On one quiet day Pyle shot his drill instructer to death with his rifle and then blew his brains out while sitting on the toilet. Twas not a good day for Pyle that day but at least he got to go home early albeit in a body bag. After this memorable death scene the action shifts to the field, to Vietnam and the streets of Saigan and the urban areas of South Vietnam.

In one scene a single sniper pins down nearly a dozen American soldiers in a small city. Sniping is the way of the guerilla and the Vietcong of Vietnam knew this, so it is only natural for the movie to depict this part of Vietnam fighting. With each shot another American is wounded and his dazed comrades attempt to zero in on the location of the attacker. Finally the attacker is located and slowly stalked. A young vietcong Girl was the sniper; ultimately she is killed. Her death illustrates the power that dedication can have that "professional soldiers" seldom can understand or embody.

An excellent movie throughout, the sniper scene was quite suspenseful and will easily cause one to jerk back in surprise as silence mounts and then a gunshot, and then another. This movie has the best military boot camp training sequences of any movie and serves as one of the greatest Vietnam movies of all time..