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In the spring of 1965, the first United
States Army combat troops were committed

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to the conflict raging in South Vietnam. There
was no point in my living life elsewhere. So,

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this was the place to start. And if
they had was intended for me to die,

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I was quite willing to die because I had thought
of suicide quite a bit and written about it,

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entertained it, and fantasized about it. I want
I want to see what America really is. I want to

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I want to hang out with people who come from
with no education who come from nowhere and

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I want to see what they're thinking. I want
to feel what you know what the bottom of the

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barrel what the what reality reality is like
and I could think of no greater reality than

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war. I was eager to get to the war to learn.
I wrote the platoon script in 1976 in New York

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City in about a few weeks primarily because I
reached a place in my life where I felt like

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if I didn't write it at that point in time
I would forget what had happened in the war.

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Here was a script that uh was the most fantastic
writing I had come across. It had captured

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the essence of war from the viewpoint of the
foot soldier and I felt that I had something

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very special. I went back to all the studios that
Oliver had been at and every one of them rejected

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the film. That was the first hurdle that we had to
get Platoon made. There's nothing Oliver wouldn't

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do to get this movie made and all of a sudden
you want to get on that. You want to be part of

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that show. I met this guy by the name of Oliver
Stone. And the thing that I remember was that he

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was unlike uh any guy that I ever met before. As
far as he was not like someone that someone would

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give bunch of money to to make a movie. When
I smoke, I think of platoon. The film is based

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on people that I knew in two different infantry
outfits over there. I was in the first cavalry

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and I was also in the 25th infantry. So, it's the
platoon that was drawn in the movie is based on

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composits and groups of people that I met in
different units. The characters in the film,

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they're accurate. I mean, that's that's the
platoon. The platoon is made up of men and each

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one has an individual characteristics.
Each one comes from different states,

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different feelings. I was very comfortable with
the cast because I knew that I had like a good

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like a baseball coach with a great team. I
just knew that I had platoon of different

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layers of players and I knew that all these kids
were hot. Nobody had done anything. Tom had done

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a couple movies. Will had done a few. Charlie had
done Squat. It was pretty pretty magical. I mean,

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the fact that he chose who he chose. Heard about
the project when I was uh 18 for the first time

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I went on tape. They sent it to Oliver and um he
looked at it and got back to us um and said that

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I was too mannered, I don't know, predictable in
my gestures or that it was I didn't internalize

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enough of the audition. So, I said, "Okay, this
one goes away." And that's that. Oliver got it

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back on its feet um couple years later and uh
met me again, not to audition but just to talk.

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And then a couple days after that I got the gig
and uh that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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Tom Behringer was really a little bit of a
bland sentimental TV hero prior to, you know,

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but he was excellent in The Big Chill and uh I
thought had an edge. I felt like he could push the

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limit and go go evil, go go go sour. He told me a
story about the real Barnes. They were going down

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a jungle path somewhere out there on the Cambodian
border, just walking along, maintaining, you know,

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silence. the Barn's character put his hand up to
stop and they came on three of the gooks sitting

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there. I go, "Well, how did he know?" And he said,
"He smelled them. He could smell them." It's based

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on people I knew. So, what you look for is some
matching spirit that that resembles. You can't go

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for facial. I could never find Elias Indian, but
it was the same kind of rebellious and defiant

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spirit. I felt that. And William had never done
that cuz he'd always been the bad guy. But in the

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bad guy, Streets of Fire, for example, he'd been
in that movie. He was really on. He talked about

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Elias being an Indian. That was very important
to him. And the curious thing was he was able

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to project that on to me. With uh McKinley,
I felt like uh he's a highly energetic guy,

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strong, Irish, control. It seemed that I would
do the opposite with him, that I would make

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him an immoral man, a man who was a coward, uh,
physically physical coward, too, and a bully. So,

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uh, it was, but he didn't resemble at all the
real Sergeant O'Neal. He used to hound me and

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drove me crazy. Well, I was casting it when it
was set to go in 1984, in the spring of ' 84,

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when I got out of, uh, NYU grad. And, uh, then
the whole thing was scuttled. Two years later,

