The Green Berets is the title of a 1968 film starring John Wayne and featuring George Takei, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, and Aldo Ray. // Events October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts. ... U.S. John Wayne stamp from 2004 John Wayne (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), popularly known as The Duke, was an American film actor whose career began in silent movies in the 1920s. ... George Hosato Takei (pronounced ta-KAY) (born April 20, 1937 in Los Angeles, California) is a Japanese-American actor. ... David Janssen David Harold Meyer (March 27, 1931 - February 13, 1980), better known as David Janssen, was an American film and television actor who is best-known for his role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive (ABC,1963-1967). ... Dana James Hutton (May 31, 1934 – June 2, 1979) was an American actor. ... Aldo Ray, also known as Aldo DaRe (25 September 1926 - 27 March 1991) was an American film actor. ...

The Green Berets has a strong anti-communist and pro-Saigon theme, which resonates throughout the movie. The movie was produced at the height of the Vietnam War, during the same year as the infamous Tet offensive which, while ultimately militarily successful in some aspects, it was perceived as an embarrassing defeat in that three years into the war the other side could launch a national offensive into the largest cities in the country without being detected. It was the atmosphere of growing discontent with the war that prompted John Wayne to make a film countering the anti-war message. Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành Chí Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) United States of America South Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand the Philippines Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) Commanders Strength ~1,200,000 (1968) ~420,000 (1968) Casualties South Vietnamese dead: 1,250,000+ US dead: 58,226 US... Combatants South Vietnam United States Minor U.S.-aligned allies North Vietnam National Liberation Front Commanders William Westmoreland Central committees of the NLF and DRVN Strength 50,000+ (estimate) 85,000+ (estimate) Casualties USA/AUS/SKOR: 1,536 dead, 7,764 wounded, 11 missing ARVN: 2,788 dead, 8,299... Anti war protest in Melbourne, Australia, 2003 Anti_war is a name that is widely adopted by any social movement or person that seeks to end or oppose a future or current war. ...

John Wayne had been a long time supporter of the Vietnam war though he himself avoided any service during the Second World War. He had visited the troops in Vietnam, and he wanted The Green Berets to be a tribute to the soldiers in Vietnam. He directed the film and turned down the role of Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen to do so. The movie justifies America's involvement in what it describes as "a global crusade against communist domination of the world". It illustrates the point, by showing the Soviet- and Chinese-made weapons, which were commonly issued to NVA and VC soldiers. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 war film directed by Robert Aldrich from the novel by E.M. Nathanson. ... Soviet redirects here. ... NVA is a three-letter abbreviation for North Vietnamese Army (also known as the Peoples Army of Vietnam) Nationale Volksarmee, the National Peoples Army of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, Belgian political party. ... A Viet Cong soldier, heavily guarded, awaits interrogation following capture in the attacks on Saigon during the festive Tet holiday period of 1968. ...

The film is presented in two main parts. In the first part, a reporter against the war is taken to Vietnam. The reporter is gradually convinced that the war is absolutely correct in every respect. A siege battle looking like something out of a western is presented. In the second half of the film, Wayne leads a special ops team into enemy territory to capture an important VC field commander who lives in a mansion surrounded by bodyguards where he entertains his women guests. Critics will often point out that the special ops mission looks more like a scene from a World War II film set in occupied Europe than anything that happened in Vietnam. For the Boston area punk band see Siege (band). ... The word western is an adjective used to refer to things that are in the West. ... Special forces or special operations forces are relatively small military units raised and trained for special operations missions such as Special Reconnaissance (SR), Unconventional Warfare (UW), Direct Action (DA), Counter-Terrorism (CT), and Foreign Internal Defense (FID). ... World map showing Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ...

The hopeful spirit of the movie ends with a subtle reassurance that America will be victorious. It also ends with a famous scene of Wayne walking into the sunset with a young orphan named Ham Chuck and the message, "You're what this war is all about!". Critics, ridiculing the film, will often point out that the sunset is ironically in the wrong direction for Vietnam.

Two years later, Wayne released a documentary No Substitute for Victory which more formally outlines his views and ideas about Vietnam, the Cold War and what he considers the whole history of post-WWII appeasment of communism. A documentary is a work in a visual or auditory medium presenting political, scientific, social, or historical subjects in a factual and informative manner. ... The Cold War was the protracted geostrategic, economic, and ideological struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their respective and emerging alliance partners. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ...

Trivia

• An interesting side note, is the great similarities between The Green Berets and Heartbreak Ridge (1986). In both films, the missions are similar; both star a popular, " western" actor, and both were produced by Warner Brothers. There are major differences though in that Clint Eastwood is more of a human being and Heartbreak Ridge is far less overtly political.
• The two leading Vietnamese characters in the film were actually Japanese-Americans.
• This film was made with the full co-operation from the American Military.
• The film made the 2005 list of Roger Ebert's most hated films for being a "heavy-handed, remarkably old-fashioned film."
• Richard Pryor has an uncredited cameo as a jeep driver.
• The film closes with a dramatic shot of the sun setting into the sea. Unfortunately, the coastline in Vietnam faces east.