The Americanization of Emily Page #12

- I'm going to say the truth.

I don't know how much of my little hoax

you know.

Enough.

Your last words said

as you led the charge up the beach were:

"Okay, men, let's show them

whose beach this is. "

Not quite the epic stature of

"We've just begun to fight. "

Yeah, you know.

I'm going to tell them the truth, Bus.

I'm going to tell anyone who asks

the plain, unattractive, not epic, truth.

We don't have very much time.

I'm going to tell them a deranged admiral

had a demented idea for a lunatic movie...

whose only purpose was to juice up

the Navy's bid for military appropriations.

And my gallant wounds

were inflicted on me...

by my brother officer, the fink...

You've got a legitimate beef

against me. Okay.

And that my last inspirational words...

as I led the charge

away from the beach were...

"Let's get the hell out of here. "

I've had a bad week, Bus.

I was in battle

and I've heard the horror of it again.

I will not contribute

to your wretched hoax.

I will not help you

preserve the wonder of war.

I want people to know I was a coward.

I want them to know

the whole shabby story about my heroism.

I don't understand you.

Do you know what'll happen...

I know what'll happen.

I'll embarrass my country,

dishonor my service...

disgrace my admiral,

and humiliate my family...

and get thrown in the brig

for a couple of years.

Then why do it?

Because it's the right thing to do.

I can't believe it.

Is this the Charlie Madison who once said:

"God save us from all the people

who do the right thing...

"it's the rest of us

who get our backs broken?"

Are you seriously going to destroy...

everything that means anything to you...

in a futile gesture of virtue?

You're going to put yourself in jail,

are you?

- I don't care what happens to me.

- How bloody brave.

But you do care what happens to me.

At least you said you did.

What am I supposed to do...

whilst you sit in your prison cell

for five or six years...

admiring the glisten

of your own martyrdom?

Emily, I want the world to know

what a fraud war is.

But war isn't a fraud, Charlie. It's very real.

At least, that's what you've

always tried to tell me, isn't it?

That we shall never get rid of war

by pretending it's unreal.

It's the virtue of war that's the fraud,

not war itself.

It's the valor and the self-sacrifice...

and the goodness of war

that needs the exposing.

Here you are

being brave and self-sacrificing...

positively clanking with moral fervor,

perpetuating the very things you detest...

merely to do "the right thing. "

Honestly, Charlie, your conversion

to morality is really quite funny.

All this time, I've been terrified

of becoming Americanized...

and you, you silly ass,

have turned into a bloody Englishman.

There's a matter of principle involved here.

A matter of what?

Charlie, didn't you once say:

"What's a lion doing

in a man's house anyway?"

Emily, if a man knows the truth,

he has to say it.

Is this the Charlie Madison who once said:

"I'm not equipped to deal with the truth.

"I let God worry about the truth.

"I just want to know

the momentary fact of things. "

And your idea of facts, you said...

Were you, a home, a country, a world...

and the universe. In that order.

I'm quite prepared to supply all that

as my end of the deal.

What do you get out of it?

I'll settle for a Hershey bar.

Bus, there's a million of them there.

There's correspondents all over the place.

Hi, Charlie.

All right, fink,

how do you want me to play it...

modest and self-effacing?

SkyFury

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