WAR & FORGETANCE

Over the last nine years I’ve co-scripted three screenplays that have been optioned numerous times, but have yet to be produced. One thing my work has accomplished is that it has gotten me into many “pitch sessions” which invariably end like this:

“So tell me,” says the producer, “have you got any other ideas?”

Against my better judgment, I offer my last idea.

“I’ve got one other story based on the adventures of myself and my friends when we served as Green Berets in Vietnam.”

The room will get so quiet you can hear a grenade pin drop. The money man will fidget with his custom-tailored collar or twirl his Mont Blanc.

I drive on.

“I call it ‘Run to Gunfire.’ It’s got solid character development, a tight plot, humor, action-adventure and, most important, a reality yet to be expressed about this war.”

This producer will clear his throat, purse his lips and deliver this pat verdict.

“Fellas, Americans do not want to remember the war in Vietnam. Americans want to forget about the war in Vietnam. No American is going to pay five bucks to see a movie about the war in Vietnam.”

Before I can argue otherwise the next writing team is in the door and I’m out in the parking lot being berated by my partner for bringing up Vietnam once too often.

Best of luck to Oliver Stone (“The Grunts’ War, Take 1,” by Jay Sharbutt, May 25). I certainly hope his new movie “The Platoon” is an unqualified success.

It’ll make it a lot easier to pitch “Run to Gunfire” which, if I do say so myself, will make a doozey of a movie.

DON PUGSLEY

Los Angeles