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America needs Rambo

America needs Rambo and Rambo is here for America. The evolution of this franchise is a reflection of America’s Superego and each film represents what America tried to do right, as well as what we did wrong. As it turns out, I am uniquely qualified to write a piece about the necessity of John Rambo during a war time in America.
At my old job, my friend Terry and I watched Rambo movies in thirty-minute segments over our Hot Pockets and then we discussed that portion of the film over a cigarette prior to returning to work. In doing so we were able to analyze each film and parallel it to what was happening to the cultural subconscious at the time of its popularity. Before I get into all of that, I should preface this analysis with some historical facts.
The character of John Rambo is based on the Green Beret, Vietnam war hero Bo Gritz. You may or may not remember when Ronald Reagen was running for president and got Bo Gritz and some other Green Berets to travel back to Vietnam and Cambodia to try to find prisoner camps where soldiers were rumored to have been left behind during the Vietnam war. They never found any prisoner camps, but Bo Gritz did realize that he no longer trusted the government he once served. The experience left Bo Gritz as a conspiracy theorist that no longer believed America was the idealist nation it had been. After this realization he became a “survivalist” that lived on a remote compound in Wyoming.
During the Ruby Ridge crises he became a hero. Acting as a liaison between the survivalists and the FBI, he stopped the bloodshed and got the father to surrender to the federal government, even after the feds had murdered members of his family. As Gritz was briefly being celebrated by the American media, he approached a group of his fans that had come to Ruby Ridge to support his efforts. They were skinheads and as he approached the end of the drive he saluted these followers with a siech heil; a nazi salute. His popularity came to a quick end, but it reminds America of an important fact: Our origins are racist. That is a serious indictment, but the parallels between the Rambo films and the real crises that faced America when each film the franchise was popular, is laughably predictable, and a harrowing snapshot of the American psyche.

Rambo First Blood

John Rambo is a Vietnam veteran visiting a small town in Oregon. He’s come to see a friend he served with in ‘Nam. Upon his initial hike through the city with his army bag slung over his shoulder, the Rambo in this first film was not the greased up, muscle beach Rambo we’ve come to know with gunbelts strung across his bare chest. He was instead, an introverted soldier trying to come to terms with civilian life. During this internal struggle, he is pitted against the small town sheriff, played perfectly by Brian Dennehy, who wants the wartime drifter out of his peaceful town.
In 1982, when Rambo First Blood was released, America was finally decompressing from the Vietnam War. Predecessor to movies such as Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), as well as television programs such as Tour of Duty, Rambo First Blood let the average American conservative feel guilty about the war in a way that was acceptable. This film was the eighties finally coming to terms with Vietnam. Through the character of John J. Rambo pitted against the arrogant small town police department, America could stand with the rejected soldier against an arrogant public. For conservative America, this was grabbing the mic back from the hippy drug culture.
The police finally bring in Rambo’s commanding officer and he tries to talk Rambo down from his one-man war against a small Oregon town. Ultimately, after Rambo schools that small town for ostracizing him after he became a killing machine to protect their freedom, Rambo gave himself up and moved from a free man, except for the mental instability he earned in a Vietnam prison camp, to an institutionalized man in an American prison.
Rambo First Blood established Sylvester Stallone as America’s new action hero. He became an iconic figure for the burgeoning neoconservative movement that lauded Reagan and was shedding its guilt about Vietnam by rekindling its hatred for communism. Between Rocky and Rambo, Stallone had mastered the power of the underdog. This film established a thread between America’s defeat in Vietnam and America’s investment in the cold war against communism.

Rambo II First Blood Part Two

By 1985 Hollywood felt America was ready to send Rambo on that mission to release prisoners of war still trapped in Asian countries. Mirroring the real life mission of Bo Gritz’s campaign to rescue POWs that weren’t really there, John Rambo became the wish-fulfillment of that failed mission. His commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman, gets him out of jail under the condition that he will go into Asia, locate prisoners of war, and photograph them. But Rambo isn’t so good at following orders, and America loves that about him.
Rambo locates these prisoners and can’t reserve himself to photographing them. Instead he and his Vietnamese girlfriend take on the regiment of communist soldiers still keeping the Americans and free them. In the process, his girlfriend is killed and Rambo vows revenge against the evil Captain Vinh.
Rambo gets captured, but you can’t hold America down. Rambo gets his revenge against the communists that thought themselves victorious and the corrupt American officials that were prepared to leave Rambo alone behind enemy lines.
What real life couldn’t provide, Rambo could make happen on the big screen. This is where the iconic character of Rambo became the action hero America always wanted. Finally America saw that all it would take to stop the evil communists was a steely reserve, plenty of ammunition, and a sincere hatred for the evil empire.
Terry’s favorite Rambo quote: “Pain don’t hurt.”

Rambo III

In 1988 the Rambo that lived in a prison in America is a long-lost memory. Rambo is now living as a globalized American. He is living in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand and has no desire to get involved America’s newest war. Colonel Trautmen asks Rambo to join him in a mission behind Soviet lines in Afghanistan, where Mujahideen rebels were struggling to fight Soviet tyranny and protect their humble way of life.
When Colonel Trautmen gets taken captive, Rambo decides it’s time to bring his war-helmed skills to task to free his old friend and commanding officer. Rambo mobilizes the Mujahideen rebels in a battle against the Soviet army with only one secret weapon in their arsenal – John J. Rambo. With Rambo’s help, the underdog guerilla forces of the Mujahideen overcame the Soviet army, freed Colonel Trautmen and proved that when it comes to freedom, Americans will fight to the death to free the underdog.
Of course, in retrospect, those peaceful villagers were the Taliban and the American “Rambos” that we sent ultimately trained Osama Bin Laden how to effectively terrorize and defy an international superpower.
In Rambo III, Rambo wasn’t overly patriotic, he was the sleeping giant that, when aroused, would crush its enemies with moral impunity. America doesn’t need Rambo when we’re out there kickin’ ass and taking names, America needs Rambo when it’s uncertain and needs to be reminded that we’ve been pushed to this edge. We can only stand by while injustice goes on for so long before we have to get our compound bow out and put mud on our faces.
And this brings us to Rambo IV, called simply Rambo. John J Rambo, still living a life of simple poverty in Thailand, assembles a group of mercenaries to save a group of Christian missionaries from Burmese rebels. Between the injection of Christian humanitarians to the Rambo plotline and his distinct turn against rebel forces, this is Rambo’s chance to reclaim America’s dignity from supporting Iranian, Afghan and other assorted contras, and instead protect the goodness that is America’s heart. The Christian nation trying to provide a helping hand to ruthless foreigners who despise American charity. But Rambo is there to deliberate justice and give the anarchist antichrists their just desserts to the adrenaline-rich, Army-commercial nu-metal of Drowning Pool.
My favorite quote from the trailer: “When war is in your blood, killing is like breathing.”