The VVA Veteran, a publication of Vietnam Veterans of America

Vietnam Veterans of America

May/June 2026

The Vietnam War 'On the Big Screen' and in a Great Detective Novel

BY MARC LEEPSON

Oceans of ink and who knows how many terabytes of text have been expended on just about every aspect of American Vietnam War films since 1968 when The Green Berets, the only big Hollywood Vietnam War movie produced during the war, arrived in movie palaces nationwide.

I’ve read my share of reviews, academic analyses, and editorials on virtually every aspect of what we have seen of our nation’s most controversial overseas war on screens both large and small. And I have written a fair amount on the subject in these pages during the last 40-plus years.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to discover something new under the Vietnam War film literary sun in Vietnam on the Big Screen: How the Vietnam War Changed Hollywood (Pen & Sword/Casemate, 224 pp. $34.95), a fast-paced, fact-filled analytical look at the subject by British journalist and TV producer Joseph Houlihan. In it, Houlihan delivers a thorough history of the genre filled with inside-Hollywood info and, as the publisher puts it, “how those films got made, how they were received at the time, and how they shaped the American experience” of the Vietnam War.

What Houlihan adds to that excellent approach to make it novel is a strong argument that, beginning in the late 1970s, a handful of Vietnam War films—primarily The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Hamburger Hill—created “a sea change in Hollywood’s attitude not just to the Vietnam War, but to war in general, and changed cinema in ways that are still being felt today.”

That’s a bold statement, but it’s one that Houlihan backs up with a deep dive into the making of these and other films and the norm-breaking innovations by their auteur directors—led by Michael Cimino, Francis Ford Copolla, Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, and Barry Levinson—that propelled the sea changes into being.

The “most profound change,” Houlihan says, was bringing brutal wartime realism to the screen for the first time. For the first time, starting with the wave of movies that came out in the late-seventies, Vietnam War films, he says, began to depict warfare “as what it is: nasty, bloody, [and] morally compromised.”

A big part of that jolt of realism, Houlihan points out, is what he calls the “Captain Dye Method” developed 40 years ago by U.S. Marine Vietnam War veteran Dale Dye for Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Dye, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, signed on as Stone’s technical adviser and put a bunch of young Hollywood actors through a brutal mini-boot camp to prepare for their roles.

After surviving that hell, the actors came as close as cinematically possible to the real thing on the screen, replete with thousand-yard stares—and more. The Dye Method, Houlihan notes, “is now the industry standard in terms of troops’ mindset and the attention to detail required regarding uniform, accessories, weapons, and so forth.”

Houlihan also cites the stark realism in former 173rd Airborne Vietnam War trooper Patrick Sheane Duncan’s independent film, 84 Charlie Mopic. A 1989 pseudo-documentary that Duncan wrote and directed about a LRRP squad, Mopic matches Platoon in presenting a hyper-realistic film version of what American troops on the ground went through in the war.

Aside from the realism quotient, Houlihan says that Copolla, Stone, Kubrick, et. al also pioneered what would soon thereafter become a Hollywood standard: the use of rock and roll soundtracks as crucial components in their films. Think Jim Morrison’s “The End” in Apocalypse Now and The Animals’ anthemic “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and Country Joe and the Fish’s sarcastic antiwar song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” in Hamburger Hill, for example.

To say Houlihan is a big fan of The Deer Hunter is an understatement. He believes that that 1978 movie about three working-class men who go to Vietnam—where one (Christopher Walken) perishes, one (Robert DeNiro) comes home mentally troubled, and the other (John Savage) returns severely physically disabled—is the “best ever” Vietnam War film and “one of the most powerful, shocking, influential and brilliant films” about the war. I can’t entirely disagree, though I rank it in second place, close behind Platoon.

I also disagree with Houlihan’s assessment of Sylvester Stallone’s first Rambo movie, but respect his reporting and analysis. Other than that, I appreciated Houlihan’s deep dive into the genre and his insightful thesis and recommend Vietnam on the Big Screen for anyone who loves movies in general and Vietnam War movies in particular.

