The United States involvement in the Vietnam War was a
highly controversial and costly one, over 3 million lives were lost in the
conflict, and half were Vietnamese civilians. America had lost more than 58,000
soldiers and over 17,000 G.I’s were missing in action (M.I.A). Servicemen that
had returned home to America had to adapt to their old life before their involvement
in the destruction of Vietnam. Many suffered from PTSD due to witnessing the
horrors and brutality of war. During the 1980’s there were many different
portrayals of the Vietnam War through film. Movies such as Platoon, Hamburger
Hill and Full Metal Jacket depict the carnage that American soldiers had to
endure, many of these G.I’s were no older than 21.
Hamburger Hill was originally a novel and was later adapted
in to a film in 1987. The film is based on real events where a Battalion of soldiers
belonging to the 101st Airborne Division were ordered to take a well-fortified
position called ‘Hill 937’. The film starts by showing the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial, an iconic memorial which shows the mass of lives that were taken and
also the soldiers that are unaccounted for. The scene then changes to a chaotic
firefight between American troops and the opposition and ends with a soldier
dying from his wounds and the iconic UH-1 ‘Huey’. From the offset of the film
you can certainly see the negative impacts of war and this resentment continues
throughout the narrative. Hamburger Hill shows how soldiers serving felt
betrayed by the public in America; the ongoing protests have a toll on morale
and whether or not the soldiers are fighting for the right reason.
This film challenges America’s involvement in Vietnam and
directly criticises the higher ranking general’s orders. The American platoon
try to gain superiority of the ‘Hill 937’ but many a time fail, the numbers of
soldiers begin to decrease as the Vietnamese opposition are causing heavy casualties.
The soldiers feel the hill lacks a strategic value and that the loss of life is
unnecessary, they feel that they are being used as ‘cannon fodder’ and the
higher ranking officials deem them to be expendable. Hamburger Hill also shows
the issue of race relations at the time and also how discrimination is active
within the army. Three of the characters are African American and throughout
the movie you see how racist attitudes within the platoon are overcome due to
the conflict and each soldier fighting for one another. After 11 assaults the
summit is finally taken, many of the characters are no longer present. The scene
finishes with Beletsky, a replacement, looking down at the battlefield in
disbelief. The target is taken but at an extreme cost, Hamburger Hill shows the
true nature of war and audiences in the 80’s would have been asking themselves
was all of this bloodshed necessary? The film addresses relevant issues such as race relations and America's involvement overseas. 
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