Southern Comfort is a 1981 American action thriller film directed by Walter Hill and written by Michael Kane, Hill and his longtime collaborator David Giler. It stars Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, T. K. Carter, Franklyn Seales and Peter Coyote. The film, set in 1973, features a Louisiana Army National Guard squad of nine from an infantry unit on weekend maneuvers in rural bayou country as they antagonize some local Cajun people and become hunted. Plot In 1973, a squad of nine Louisiana Army National Guard soldiers convene in a local bayou for weekend maneuvers. New to the squad is Corporal Hardin, a cynical transfer from the Texas Army National Guard. He soon becomes disgusted with the arrogant behavior and attitudes of the men. A happily-married chemical engineer in his civilian life, Hardin wants no part of a date with prostitutes which PFC Spencer has arranged for himself and their squad-mates. Nevertheless, he hits it off with the amiable Spencer, and both find themselves to be the most level-headed soldiers in their squad. The nine soldiers set out on patrol and soon get disoriented in the remote swampland. They come across a seemingly-abandoned campsite with several canoe-type boats called pirogues. To continue onward, the Guardsmen need the pirogues to get across the flooded swamp. The squad's leader, Staff Sergeant Poole, a Vietnam War veteran, tells one of his men to leave a note explaining the situation, and orders the soldiers into three of the four pirogues. As they set out across the bayou, a group of Cajun hunter-trappers return and yell at the soldiers for having taken their boats. In response, PFC Stuckey fires blanks from his M-60 machine gun at the Cajuns, thinking it amusing when the Cajuns take cover. The Cajuns return fire with live ammunition, killing Poole and sending the squad into a panic as they make their way toward cover. Sgt. Casper – the strict, inexperienced, and unpopular second-in-command – orders the squad to continue their "mission." They discover that Cpl. Reece has brought along a box of live ammunition for hunting purposes. Reece is forced at knife-point by Hardin to give up the live ammo, and Casper divides it evenly among the soldiers, in order to bolster their chances of defense. They reach the shack of a one-armed Cajun hunter-trapper, who speaks only French. Casper has him arrested as a prisoner of war. The