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calls and says, you know, McKinley, do you want
to be in in Platoon again? And I'm like, yeah, you

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know, yes, yes, but I'm doing, you know, Hamlet
at the Public. And he goes, tell Joe Pep it's my

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movie. He'll understand. Oh, Johnny. I could tell
a mile away. I said, you know, you're going to be

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a star. There's just absolutely no question about
it. You got a great face. You're unbelievably

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handsome and you have an original character.
You have you have a quality. He said, you know,

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read for this part. And I read for the part and he
said, "All right." I mean, right then and there,

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he said, "All right, I'm going to need you for,
you know, about 13 weeks. We're going to be in

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the jungle. It's going to be awful conditions. Uh,
you know, are you ready to do that?" And I said,

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"Oh, yes, absolutely." And I said, "We're going
to the Philippines." And I'd never been out of

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the country before. What happened was I came and
I auditioned and then every day he would tell me,

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"I'm getting better or something." You know, when
I would leave, like he'd lean out the window and

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yell and down there and say, "Something better."
You know, bring me something better tomorrow. No,

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it was like it's actually kind of, you know, kind
of psychotic. It was a very odd soup bowl of gods.

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You know, it's a strange mixture. The only way we
were going to get these we willy-wink the actor,

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you know, to to have any concept of what it was
like to be an infantryman in the jungle. Um,

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was to put them in the jungle as infantrymen.
We made it clear up front before they left the

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United States that we were not interested in them
working on this film unless they were willing to

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undergo two weeks of rehearsal. uh as uh training
as light infantry. Uh and that was the condition.

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Hypothetically, if you broke your leg, um you
wouldn't be allowed to do the film. Three actors

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in New York tried to start a uh movement that
would prevent that language from being in the

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contract. And I'm like, Oliver, and he's like,
you know, you're not you're not with these guys,

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are you? And I'm like I almost I almost started
crying. I'm like, Oliver, no. I am going to the

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Philippines. I'm so going. I'm already there.
Nobody was around cuz I wanted to go there early

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just to relax and get used to the surroundings.
Was really tired and I said, "I can't go to sleep

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now. It'll totally throw me off, but I can set an
alarm. I'll take a little nap." Alarm woke me up

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and I went to open up the curtains, you know, to
see, you know, whether it was still sunny out and

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all that. And I looked and there was a column of
tanks going down on the street. The revolution had

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started while I was taking my nap. What happens
now? There's a revolution in the Philippines.

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this is what else you know everybody was saying
listen don't go to the Philippines you know don't

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uh don't do that it's it's very dangerous you know
cuz that entire you know the NPA the new people's

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army was there and it was just chaos of you know
riots and murders and bombs and [ __ ] everywhere

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selfishly all I could think about was I wish these
bastards would get the revolution over so we could

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make our little $6 million movie we landed there
I think it was 2 days after Marcos had split from

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the moment The moment those lads arrived in the
Philippines where we shot it, they were their

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characters. They were new guys coming into a unit
in Vietnam, nothing else existed. He wanted them

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to understand the pain and the agony and the angst
and the psychology of being a grunt in Vietnam.

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One of the first things I did was uh a shocker. I
cut all their hair off. I stood right in front of

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them, looked in their beady ass eyeballs and said,
"Get that civilian slime off of your gourd." And

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that [ __ ] was gone. And with it went their
persona. Whoever they thought they were, they

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were now a soldier. 48 hours earlier, I was in New
York City, you know, getting a cup of coffee and

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a bagel. And now these idiots are looking at me
for what to do. I'm hardly prepared to tell you,

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gentlemen. That piece of equipment that looks
like a little tiny shovel, that's what it is. It's

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called an entrenching tool. Now, you pick it up
and you take it out of your character and you go

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here, here, here, and here. And you spend the next
four hours digging your home. And they started

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in on the holes. You know, our hands are just raw
because we're not used to this kind of work. We're

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a bunch of city guys out in the bush. On that
same night, I had the uh special effects guy,

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Eves Dabono, came out and and while they
were digging their home, he quietly put in

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some explosive charges around the perimeter. And I
gave the signal, "Boom, boom, boom." These mortar

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explosions went off all around them. We got up and
screamed, "Incoming! Incoming! Get in your holes!"