Full disclosure: Joe Houlihan contacted me when he was researching the book. He quotes me in the book and acknowledges my help.

DAVE'S Back

The great novelist James Lee Burke announced in 2021 that he had written his last Dave Robicheax novel, A Private Cathedral. That was not good news for folks like me who had gobbled up the long string of compulsively readable detective/thrillers he wrote beginning with The Neon Rain in 1987 starring the righteous Cajun detective who served a life-changing Vietnam War tour of duty.

I loved Burke’s next novel, Clete, which came out in 2024. As I wrote in these pages two years ago, the book was told in the voice of Clete Purcel, Dave’s former New Orleans P.D. parter and great friend—and fellow Vietnam War veteran. Clete was the star, but Dave was an important character in the novel, which included many references to their impactful war and post-war experiences, including more than two dozen flashbacks to Clete’s two tours as a U.S. Marine.

That book was set in 1999; so is Burke’s new thriller, The Hadacol Boogie (Atlantic Crime, 472 pp. $30, hardcover; $14.99, Kindle), in which (hallelujah!) he brings Dave Robicheaux back to centerstage. This time Clete is a not-insignificant supporting player in this compelling plot-twister.

The book’s peopled with Burke’s usual array of crazed evil doers and he once again has Dave and Clete working in tandem to solve a vexing murder. Danger lurks in the almost-sacred bayou landscape that Burke sketches, where Dave was born, lives, and works as a detective in the New Iberia Parish Sheriff’s office.

This one contains dozens of references to Dave and Clete’s wartime experiences in Vietnam, which they often refer to as “Shitsville.” Adding to the mix: One of the bad guys is also a Nam vet, who, like Dave and Clete, is dealing with post-war emotional issues.

The whiz-bang conclusion had me compulsively turning pages till the not-totally-surprising but brilliant ending.

Here’s hoping that this is not the last we see of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux.

Farm Boy in Uniform
by Kenneth Hassebroek

REVIEW BY BOB WARTMAN

The American war in Vietnam is well documented, but the so-called Secret War in Laos and Cambodia and the U.S. military’s psychological war throughout Southeast Asia at the same time are less so. Reading Kenneth E. Hassebroek’s Farm Boy in Uniform (Morris Publishing, 215 pp. $49.95, paperback), I learned a little bit more about both.

Farm Boy in Uniform is a large-format, nicely illustrated autobiography/memoir of Ken Hassebroek’s life growing up on his family’s 160-acre farm in Northwest Iowa and his four-year hitch in the U. S. Navy. Hassebroek says he wrote the book based on his belief that all veterans have a story to tell, but many times their stories never see the light of day.

Hassebroek, a member of Vietnam Veterans of America, joined the Navy in December 1968. After boot camp and A School, he was assigned as an aircraft electrician in a Navy experimental squadron. The Navy fulfilled its promise, and the farm boy went on to see the world as a flight crew member, including a tour of duty in the Vietnam War.

All told, Hassebroek traveled to 17 countries in four continents and to 32 states during his Navy career.

In July 1970 he found himself flying out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. He was assigned to Project Jenny, a psychological operations activity that supported MACV-SOG, the secret U.S. military unit that undertook clandestine missions in North and South Vietnam and in Cambodia and Laos.

Prior to his honorable discharge in 1972, Hassebroek received his Final Performance Evaluation. The last sentence, which is the last sentence of his book, says: “He has a polished manner, a keen sense of humor, and an ingrained respect for his fellow man.”

Here’s one example of his humor from the book. On a project out of Iceland, Hassebroek’s next stop was Thule Air Base (now known as Pituffik Space Base) in Greenland, the northernmost U.S. military base in the world. He writes that the men were told that Thule was “an exotic place rumored to have a girl behind every tree.”

Only one problem, which he realized after arriving: There were no trees.

Ken Hassebroek is an engaging storyteller. Farm Boy in Uniform was a pleasure to read and I highly recommend it.

Ken Hassebroek is offering a discounted price of $39.95 for his book to VVA members. To order or for more information, email khassebroek@gmail.com