception amongst war films. It is not autobiographical, but certainly communicates the actual experience of a soldier in Vietnam. One is constantly aware of Stone's actual experience in that war. It is not, in the strictest sense, an anti-war film. It portrays the troops with tremendous sympathy, and exposes many of the self-inflicted weaknesses of the US army, and the very real feelings of soldiers thousands of miles from home, fighting in a war that they believed had nothing to do with them or their country. I was a soldier at the time of the Angola-Namibia Border War, but the horrid, humid, jungle conditions of Vietnam do not even begin to compare with the dry savanna of Southern Africa, an environment in which we were relatively much more at home, and closer to home. Platoon is a great war film, comparable to All Quiet on the Western front. It is genuinely intellectual, and engages the viewer's thoughts and emotions profoundly.