Pull Out the Pin

["Forward, Jonathan" <JForward@sitgbsd1.telecom.com.au>]

Just something that's been playing on my mind for a while:
Taken from GARDEN08.DOC - Kris Needs' second ZigZag interview January 1982,
edited by Andrew Marvick - "Dream Time in the Bush"

Kate, re Pull Out the Pin:

     "I saw this incredible documentary by this Australian cameraman
who went on the front line in Vietnam, filming from the Vietnamese
point of view, so it was very biased against the Americans. He said
it really changed him, because until you live on their level like that,
when it's complete survival, you don't know what it's about. He's never
been the same since, because it's so devastating, people dying all the
time.
     "The way he portrayed the Vietnamese was as this really crafted,
beautiful race. The Americans were these big, fat, pink, smelly things
who the Vietnamese could smell coming for miles because of the tobacco
and cologne. It was devastating, because you got the impression that
the Americans were so heavy and awkward, and the Vietnamese were so
beautiful and all getting wiped out. They wore a little silver Buddha
on a chain around their neck and when they went into action they'd pop
it into their mouth, so if they died they'd have Buddha on their lips."

The cameraman mentioned was Neil Davis, about whom an excellent biography
(One Crowded Hour - Collins Publishers Australia, 1987, ISBN 0 7322 2418 7)
has been written by Tim Bowden, one of the most witty, talented & underrated
journalists in Australia and Davis' close friend. The foreword begins:

"    Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife,
     Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
     One crowded hour of glorious life
     Is worth an age without a name.

 By Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730-1809), written during
 the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763

 Neil Davis wrote the last two lines of Mordaunt's verse in
 the flyleaf of every work diary he kept in Southeast Asia
 from 1964 to 1985. He told me it was his motto, and summed
 up his philosophy.
  A burst of shrapnel in a Bangkok street ended his remark-
 able run of crowded hours on 9 September 1985."

Neil Davis did indeed report the war from the Vietnamese point of view -
the ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) point of view. This alone
would not serve to make him biased against the Americans (their allies).
I think perhaps she wasn't paying very much attention while watching the
documentary.

TSB