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PLATOONFADE IN: A QUOTATION AGAINST A BLACK SCREEN:'REJOICE, O YOUNG MAN, IN THY YOUTH ...'
The sound now of a C-130 air cargo plane roaring over us and wecut sharply to:
EXT.AIRSTRIP - BASE CAMP - VIETNAM - DAY
As the C-130 coasts to a stop, the hatch rotating down on a hot,dusty lifeless airstrip somewhere in Vietnam. Nothing seems tolive or move in the midday sun.
TITLES RUN
A DOZEN NEW RECRUITS step off the plane, unloading their duffelbags, looking around like only the new can look around, theirhair regulation-clipped, crisp, new green fatigues fitting themlike cardboard.CHRIS TAYLOR is just another one of them - as he turns into atight closeup, to look at a motorized cart pulling up alongside... He's about 21. Newmeat. His face, unburned yet by the sun,is tense, bewildered, innocent, eyes searching for the truth.They fall now on a heap of BODY BAGS in the back of the cart.Two soldiers begin loading them onto the plane. Flies - hundredsof flies - buzz around them, the only cue to their contents.
GARDNER 
(next to Chris, Southern accent)That what I think it is?
SOLDIER 1
(a look)I guess so ...An uncomfortable look between them.
SERGENT
Okay, let's go ...As they move out, Chris' eyes moving with the body bags beingloaded onto the plane. Moving over now to a motley HALF DOZENVETERANS bypassing them on their way to the plane. They lookhappy. Very happy, chatting it up.
 
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They pass the newboys - and they shake their heads, their eyesfull of an almost mocking pity.
 VETERANS
Well I'll be dipped in shit - new meat! Sorry boutthat boys - 'sin loi' buddy ... you gonna love theNam, man, for-fucking-ever.Chris looking at them. They pass, except for the last man whowalks slower than the rest, a slight limp. His eyes fall onChris.They're frightening eyes, starved, hollow, sunken deep in hisface, black and dangerous. The clammy pallor of malaria clingsto him as he looks at Chris through decayed black teeth. Thenthe sun flares out on him and he's past. And Chris looks back.Disturbed. It's as if the man was not real. For a moment there.As if he were a ghost.Chris walking, duffel bag on the shoulder, looks up at thelollipop sun burning a hole through the sky. A rushing SOUNDnow. Of frightening intensity, an effect combining the blast ofan airplane with the roar of a lion as we hardcut to:
EXT. JUNGLE - SOMEWHERE IN VIETNAM - DAY
The sun matches the intensity of the previous shot as we movedown into thick green jungle. We hear the sound of MEN coming, alot of men. The thwack of a machete. Brush being bulled. Wewait. They are getting close.The CREDITS continue to run.SUBTITLE reads: December 1967 - Bravo Company, 25th InfantryDivision - Somewhere near the Cambodian Border.A sweating white face comes into view. CHRIS - cutting point.Machete in one hand, whacking out a path for the platoon, M-16 inthe other, he looks like he's on the verge of heat exhaustion.Breathing too hard, pacing himself all wrong, bumping intothings, tripping, not quite falling, he looks pathetic here inthe naturalness of the jungle. An urban transplant, slightlyneurotic and getting more so.His rucksack is coming apart as well, about 70 badly packedpounds banging noisily.Behind him BARNES now comes, the Platoon Sergeant. Then the RTO,his radio man, humming lightly. Others are behind, the columnsnaking back deep into the brush.We cut around some FACES of the Platoon - all to be seen later.Young faces, hard and dirty after weeks in the field, exhaustedyet alert, fatigues filthy, slept-in, torn, personalized, hairway past regulation length, medals, bandanas. A jungle army.Boys.Chris glancing down at his raw bleeding blisters. Transfers themachete to his other, slightly less blistered, hand. The kidcuts on - struggling but trying, on his last reserves ofstrength, smashing almost straight forward through brush, not
 
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even bothering to look ahead. He smells something, looks around,slows his pace, eyes working ... around to the base of a tree.He moves past it.And as he does so, the camera from his POV comes around on a deaddecomposing 10-day-old GOOK - eyes starting from its sockets,worms and flies feasting.Chris draws his breath in, terrified. Barnes suddenly appearsalongside, his hard humourless eyes looking annoyed from the gookto Chris.
BARNES
What are you waiting for? He ain't gonna bite you.Move out.Chris looks at him with pent-up hatred and crashes on.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING
At the COMPANY PC, CAPTAIN HARRIS on the radio.
HARRIS
Bravo Two, Six. What's the delay up there, move itout on point. We've got a link up at Phase LineWhiskey at One Eight Zero Zero, over.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING -- MORNING
At the PLATOON PC, LIEUTENANT WOLFE sweats heavily as he speaksin his radio. He is also new to the field, a dark little feistyguy, about 24, very hairy, especially in the eyebrows, an intenseget-ahead look.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE
Two Bravo, Two move it out. Six says we're jamming'em up back there. Over.Barnes, upfront, turns to SAL, his radio man, under his breath.
BARNES
Tell that dipshit to get fucked. Get that otherfreshmeat up here. Gardner.As Barnes picks up his pace, irritated now at this reprimand fromthe CO - coming up on Chris, who is soaked now from head to footin sweat, dizzy, feeling sick, about to vomit.
BARNES (CONT'D)
What the hell's the matter with you Taylor! You asorry ass motherfucker. Fall back.He grabs Chris's machete out of his hand and bulls his way intothe foliage, tearing it apart, setting a new pace.Chris being bypassed by the column, their eyes on him. He isswatting at the red ants that are all over his neck.GARDNER, another new recruit, fat, hustling up to replace him.A big and black medic - DOC - comes over, gentle eyes and manner;
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