Too long Quote by Michael Herr
““I keep thinking about all the kids who got wiped out by seventeen years of war movies before coming to Vietnam to get wiped out for good. You don’t know what a media freak is until you’ve seen the way a few of those grunts would run around during a fight when they knew that there was a television crew nearby; they were actually making war movies in their heads, doing little guts-and-glory Leatherneck tap dances under fire, getting their pimples shot off for the networks. They were insane, but the war hadn’t done that to them. Most combat troops stopped thinking of the war as an adventure after their first few firefights, but there were always the ones who couldn’t let that go, these few who were up there doing numbers for the cameras… We’d all seen too many movies, stayed too long in Television City, years of media glut had made certain connections difficult.””
About This Quote
Source Book: Dispatches, Michael Herr, 1977
Herr describes soldiers’ minds being shaped by relentless media exposure, turning combat into a staged performance for cameras.
In simple terms: War becomes a media‑driven spectacle, blurring reality and performance.
Key Takeaway
Recognize media’s impact on perception of conflict.
Themes
war
media influence
psychology
Mood
critical
somber
Type
journalistic
reflective
When to use this quote
- military training
- news reporting
- psychological counseling
- media literacy programs
Key Concepts
media saturation
combat reality
Questions to Reflect On
- In what ways does media shape soldiers’ expectations?
- How can we separate authentic experience from performance?
A Different Perspective
Risk of sensationalizing trauma and ignoring deeper causes.
![“Going out at night the medics gave you pills, Dexedrine breath like dead snakes kept too long in a jar. [...] I knew one 4th division Lurp who took his pills by the fistful, downs from the left pocket of his tiger suit and ups from the right, one to cut the trail for him and the other to send him…” quote by Michael Herr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/4d2/michael-herr-21675_too-long_going-out-at-night-the-medics-gave-you-p_1189943.jpg)
