Summary
The film flashes forward to Da Nang, Vietnam, where Joker, now a war correspondent for Stars and Stripes, sits on a street-corner with a photographer named Rafterman. A female prostitute solicits the two for sex, and Joker stands up to pose with her while Rafterman sets up a photograph. A thief runs up behind Rafterman and steals his camera, performing kung-fu before jumping onto the back of a motorcycle, driven away by an accomplice.
Joker and Rafterman walk together through the U.S. Marine Corps base in Da Nang. Rafterman voices his desire to go into the field to see real combat, but Joker tells him no. At a briefing, Joker tells his editor-in-chief, Lieutenant Lockhart, that the Tet holiday ceasefire might be canceled, but Lockhart dismisses him. Lockhart gives the war correspondents various notes about their work—for instance, to use the term "sweep and clear," rather than, "search and destroy," and criticizes Joker for not including enough grisly details about enemy deaths in his stories, which he knows are popular with readers. Joker responds by suggesting that he himself go into the field.
In the barracks, the men listen to "Going to the Chapel" by The Dixie Cups. Joker complains about being bored and wanting to see combat, but the other men tease him for being green and lacking "the stare"—a look that veteran Marines have after being on long tours of duty. The men's ears perk up when they hear rumblings in the distance, and when the barracks lights go out, the men grab their weapons and rush out to man their positions, as explosions rain down on the base. A truck rushes the base and explodes, and the Marines open fire on oncoming Viet Cong forces, eventually subduing them.
Lockhart explains to the correspondents that Vietnamese forces have initiated a surprise attack over the Tet holidays, including the widespread usage of suicide squads, and that as a result public support for the war is now at a lower level than ever. After Joker makes another wisecrack, Lockhart decides to send him to Phu Bai, and urges Joker to remove his peace symbol button. Lockhart also grants Rafterman permission to accompany Joker, against Joker's wishes.
In a military helicopter, Rafterman struggles not to vomit, as Joker watches an unhinged and voluble gunner indiscriminately fire on running Vietnamese below. The gunner claims to have killed 157 Vietnamese, including women and children. When Joker asks him how he can kill women and children, he replies, "Easy—you just don't lead him as much." Over the deafening roar of the helicopter, the gunner laughs, asking Joker and Rafterman, "Ain't war hell?"
After the helicopter lands in Phu Bai, Joker asks a nearby soldier where the "shit" is, and the soldier suggests Squad 25. Walking alongside a stream of refugees, Joker finds the squad leader, nicknamed Touchdown for playing football at the University of Notre Dame. Touchdown mentions that Joker's friend Cowboy is in Squad 25 as well, known as the "Lusthog Squad." When Joker mentions the execution of civilians, Touchdown tells him where to find some human remains.
In the next scene, wearing a helmet that says "Born to Kill" and his peace symbol button, Joker stares down with other men into a mass grave, filled with corpses covered in lye. Joker interviews the squad lieutenant, who explains that around twenty people were murdered when asked to report for political re-education. When a nearby colonel angrily demands to know why Joker paradoxically wears both a peace symbol and a "Born to Kill" message on his helmet, Joker says he doesn't know, but then admits, "The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir."
Analysis
The film flashes forward considerably in time after the boot camp sequence, leading the viewer to piece together the events that have transpired between basic training and deployment. Joker's position as a war correspondent provides the narrative framing for the second half of the film. Whereas the editor-in-chief of the Stars and Stripes is content to produce sensational stories that tout U.S. military achievements and whitewash tactical mistakes, Joker is more interested in capturing the physical and psychological realities of combat.
Kubrick uses Joker's job as a combat correspondent and Rafterman's as a war photographer as a framework for examining whether one can ever accurately render the reality of war with words and images. Because Joker is under considerable pressure to produce jingoistic copy, he must follow state-approved guidelines handed down to him from his superiors, which limit the vocabulary he can even use in print to describe the war. Despite having been in the field himself, Joker discourages Rafterman from doing the same, unwilling to take responsibility for him. Joker's ambivalence about his job—and the war effort in general—is symbolized by the contrast between the peace symbol button he wears on the outside of his military fatigues, and his "BORN TO KILL" helmet.
Stuck in Da Nang, the Marines spend their idle time with vices like smoking cigarettes, soliciting prostitutes, and telling profane stories. The use of the song "Going to the Chapel" by The Dixie Cups just before the beginning of the Tet Offensive once again links together sexuality and death, fulfilling Hartman's declaration that violence will replace any kind of sexual or romantic gratification that the men may hope to achieve. In Vietnam, encounters between men and women are invariably emotionless, transactional, fleeting exchanges. The first two women to appear in the film are both prostitutes, while the last is the sniper who has been picking off the men in their squadron.
To a certain degree, Joker's cynicism seems to inoculate him emotionally from the horrors of war. His irreverent disposition, which functions as a kind of defense mechanism, separates him from the abrasive machismo displayed by the other Marines. It is perhaps precisely this quality that leads Lockhart to send Joker to Phu Bai, after Joker's comments at daily briefings begin to undermine Lockhart's authority. Lockhart takes pleasure in forcing Joker to confront his own arrogant, careless attitude by making him responsible for Rafterman's life.
Joker and Rafterman's journey from Da Nang to Phu Bai is a figurative descent into the underworld. Not unlike the way Charon escorts dead souls across the river Styx to Hades in Greek mythology, a deranged gunner escorts Joker and Rafterman in their crossing from Da Nang to Phu Bai on a military helicopter, at one point explicitly saying, "Ain't war hell?" The unhinged gunner resembles Pyle, in the way that his killing instincts as a trained Marine have become completely unleashed. The image of Joker looking down into a pit functioning as a makeshift grave for Vietnamese corpses further exemplifies the hellish, subterranean scene of war into which Joker and Rafterman have entered.
