Full Metal Jacket, among many other things, showed how screwed up things can get before you ever leave home soil. Platoon showed how those same problems are just as real in the face (and land) of a common enemy. Apocalypse Now showed another level of horror... What you pray to God is an alternate history, some terrible imaging. You knew that Willard (Martin Sheen) could never go back home, could never live as we live - the beautiful script makes that imminently clear - but you don't see that failure. In Born on the Fourth of July you see Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) try to live, and fail.
I loved the parade scenes, the soldiers - including Kovic later on - flinching as the firecrackers go off. And those scenes in the Kovic household - especially the last one - were so great. At other times, I found the music a bit distracting, but the silences between the shouts and cries made the last Kovic family scene all the more riveting.
