Platoon and Full Metal Jacket

These two movies are quite similar and different in many points.
Platoon was more about how one soldier saw the war through his eyes. This movie was more graphic and showed more battle scenes but they never mentioned any real battles, dates or names or people. I felt that if they mentioned more of these facts then it would have been more accurate. I disliked how they went into a village and just started attacking the people. Those people were innocent and there was no proof that any of them had killed that black soldier, yet they wanted revenge on the people. It didn't matter who it was as long as they got back at them.
Something that I found that was pretty similar in both movies is that in each movie, one soldier mentioned how they (U.S) was not appreciated in Vietnam. Charlie Sheen told his grandmother in a letter that the black soldiers are in Vietnam, "...fighting for our freedom." In Full Metal Jacket, one of the soldiers told another soldier, "...we are supposed to be helping them and they s*** all over us every chance they get." After reading up on Vietnam this past week, I have learned that there is a reason for all this. We were not out there fighting for our independence because it was never in jeopardy and we were also not helping the Vietnamese because they did not want our help.
Full Metal Jacket was more realistic to me because of how it started with the boys being in training camp and then growing up into men who went to Vietnam. Sure, this movie didn't have many battle scenes like Platoon did but it was more accurate because it mentioned actual events and people. I found it interesting how the soldiers were around the table talking about events that had taken place that would be reported about and they mentioned how Walter Cronkite would be reporting that the war was "unwinable".
I didn't learn about this event during my Vietnam research but I do recall that it was mentioned that there was a battle that took place during a holiday for the Vietnamese. I don't remember what the name of this attack was but I remember that Alan mentioned how they surprise attacked the Americans. Full Metal Jacket actually talked about this attack because the men couldn't believe that they were being attacked and they thought it was just fireworks.
In the end, these two movies were more different than alike. Platoon was more graphic and I think it was made to impress those who like movies about wars. Full Metal Jacket was more about getting the facts straight and showing it to the audience. If I was to recommend one of these two movies so that the viewer could gain some knowledge on Vietnam, I would choose Full Metal Jacket all the way.