could consider Elias somewhat normal. But, look at what happened to him. He was betrayed by his own man, shot and left for dead because he was morally opposed to murder. I think Oliver Stone wants you to believe that the war turned people into monsters and if you were not strong enough, or weak enough, to be changed, your chances of survival were very slim. It is obvious that the war changed the lives of the veterans interviewed, one admits that even a backfire from a car scares him (Wheeler/Becker, 279). Although the war certainly had a great effect on them, I don't think it was as drastic as the effect it had on Chris Tucker. He went into the war a caterpillar and emerged a butterfly with fangs and a grenade launcher.One major similarity between the interviewees experience and the movie was the use of drugs. I assume it was to escape the insanity of the war, to try to forget a bad thing by using another. "I used pot to keep all of that stuff out of my mind (Wheeler/Becker 275)." Chris Tucker and the majority of his platoon used marijuana. It was portrayed as a kind of peaceful thing because the soldiers who seemed to have a serious case of blood lust did not use it. The use of drugs in the U. S. escalated after the war, and became a continuing social problem that plagues us today.Another theme that both Platoon and the interviews touch upon is the class divide. Chris Tucker says "...why should only poor kids go to war?" That is met with the reply that, "it takes someone rich to think like that." He describes the soldiers in his platoon as the bottom of the barrel, guys nobody cares about. He also says they are the best he's ever seen. They are the heart and soul, the poor and unwanted, but fighting for our society and freedom. Mike, in the interview, referred to protesters as people who had a daddy on the draft board ( Wheeler/Becker 274). Eugene, another interviewee, states that, "...Vietnam was a money-making thing. ...