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And then the AK-47 fire started from outside
the perimeter. Just started pouring in. These

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guys were just crapping little green pellets. The
special forces guys were also pretty hardcore. I

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mean, there was some question about whether they
knew the boundaries of the game. I don't think any

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of us, myself included, really knew the extent of
what that boot camp would become. And it was all

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sorts of things. It was cooking. It was slang of
the period. It was music of the period. It was it

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was weapons, booby traps, small infantry tactics,
uh defensive, offensive tactics, ambushes,

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first aid, um medevac, radio communications. All
your time was occupied with something, either a

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lecture or a demonstration about some weapon or
some type of ordinance or whatever, some equipment

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that you had to wear. We were doing basic infantry
and advanced infantry training uh things in twoe

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period that's ordinarily done in 9 10 12 13 14
weeks. It was rigorous, rugged, tough, designed

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that way. Everybody was had to follow their rank
was um only spoken to as their character name. Um

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it was very regimented. It was very exhausting.
You know, 2 weeks is not a long time, you know,

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but you got to jam it all in. We didn't shower.
We didn't we didn't bathe. We didn't uh have any

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access to those facilities because of the grime
and the bites and the mung and the the stonosity

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of it all. I decided to scratch blood from my body
and uh that basically had to stop me. The rations,

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you know, that we were given to eat was the most
shocking thing that you you'd ever seen would be

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like uh uh bean, what was it? Bean component, I
think was the name of one of them. Bean component,

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turkey loaf. But I had eaten my socks at
that point, you know. I mean, you know,

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we're all starving to death. I mean, I lost 28
lb in 2 weeks. You couldn't [ __ ] So for four

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or five days you couldn't take a [ __ ] and then
finally you do and it's just nirvana. Then my

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biggest fear was that while you're taking a [ __ ]
a cobra was going to crawl up your ass and eat

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your colon. We got up. I filled my tank canteen
up. I put uh these pills in that you know purify

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the water supposedly. Shook it up. We walk about
50 yards upstream from where we were. I collected

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the water downstream. remember there was a big fat
dead pig in the water all all bloated and you know

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really disgusting. I drank the water that just ran
over that thing. We got back I was delirious for

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like 24 hours. I don't remember it. I got a little
taste of like jungle fever. I was 50% alert every

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night. You were up for two hours and then you woke
your buddy and he was up for two hours. That was

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the one thing I told Dale O'B up front. I said I
don't want I want them to know what a year without

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sleepers feels like. I wanted to I want them to
feel it in 2 weeks. Okay. You say you're playing

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army and all that, but there's enough real danger
and enough peer pressure that the stakes somehow

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got very very high. And one night I'm sleeping and
I sleep with my mouth open, you know, like this.

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And he takes a uh a water bug, which is a huge
cockroach. Took two of them and they were culating

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and he put it on my beard and like this. And then
I think crawled into my mouth and it called in my

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tongue and I spit it out and in what was pretty
dim light, I could see two water bugs copulating

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on my lap. They begin to snap at each other.
They begin to say, "You son of a [ __ ] That's

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my C-ration." You know, and you could hear this
going on. And I knew then that we were beginning

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to build a real life. End of that two weeks, we
took uh two hours out. We all went up. We did a

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mass reading of it. And it was fascinating hearing
all the characters cuz it was I was like it was

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all jelling in my mind. And it was like indeed
all these guys were becoming the characters.

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These kids were ready to go and I was very very
proud. We went directly from our graduation party

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to the first day of shooting. Oliver didn't want
any downtime back in Manila at the hotel. all this

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and that for anybody to lose that edge. It was
0400 when we we got on the the little buses they

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had and we went directly location. We got all our
gear on and then we marched up the hill and it was

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quite a march actually probably a mile good mile
or so uphill and all you could hear were the feet.

