In the movie, “Full Metal Jacket” a soldier is shown machine gunning Vietnamese from a helicopter. He states those that don’t run are VC, those who stand still are disciplined VC. Did this kind of action occur?
Not only did this kind of thing happen, this exact incident actually occurred in real-life.
The scene is a verbatim rendering of an event that Vietnam War journalist and Full Metal Jacket co-screenwriter Michael Herr was involved in during the Tet Offensive in February 1968. It’s included in his memoir Dispatches, which covers his years of reporting on the war in South Vietnam.
While flying in a transport helicopter Herr really did witness a door gunner firing on civilians and the door gunner, as shown in the film, tried to convince Herr to write a story about him because of his success as a door gunner – evidenced by his high body count. The door gunner actually claimed that civilians who ran were Viet Cong and those who stood still were well-disciplined Viet Cong. He even admitted that he fired on women and children when Herr pressed him on the issue.
The thing left unstated in the film is that in real-life the helicopter Herr was flying in was over a so-called “free fire zone” when the incident happened. That’s an area where anyone observed who was not clearly wearing a “friendly” uniform was to be treated as the enemy. So despite the fact that the door gunner was randomly killing civilians, his actions were technically legal under US and South Vietnamese law, regardless of his admission that he sometimes intentionally targeted children.
It should go without saying that under the international laws of war all of these totally unnecessary civilian killings, particularly of children, amounted to war crimes.
The incident was included in the film in part for its shock value as well as to give the film greater authenticity.