“Apocalypse Now” is regarding as one of the best movies about the Vietnam War. In the film, Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz has gone insane and now commands his own local troops inside neutral Cambodia. Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard is assigned to terminate Kurtz with extreme prejudice. Francis Ford Coppola’s movie was inspired by Joseph Conrad’s book, “Heart of Darkness”, about the disintegration into madness of a man who goes into the jungle. But the Shocking Truth is that the story is also based on a real army colonel who went rogue in the jungle. Robert Rheault, and five of his men were accused of murder and conspiracy in the death of a suspected South Vietnamese double agent. Colonel Rheault along with several of his Special Forces officers were arrested by the U.S. Military and threatened with court-martial charges of conspiracy to commit murder. The investigation and court-martial, held by the U.S. Army in Vietnam, rapidly became engulfed in a firestorm of media publicity. Most of the American public, and the Special Forces, believed that Colonel Rheault and all involved had been made scapegoats for a matter that reflected poorly upon the Army.