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That's all you could hear. Nobody was talking as
the sun was coming up. And as we would march by,

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we saw Oliver go by in a Jeep, right? Goes by in
a Jeep like that. And we all look, remember the

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story, my dad was in the Philippines in World War
II and he saw MacArthur drive by in a Jeep with

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that corn cob pipe and he says, "What an [ __ ]
What an asshole." I thought he was a mad man. One

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of those guys who sort of rides rides that fine
line between uh brilliance and uh explosion of the

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brain. He would find ways to get into get inside
you. the more he got to know you, the better

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access he had to your buttons. And uh he started
pushing him a little bit. I think one scene he

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got pissed at me. Uh I made the helicopter land
and I made him run up and get the uh resupply

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and he wanted to wear a t-shirt or something
cuz there was a dirt and the rocks hitting his

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back and I said, "Bullshit, take your t-shirt.
I want your, you know, skin." I said, "Look,

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Ollie, if I wear my t-shirt behind the tattoo, the
thing the chopper's kicking up rocks and pebbles

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at 100 miles an hour, I'm getting beat as [ __ ]
out here." He says, "What? You a [ __ ] Little

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[ __ ] from Malibu. Playing too much volleyball
on the beach, huh? The wrong you can't handle

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some pebbles. Put some dirt on your tattoo."
That was early on. That was like day four. So,

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I knew what I was going to be dealing with.
Everyone hated it so much it was embarrassing.

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But he wanted it that way. He'll stop at nothing.
You'd hate him at in the moment. You'd hate him.

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But that would take you to the next level and the
next level. The next level. You know what I mean?

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He took he just took you on that ride. You know, a
good director is a guy that creates a certain tone

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and creates the world and you can be in that
world and then all he has to do is steer you.

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[ __ ] piece of [ __ ] Get him.

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Break it up. Break it up.

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He made this. Like really, it was a life or
death thing. There's real talent in that. You

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want me to hold on to a chair? I didn't have
a seat belt on. Yeah. And midfoot chair get

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way. So King grabbed me from behind.
You almost went out the thing. Well,

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it was closed, but I'm still here. Uh,
it's a good thing you're here. Otherwise,

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we wouldn't have a movie. Hey, I
put a seat belt on this time. Hello,

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R.

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Felt better. Oh, man. What happened? What
happened? Sorry. With what? Surprise. I guess

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you could say it's a method direction in the sense
of uh wanting them to realize that the stakes were

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high that uh their lives were on the line. I was
completely knocked out for about 10 seconds and

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um I woke up to Dale die with a little pen light
in my eyes checking my pupils and was it was

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very strange. I was not I was not back in Kansas
however. I was still in the jungle. I remember the

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42nd day I had this vivid memory of my going out
to this night shoot and feeling like I was alone.

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I think my my Bob Richardson showed up and a few
other people but we were down to nothing. It was

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absolutely totally gorilla film making. It was
like, you know, knock this shot off over here,

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run over here, do this, you know. Bravo two,
we all helped move equipment. You never seen

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an actor do that. Uh you saw these actors do
that. They were used to humping heavy things

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and they they were into this. They wanted to do
this. Uh, and anything they could do to help out,

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they did. One day we did 55 setups. And how did
we like some of that stuff? I don't know. I said,

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uh, how do you how do you see this? I mean, do
you, uh, do you see me? Is it very internal?

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Is it external? What's going on here? Am I
looking at him? Am I looking away? I mean,

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what's going on? Oliver didn't say a word. He
just stared at me. in a very serious, focused,

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deadly, I just might kill you any second type
of stare. And I didn't figure out first. Then

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it like it hit me. That was the performance he
wanted was that stare, that look, that thing,

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you know, you go off like like that and you
just start blinking like that, you know,

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and and you you know, you realize
that he wasn't there anymore.

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He was um somewhere else. The eye
of our rage and our captain Ahab.

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We're first in the village and and there's a a a
spider hole like covered up with a with a basket.

