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Marine Times
Published: 04-24-00
Category: LIFELINES
Page: 25
Rules Of Estrangement / How The Creator Of Paramount's Marine
Movie Became
Its Critic
By Phillip Thompson
As the Paramount film "Rules of Engagement" hits the theaters,
its battle
scenes almost assuredly will intrigue viewers.
But the movie's most interesting battle of all may be the one
that was fought
off-screen in the months before its April 7 opening.
That battle involved the movie's creator, co-writer and
executive producer,
James Webb, and the Hollywood movie-making machine. The cause:
creative
differences over the portrayal of the story's Marine officers,
played by
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.
According to the movie's official Web site, www.rulesmovie. com,
the story
revolves around Col. Terry Childers (Jackson), a 30-year Marine
veteran. He
is described as "a decorated officer with combat experience in
Vietnam,
Beirut and Desert Storm -- a patriot, a hero."
Childers, commanding a Marine Expeditionary Unit, is ordered to
conduct a
rescue mission at the American Embassy in Yemen. Though the MEU
is successful
in rescuing the ambassador, three Marines are killed -- along
with more than
80 civilians killed by Marines.
Childers then finds himself on trial for violating the rules of
engagement, a
charge he denies with his claims that the crowd was armed and
threatening the
lives of his Marines.
When it appears he is set up as a scapegoat, Childers chooses
Marine lawyer
Col. Hays Hodges (Jones), whose life Childers saved in Vietnam a
generation
earlier, to defend him.
Hodges takes on the case, even though he has doubts about his
close friend.
Webb, one of the Corps' most decorated officers of the Vietnam
era, a
best-selling author and a former Navy secretary, wrote the
script a decade
ago, then nursed it through nine years of revisions.
Webb said his intent was to explain the complexities -- and the
fragility --
of a military command and the concept of loyalty as it exists in
the
military. In this case, it's the loyalty between Childers and
Hodges.
The trouble came when the studio chose to film two scenes that
Webb found
"deeply objectionable," as he described them in an interview
with Proceedings
magazine.
One scene involved multiple executions carried out by Jackson's
character
while in Vietnam. Webb viewed the scene as an affront to the
American-Vietnamese community, with which Webb has close ties.
But the debated scenes were edited to a point that Webb withdrew
his
objections. Consequently, he rejoined the production effort. In
the film's
credits, he appears as the "executive producer" and receives a
story credit.
To Webb's critics, his latest brouhaha was classic Webb: When
things don't go
his way, he storms out of the room.
That, to many, was precisely what he did in 1988 when he
resigned his post as
secretary of the Navy rather than accept Navy force-structure
cuts he deemed
unacceptable.
Webb acknowledged in published interviews that he was called
"intransigent"
over the force-structure incident.
But to Webb's supporters, his resignation was seen as taking a
stand for what
he thought was right and as refusing to sacrifice the naval
service on the
altar of Pentagon budgeteers.
Likewise, his supporters view his refusal to go along with
Hollywood at the
expense of the Corps not as intransigence, but as an example of
integrity --
and the very loyalty that is at the heart of "Rules of
Engagement."
Many Marines, past and present, believe that loyalty to the
Marine Corps --
whether in a room full of "Army types" or on the big screen --
is sacrosanct,
but especially when Marines are portrayed in the movies.
Webb once told a graduating class of Naval Academy midshipmen to
"challenge
the conventional wisdom."
In this case, he practiced what he preached. He challenged
Hollywood's
conventional wisdom -- and won.
Phillip Thompson, former editor of Marine Corps Times, is a
Marine Corps
veteran and author of the novel "Enemy Within." He can be
reached at
pthompson@lexingtoninstitute.org.
