The sheriff (the late Brian Dennehy) never listens to me at the beginning of Rambo: “Do not … mess … with Rambo.”
Prayers for all our vets suffering from PTSD. Too many despair. Seems like more should be done for them.
The sequel is titled "Rambo" and Stallone and producers make him an American hero and a movie franchise is born.
The movie helped to solidify the image of Vietnam Vets as crazy, out of control misfits.
I’ve watched “First Blood” at least once a year since it first was shown. This write-up relative to PTSD is accurate regarding the movie.
“Billy Jack” was just a cheap, leftist hippy film trying to show them as being victims. Billy was just to add a spark to an otherwise ridiculous movie.
When I was growing up in the late 70's in a small town, a Vietnam Vet born and raised there, would walk down the main drag of the town, in fatigues and cursing to himself all the time.
I think his name was "Benny". Sometimes he would enter the family store, and my mom said to me, treat him with respect, and thank him for his service.
And my mother would say, "poor Benny's mom" since he lived with his mother.
True story, and God Bless all the Vets.
Re the “Rambo” stigma, PTSD and Agent Orange, may I suggest reading the exceptionally written book by B.G. Burkett (Army, Infantry, Vietnam Vet) titled “Stolen Valor” wherein it offers quite a different view of our fine Vietnam Veterans than Rambo. The posers who claimed service in “Nam” and their horrific acts against civilians and how the Left, Media, Hollywood and politicians exploited Vietnam Veterans for their own reasons is well described with each detailed page, notably researched and worth the read, for it will greatly enlighten one’s view of post-Vietnam thinking and certainly of traitors like John Kerry and his involvement in the Anti-War movement. And to all the authentic Vietnam Vets: “Welcome Home!”
It’s more of a cartoon about it. Heroes with Henry Wrinklier was a lot better.
BTTT
“…the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it “Shell Shock”, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.
-George Carlin
I believe Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about PTSD. “Summer Side of Life”. One has to listen to the lyrics carefully.
Lightfoot has written a few songs about soldiers and war,”Patriots Dream”, “Drink yer Glasses empty”, and “Echoes of Heroes”
I don’t watch Vietnam war movies. Been there, done that. Caught about 20 minutes of “Platoon”, while sitting in a bar waiting for a friend. TOTAL, ABSOLUTE, and COMPLETE, BULLSH*T. SO WAS “FIRST BLOOD”. Almost. I saw the entire film (after it had been out for a dozen, or more years, at a friend’s house). The film caught my interest until after the escape from the jail, when it became a comic book. One stupidity after another...(Rambo’s Col. Whositz, wears an SF crest on his brand new misshapen beret which ONLY enlisted men wore on their berets, instead of the Eagle of a “FULL BIRD” Col. that he should have worn on the flasher of his beret. NOT ONE PERSON INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF THAT FILM SAID TO ANYONE IN CHARGE, “OOPS, EXCUSE ME BUT...”. ‘CAUSE THEY WERE ALL HOLLYWOOD AND NOBODY KNEW.)
But one part, ONE PART ONLY, touched me, and made my tears just flow. ONLY ONE PART WAS REAL. That’s the scene where
Rambo tells his Col. that all the vets only wanted their country to love them like we loved our country. It’s been over 50 years for me now, and I’m crying just writing this very real truth.
That’s the ONLY TRUTH in that film.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS HOLLYWOOD BULLSH*IT. EVERYTHING!
Keep the Faith.
Donald Trump put our Vets first. Look how “America” treated him. At this point America needs several divisions of “Rambos” to bring justice to the elites and restore the Republic.
What is now called PTSD is the result of being immersed in an environment of intense danger, very little sleep, and seeing things our young minds had difficulty processing. We used to call it "the shakes" and it was completely understandable.
We came home, got married, got our education, got jobs and built our lives. Nobody turned into killing machines. We drank too much and many marriages failed - but eventually most of us got over it, just like all the men who returned from war in all the previous generations.
Rambo was an insult, like every other damn "Vietnam war" movie (.Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, MASH, etc.- and we haven't forgotten how that felt when we got back.
PTSD; Home from service and not knowing any better, I got on with OJT in life the best I knew how; albeit in some social-intellectual-spiritual vacuum. Easily found a decent job which just as easily led to a luck of the draw career position. Whatever “issues” I had from service in RVN were resolved by concluding “others had been in deeper s**t than me”. I had stood at the abyss yet skated war’s worst.
Fast-forwarding nearly 20-years, I began experiencing what I thought to be service connected PTSD. To say the least, it was confusing as I thought that was all neatly stored on my mind’s personal history shelf. In my DIY style, came to realize that it wasn’t service connected PTSD but my perception of ethical failures of two next-inline managers. But PTSD nonetheless.
I found the following works by Dr. Jonathan Shay to be of great help in understanding PTSD and perhaps it’s greater presence in daily life. “Jonathan Shay - Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002) and Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (2010)
I disagree
“Rucus” was released in 1980 - 2 years before Rambo.
A Vietnam veteran passing through a small town is harassed by local bullies but he fights back, using his wartime skills, and triggers a full-scale police manhunt.
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084611/)
The U.S. defeated North Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968, was fully out of the fight in 1973, except for the Marines guarding the embassy. Congress lead by Ted Kennedy cut funding to Vietnam in 1975, then the North Invaded.
The U.S. Army already won the Vietnam War five years before Congress lost it. Academics, Hollywood, and the news have been blaming the Army ever since. It has taken a long time to start to correct the record.
It’s just called “First Blood”! The Rambo titles came afterwards.
The jailbreak scene at the beginning of the movie. One of the best I’ve ever scene. I really likes the part of Deputy Sergeant Arthur “Art” Galt played by Jack Starrett.
One of my all time favorites.
I wish they had made a movie out of Elmer Kelton’s “The Year It Never Rained”. One of the characters was a Nam Vet.