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Open it up. We find it. The response of Dale and
and and Oliver on that scene was I turned around

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and I walked away. Print. I didn't say anything.
I think they had a flashback on that one. There

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were a couple scenes like that. Why didn't you
listen to me? Huh? Why? Why didn't you listen

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to me? Stupid. You stupid [ __ ] I lose it. Come
here, mother. Basically snap. It was an audible

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snap. And have to make them onelegged kid dance.
And the poor kid that they got was he had one of

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those milk things going on with his pup. He was
blind in one eye and he was [ __ ] completely and

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he really only had one leg and and they weren't
treating him that well and they were asking him

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to do things he couldn't really do. You know, a
guy with two legs I have trouble with and it was

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it was very disturbing. I didn't I didn't
enjoy that at all. And as I was doing it,

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you know, I got good peripherals. So, I could see
Oliver over on the side. I could really see him

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uh going back. I was convinced that he was back.
It was the whole feeling you got from him. Him

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watching us and me sneakily observing him. Uh it
was an interesting character study in his world.

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Uh how it affected him, some of the things that uh
I was doing that I knew he had done. I never saw

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a MI massacre where which is what happened with
one unit in the American infantry destroyed 120

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130 people in one afternoon deliberately. Let's
go for it. Let's do the whole village. Come on

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S. What the are we waiting for? I saw much more
random patterns of killing and it bothered me.

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Uh I understand it. I understand why people do
that under the pressure of war. Many Americans

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felt the villagers were against us. Certainly they
were villagers were getting their share fair fair

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amount of pressure from the North Vietnamese but
also ideologically the villagers uh were really

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on the North Vietnamese side because the way they
saw it they were fighting for their freedom. We

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uprooted them. We uprooted we bombed the the
territory. We destroyed their infrastructure.

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We destroyed their shrines. We destroyed their
temples. We didn't understand their Buddhism or

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their ancestor worship. So we really alienated the
countryside. And I tried to show this a bit in in

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the movie where uh the villagers are very upset
with what we've done to them. At the same time,

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the Americans are very upset at the villagers
because of the feeling that they're storing

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the rice, storing the weapons for the North
Vietnamese. So this leads inevitably to a

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conflict. Women screaming at you, you know, and
the men saying nothing and you just, you know,

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it's 110° and you got your pot on and you're like
your head's ready to explode. And this is when he

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crosses. This is when he goes over the edge. To
deny that it happened, which is what many some

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critics of the film say is to deny the reality of
Vietnam. Also, what was happening was that there

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was a tremendous amount of uh fragging incidents
where American soldiers would kill other American

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soldiers or attempt to kill, which started to
happen when the morale of the troops started to

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go down. When Lyndon Johnson announced that the
war was over, that he was pulling out from the

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presidency. We knew we were never there to win.
We were there simply to survive as individuals.

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I think Elias's smile is relief. I mean, you know,
all of a sudden the adrenaline's gone out. I mean,

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he thought he was out there alone and he's
nailed a bunch of guys, but he could very

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well got killed. He could very well have been
left back there. It was like a recognition. Uh,

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you know, he was a very fatalistic guy and it
was like, okay, this is the way it's going to

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come and it's my time and you're going to do
it. I fancy that. That's a good one. Well,

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I think you can you can entertain both. They're
not contradictory. and uh his levitation, his

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ability to transcend uh his mortal body is what
motivates the smile. And I think that probably

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Barnes Behringer sees it in a whole different
is a practical man who doesn't have much respect

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for the spiritual life. He was reconciled to his
death. That's why he could do something as crazy

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as he did. And that also makes it equally hard
when he decides to go for the helicopter after

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all. I've got all these technical considerations.
I got to avoid that. I got to get around that. I

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got to pass through here that I got to blow this
off and I got to these guys are there. You know,

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I've got to queue the whole shot. It's this
massive shot. Everything gets activated by me

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saying I'm ready and I'm totally alone. I'm a guy
in the middle of nowhere with this walkie-talkie

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ready to activate this huge shock. It was very
exciting. I think he's feeling incredible guilt.

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There's that shot of him on the helicopter
with Lieutenant Wolf looking at him like,

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"What the hell? You told me he was dead." You
know, and a couple of the other guys going,

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"You said he was dead." He comes in there to say
he's sorry, but how can he ever say those words?

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I didn't look at it as killing Barnes as much
as I looked at it as as releasing Barnes from

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Barnes. This may sound crazy, but a gesture of
peace and an act of violence uh to release his

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soul. These boys were returned old and fractured
souls. They were in part of them was dead forever.

