Kilgore is a fascinating character. Every line has a subtext. Every shot of him and his men tells us a story. I saw a great video essay about Apocalypse Now, and how each of the stops that Captain Willard makes represents losing a level of humanity. Kilgore is the first group he encounters with the boat crew. Kilgore's primary concern appears to be making sure that his men are "having fun" and are not terrified. He also displays a willingness to show mercy to the wounded enemy... but he also deals out death cards to the corpses of the fallen enemies, "so that they will know who did it". Moments after saying this, he yells at a soldier for not helping a wounded VC guerilla, crouching down to give him some water himself. There is very clearly something wrong in general with Kilgore and his outfit... but they're still at the upper end of the dehumanization. Second stop is as the USO show, where you can see men who have devolved into carnal-craving maniacs. But my absolute favorite stop on the river has to be Do Lung Bridge. The story of it is hilarious in a way that most people who have served in the military would immediately grasp: during the daytime, the VC assaults the bridge and destroy it, *every fucking day.* At nighttime, American engineers are sent out to repair the bridge... which is subsequently blown up again the next morning/day. What are the men who are stationed here like? What's our first glimpse of them? **They're all wading out into the water, all of their belongings packed up, desperately screaming to the boat for a chance at getting the fuck out of there.** They're fucking *broken* by the war, absolutely shattered. No semblance of discipline remains. Willard's exchange with the nigger soldiers is also one of my favorite scenes in any movie. Willard walks through a bunker complex, stumbling on a nigger firing a heavy machine gun off into the dark, shouting threats and taunts in between bursts. Willard gets his attention, the gunner is a low ranked enlisted man. Willard says "What are you shooting at, soldier?", to which the nigger very excitedly replies "Gooks, man, the fuck you think I'm shootin' at!?" He notices that Willard is an officer, and quickly offers a salute and more... professional assessment of what is happening. "Gooks, sir, they're all in the wire, but I think I shot them all." The gunner's friend says "You ain't shot shit, listen man- he's underneath them bodies!" Willard demands to know who the commanding officer is, to which the gunner replies "Ain't you?!" Hilarious. Demonstrates that rank structure has basically fallen apart here, nobody knows who's in charge (well, one guy knows). And then, there's the Roach. The gunner is having trouble finishing off the wounded gook, he can't see him and he's covered up by the bodies of his dead comrades. Realizing he can't handle this situation, the gunner says a simple phrase: "Go get the Roach, nigga. Go get the Roach, nigga!" The gunner's friend gets up and goes up the trench a little ways, and wakes up a sleeping soldier. Brings him over to the gunner position, and tells him what's up. "Do you need a flare?", the gunner asks. "Nah, man- he's close. Real close." the Roach replies, calmly turning off the Jimi Hendrix music on the radio. He casually, almost ritualistically loads a grenade into his launcher, and you should be noticing the very "tribal" looking attire of the Roach at this point. The Roach carefully aims, and fires. A few seconds pass as the wounded gook continues to shout threats, "fuck you, GI! I kill you, GI!" An explosion. A sudden absence of a shouting gook. The Roach, knowing he got his target, lowers his weapon, saying "Motherfucker...." in victory. Willard finally gets the Roach's attention, where the most interesting interaction of this entire scene happens. Willard: "Soldier- do you know who's in charge here?" The Roach gives Willard this odd look, this weird kind of half-smile with his exhausted, empty nigger eyes. He replies "Yeah." and then walks back to where he was, presumably to go back to sleep. I think you can interpret this in many ways, some people believe that Roach was actually the CO, but as people began to ignore rank structure, nobody really uses rank anymore. Personally, I think he was saying "Yeah, I know who's in charge here- the strongest. The one willing to do the most to survive." But he's too broken, too tired, too savage to articulate this, hence the bizarre reply to Willard's rather normal question. I love this film, one of the best 'Nam films.