"WalterM140" wrote

Always wondered about that early departure. Can anyone explain?

Anyone wounded three times could opt out.

It occurs to me that this is what the protagonist in "Platoon" does also.

Platoon is good fiction, based sort of on incidents of real life, but highly
dramatic for effect. In the script he's always called "Chris" while everyone
else has their last name or a nickname. It's common in the military to only
use a persons last name. Mail call, etc, it's just easier that way. But the
script emphasises "Chris" to signify that he is not really one of them. He's
just there for the tour, and then will get on with his life. Everyone else in
the story calls him "Taylor" but in the script he is "Chris." He opts out of
the war on his second wound, and he will accept it, because he knows he
can't take it. The war is beneath him. In the last scene he looks at "Rhah"
who, like a true Centurion, is victorious again with his walking stick and
fist, ready for the next battle, and "Chris" knows he made the right choice
to leave. He can never become a warrior, only a survivor. He murdered
the warrior who had kept him alive.

His final words a "those of us who did make it have an obligation to build
again, to teach to others what we know and to try with what's left of our
lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life"

It's the words of a murderer, who failed to become a warrior, and left the
battle. What does he have to teach? What goodness and meaning are to
be found? "Chris" becomes the spokesman for the warrior, yet he is not a
warrior, and the people he returns to do not know this. Thus the power of
this ending actually brings me to tear, it is well written. The true warriors are
just completely forgotten in life, like ants, as in this story.