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Oliver Stone Looks Back at the Fall of Saigon 50 Years Later: “We’re Back to Learning Nothing” (Exclusive)

The ’Platoon’ director reconciles then and now on the anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end.

Among the survivors was director Oliver Stone, whose combat injuries earned him multiple decorations, including a Bronze Star with “V” Device for valor, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster (to denote two wounds), an Air Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Stone — who through landmark films like 1986’s Platoon and 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July allowed the country to process the trauma of war — reflected on his time in Vietnam, his conversion to pacifism upon his return to the U.S. and his thoughts on similar endless and deadly conflicts currently plaguing the planet. You’ve seen the movies — Platoon, Born on the 4th of July — and then I told the Vietnamese side of it with my 1993 adaptation of the Le Ly Hayslip book, Heaven & Earth, which depicted a beautiful Vietnam before we got there.

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