FIRST OFF . . .

Vietnam War veterans on Wednesday criticized director Brian DePalma’s new anti-war movie “Casualties of War,” saying it falsely depicts American soldiers as rapists and incompetents. In a news conference at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, John Wheeler, president of the Center for the Vietnam Generation, said the Columbia film “causes a lot of pain to vets and to those who love them . . . by using false stereotypes.” “Casualties of War,” co-starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, opened Aug. 18 to some rave reviews. The film is based on a 1969 book and New Yorker magazine article about a patrol of American GIs who kidnap, rape and murder a South Vietnamese girl in 1966. Peggy Siegal, DePalma’s press representative, said the director had no comment, but added he “made an anti-war film and they were all casualties of that war.”