text: I know these types of films sell tickets and make a profit for the film makers but it just won't do as a film about Vietnam. Viet Nam was filled with horrors for the men who lived it day in and day out.<br /><br />This film stars Gene Hackman who is Korean war vet assigned to train a group of rag-tag Viet Nam Vets for a return trip to that country to rescue a group of American POW's held at a camp there. These men include a former tunnel rat, a crazy acid dropping sailor, a blond tanned surfer from California and some inexperienced kid (Patrick Swayze) who just so happens had a dad that was killed in Nam. They train first at some camp in Texas and once in Nam they are found out and lose all their weapons. They are able to find replacement weapons and continue on their way to free the captured men. Most of the men are found and saved but the rag-tag group is mostly wiped out.<br /><br />This movie played like a video game in which you could figure out what was going to happen next and who would pop out of behind what bush, and who was going to die and who was going to live. Viet Nam I'm guessing was not like a video game....