Todd Robinson’s drama “The Last Full Measure” is about honoring military sacrifice in war, and the implications of uneven exposure to that risk for the rest of us.
Back on April 11 1966, early in the Vietnam war, President Johnson had increased draft calls, and this incident involved airmen caught in an unusual trap after a poorly led offensive (called “Operation Abilene”). William Pitsenbarger (Jeremy Irvine), a medic, was about to be evacuated before he volunteered to go back out into the carnage and save many more men. He would be shot in the head and killed instantly.
In 1999 Scott Huffman (Sebastian Stan) is about to be fired from a Pentagon political appointment job after his supervisor resigns, but is given the assignment of investigating a request for a medal of honor for Pitsenbarger from one of the men who were saved, Tulley (William Hurt). Huffman becomes so engaged in the assignment that he later loses a chance for a really impressive new job as legislative coordinator. He tracks down the family of Pitsenbarger (father Franky, Christopher Plummer, is dying of cancer), and various other men whose lives were saved by Pitsenbarger’s sacrifice (like Takoda played by Samuel L. Jackson), who is particularly double-edged. Only three enlisted Airmen (eighteen total from the USAF) have been this medal, and it is extremely unusual to make a posthumous award so longer after.
I was in graduate school at the University of Kansas in April 1966, working as an assistant instructor in Mathematics, and was involved in a controversial incident regarding catching someone cheating on a test. Also controversial was the tests I gave. This was my first semester of graduate school (and I had resumed living in dorms) and was preoccupied with the demands of graduate level work on my own. Young men were very sensitive about their student deferments and they could be lost by bad grades, with their risk of exposure to combat heightened if they were forced out of school.
We were in some sense privileged. There was concern over how someone would react to being gravely wounded, and some men said they did not want to come back if they were.
I scraped by my Master’s Orals in January 1968 and on February 8, 1968 was inducted into the Army in Richmond VA, enlisting for two years after getting a draft notice. In the long run, it worked. I wound up as an 01E20, in a sheltered situation in the Pentagon and then Fort Eustis. I’ve gone through the details in my books and other notes in blog posts.
I can, however, remember a couple of interviews with Army recruiters. I did ask one of them about becoming a medic.
I can say I cannot imagine how I could have functioned personally in scenes like in this movie.
Today, we debate whether we should force women to register for the Selective Service System, but we could debate abolishing it.
The jungle scenes were filmed in Costa Rica and the Vietnam visit was filmed in Thailand.
Name: “The Last Full Measure”
Director, writer: Todd Robinson
Released: 2019
Format: 2.39:1
When and how viewed: Angelka Mosaic 2020/1/25 small audience late
Length: 117
Rating: R
Companies: SSS Films, Roadside Attractions
Link: official
Stars: ***__
(Posted: Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 1:30 PM EST)
Posted on January 26, 2020
CategoriesB-Movies, conscription, military, war
TagsRoadside Attractions