Anyone who still believes the old canard that the only men who served in Vietnam were poor, disadvantaged, and stupid should read Stolen Valor by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley.Interviewer: You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?
Kilmer: Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life.
Interviewer: You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?
Kilmer: I understand it more. It's an actor's job. A guy who's lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He's some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship. They didn't have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.
Kilmer, and those who think like him - pfffft.
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