Daily Dialogue — June 8, 2018

Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that?
Lance: What?
Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. [kneels] I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… [sniffing, pondering] …victory. Someday this war’s gonna end…

Suddenly walks off.

— Apocalypse Now (1979), written by John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola, narration by Michael Herr

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Combat.

Trivia: In a 2006 interview, Screenwriter John Milius said that after he had written the now famous line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”, he thought to himself, “This is over the top. This will be the first thing they’ll take out.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: My favorite part of this dialogue is not the napalm line, but rather the enigmatic end line: “Some day, this war is gonna end…” And what? My guess is he intended to say, “And I’m gonna miss it.”