I’m glad you understand Kurtz. AN is about insanity in a foreign war, but not in the way some viewers see it. People enjoy Kilgore because he gets the cool lines about napalm and surfing, but he’s really a jackass. He has the resources of the Air Cav to win the war, but what does he do instead? He fits the helicopters with a voice recording and sends them up the river begging for his surfboard. He has an American-style beach party to try to forget that they’re in SE Asia.

General Corman offers Willard American-style roast beef but treats the exotic seafood as a dare. Corman slanders Kurtz for going native with the Asians. The USO has a Playboy party in the middle of the war.

Kurtz had an espionage problem in his sector, so he sniffed out four moles and publicly executed them, successfully ending the espionage activity. Kurtz understands that to win the war, he has to commit to harshness and to Asian living. Willard knows this too, which is why he feels guilty about being in a hotel and not squatting in the bush. Willard practices Tai Chi. His file includes that he assassinated a tax collector. When he rotated back to USA, he didn’t fit in the west anymore and his wife divorced him. Back in Vietnam, he’s eager for a mission. On the river, PT boat Chief Phillips stops for a side job against Willard’s orders to stay on task, and it ends badly. Later, 17 year old sailor Miller messes around dancing to The Rolling Stones, and he gets shot in an ambush.

Willard is the right man for the mission, but the mission is wrong. Politically ambitious scum like Corman and his CIA spook are envious of Kurtz, and having him killed is one of the reasons they end up losing the war.