Steers and queers


R. Lee Ermey, famous for playing a hard-headed Marine Corps drill instructor in the Academy Award-nominated film “Full Metal Jacket,” has died at age 74, announced by his manager.

Ermey served 11 years in the US Marine Corps, spending 14 months in Vietnam and then in Okinawa, Japan, where he became staff sergeant, before being discharged in 1972. He was discovered by legendary director Francis Ford Coppola during the filming of “Apocalypse Now” and served as a technical adviser for the film, also playing the role of a helicopter pilot.

Eight years later in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam opus "Full Metal Jacket", he played the foul-mouthed and permanently shouting Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, with responsible for breaking in recruits. 

Perhaps channelling his own experiences, his diatribes towards his boot camp recruits include now famous quotes including the "only steers and queers come from Texas" and " I will give you three seconds, exactly three fucking seconds, to wipe that stupid grin off your face, or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you!"

Full Metal Jacket was only one film "celebrating" the Vietnam War. Others include Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Casualties of War, and The Deer Hunter.

Every generation, every war, it seems, has its own celluloid story.

World War I films include All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Gallipoli and War Horse.

World War II classics include The Great Escape, Saving Private Ryan, Inglorious Basterds, Dunkirk, The Dirty Dozen, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Dam Busters.

M.A.S.H. was set in the Korean War as was the more serious The Manchurian Candidate. Even the Anglo-Zulu war of the late 19th Century has been immortalised in the form of the classic Zulu.

The reality of war is, as we know, completely different from the heroism, friendship and adventure. The first casualty of war is innocence. But while some films are more gung-ho than the actuality, they all serve to remind us of the aggression, destruction, violence and destruction that war brings.

Some films glorify war, some explore the immediate and far-reaching impacts of war, but they all serve one purpose: in the words of John F Kennedy, "Mankind must put an end to war, before war puts an end to mankind".

RIP R. Lee Ermey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for ranting!

Popular posts from this blog

43 Shades of Grey

I'm aging disgracefully, it would appear. I'm only 43 but I feel I'm falling apart. The worst thing by far is my hair. When I was younger, I had thick, glossy locks, in a stunning array of colours. If you looked it up on a Loreal Colour Chart, it would be a unique combination of French Roast, Crushed Garnet, Espresso, Hot Toffee and Sparkling Amber. My locks are still thick, and still an array of colours. Now however, it's more dove grey, silver grey, gun grey, pearl grey and midnight grey. It's threaded throughout my hair so there's no high or low light that can address the tresses - it's a full block colour job that's required. I knew it was bad when my 4-year old said (yes, a from-the-mouth-of-babes moment): "Mummy, your hair is beautiful, but why do you have that grey band at the top?" That was weeks ago, and frankly I'm past the point of styling it out - I can no longer say I'm rocking an Ombre. My hairdresser Ian can accur...
Read more

Mummy makes a point

I'm not a material girl in this material world. Aside from the fact that I'm past 40 and therefore can only be referred to as a girl by my grandmother's generation, I'm not one for fancy trappings. Yes, I like Ted Baker, but I also wear Primarche . I love M&S food but I also shop at Aldi (pronounced Al-di, not All-di). My point is that I enjoy the finer things in life, but don't need them. On the matter of finer things, karma is up there. I'm desperately resisting the aching urge to say "I told you so" to a number of people. So to maintain some dignity I'm going to blog in generalist terms, in the hope that it's as cathartic as my writing usually is.  I've got a fiendish friend sitting on my shoulder. There used to be a slight nick, not quite big enough to be a chip but definitely some shallow damage, but that's healed and now the devil's taken up residence. Every once in a while, he'll lean across and whisper in my ea...
Read more

The silent minority

I'd just like to clear something up. I acknowledge I've been quieter than usual where my online presence is concerned. No, I'm not dead, and no I haven't faded into obscurity - if you thought (hoped) that, then 2019 is not going to be your year. But as it seems to be important to some, here's the lowdown on why I might be quiet...  I'm thinking... If you think I talk a lot, well I think even more. A lot of my thinking is about my work, creative cylinders firing constantly. Most of my thinking is about my loved ones, particularly my girls. Some time is spent redesigning my kitchen. Some is spent plotting  😌. I'm ill... On this occasion, I've had the annual Christmas bug. It's week 4. I missed Christmas - basically I served up dinner for everyone and went back to bed, surfacing occasionally for medication or help over the next four days. The girls spent whole mornings during their school holiday making lurid green slime - I simply...
Read more