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And this is what I tried to show at the end with
Charlie Sheen going back to his country. Uh he

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would never be the same man again. He would he
would in fact have the soul of a murderer he

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had killed. I said, "Dad, I'm going to kiss the
ground at LAX." And I did. I kissed the ground.

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I didn't think I was going to make it out of
there alive. At one point some of those kids

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got picked off in the sense that they um you know
this was their first film and it's a hard place to

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follow and they would you know go back to jobs as
waiters hoping for the next film. Uh some of them

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never got that second film ever. Some of them
just went back to hometowns and you know it was

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a bit like Vietnam. We all kind of fell apart and
some guys did better. So each one went his own way

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and it's sort of sad to see that. It's like you
know life moves on. It doesn't stop. That's the

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point. This was important to us from the get-go
cuz it was important to Dale Dy. It was important

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to Oliver. We took their lead and also with a
very good material in this incredible, you know,

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we in our simple way as much as possible. We
were trying to be committed to, you know, it

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goes beyond realism. It it has to do with a being
the right spirit. I asked him, I said, ' Alver,

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look, I'm going to Las Vegas uh to meet with
the surviving guys from my outfit in Vietnam

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uh to a sort of a reunion. Now, these guys are the
real deal. They have seen the elephant, heard the

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owl. Uh I think we should see what they think.
And he said, "Oh, it's not ready and we don't

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have the sound and we don't have the music laid
in and yada yada." And I said, "Oliver, they don't

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care." Said, "Let's just test the waters." It
serves, I think, as Oliver's own tribute because

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he himself was a combat infantry in Vietnam. It
serves as his tribute and his statement about

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those things which happened to us in the war. Even
if the public ignored it, we had done something

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special. The country is critics, the newspaper
guys are critics, the world are critics. Then

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you get it down to the vets. The vets are your
best critics. But then you specifically get it

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down one more step to the guys who are in the same
platoon and they're looking to see which character

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they are. And I would imagine it makes him a
little bit nervous. Larry, I said, "Watch flavor."

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And you said something like, "Uh, that's pretty
good." We always had these verbal sparring acts.

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Struck a lot of nerves because a lot of people
say, "Well, yeah, I went through that. this is

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what I went through, but I have never been able
to express myself and talk to my family or to my

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kids or to my buddies about what actually went on
because it's just been a part of my life that I

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didn't want to talk about. And boom, here's this
film Platoon that says, "Yeah, I went through

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that. That that's that's my experience." We got
home, Top Gun was the big hit. And you know,

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we really by the end of that platoon, it felt
like we'd made a love story about young men dying

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in war. I mean, that's what it felt like. It was
like this wildly horrific bonding experience and

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you get home and it's like you know aircraft
carriers and guns and stuff and it's like the

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[ __ ] that's not what we did and that's what
people going to see as a war movie and then it

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turns out all going to release it at Christmas and
I'm like oh we're in the ass you know this is not

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uh it's a wonderful life this uh so I just
figured we're dead mate. I knew we were making

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a very important film. I knew that the vets would
appreciate it and the families would appreciate.

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I didn't know that this film was going to be
received like it was and that was a real shock for

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me. I thought we were going to make a movie with
a lot of integrity and a very smart movie, but I

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thought it would be misidentified and that people
did not want to hear about Vietnam. Platoon was

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hailed by viewers and critics alike. It has been a
phenomenal cultural as well as box office success.

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The whole response to platoon changed my life as a
filmmaker because until that time I never realized

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the power of a motion picture. Uh that you can
affect social change. You can you can change

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people's thinking about subjects. I can remember
the days when I wouldn't even admit that I was a

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Vietnam veteran. But now, and I'm sure this movie
has a lot to do with it. I can finally say I'm

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I'm very proud to be a Vietnam veteran. I hope
the one thing they walk away with uh from this

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this film is uh is the truth and knowing that um
that this film is is about the horrors, the um

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the madness. It's a mythological movie, man. And
he and he understood that. Oliver, I look back on

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it as a very gratifying uh experience. It's real
labor of love in my heart. And uh I think we all

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felt we were doing something special and the the
idea was more important than any single one of us.