Karma in Platoon

Before I mentioned how the two ambushes are basically reverses of one another. In the first the Americans win a battle in a Buddhist temple and in the second one the Vietnamese win a battle near a church.

There are more of these parallel and opposite situations in the movie. The parallel of Chris descending into war and ascending from a battle was explained before.

Here are some screenshots of the American position at the end.

The American camp is very similar to the destroyed Vietnamese village. The Americans suffered the same fate as the villagers.

 

Even individual soldiers get a karma response to their deeds, be they good or bad.

When Chris was injured in the first fight, Big Harold comforted him while they waited for the helicopter.

When during the second ambush Harold gets injured Chris comforts him.

 

In the first ambush, it was Junior that fell asleep and then tried to blame Taylor letting the NVA catch them of-guard.

During the burning of the Vietnamese village he, along with some other soldiers, tries to rape a girl.

Then in the third battle he gets scared and tries to run away.

However he hits a tree and falls unconscious.

This gives a NVA soldiers a opportunity to stab him repeatedly in the chest with a bayonet.

If we take the bayonet as a phallic symbol then Junior got raped by the Vietnamese as a karmic retribution for his attempted rape of a Vietnamese child.

 

Another soldier that participated in the rape gets a karmic revenge. Bunny who also killed a mentally handicapped men by bashing his head.

Bunny was seen trying to rape the two Vietnamese girls.

He gets his karma when a Vietnamese soldiers shoots him and then blows his head.

Notice how the rifle in almost in his mouth. It is like the soldier is forcing him to do an oral sex act on the rifle. Just like Junior he is symbolically raped by the Vietnamese in a karmic retribution for his own wrong doings.

 

Barnes is also a victim of karmic justice.

After the first ambush he finds a wounded NVA soldier …

… and shoots him 3 times in the chest.

Notice the emblem on the belt of the NVA soldier.

He shoots Elias in the chest 3 times as well.

In the final battle he gets knocked unconscious and is lying near a tree in a very similar pose to the injured NVA soldier.

He is wearing the same belt as the NVA soldier. That is an interesting parallel. Notice how he already had 3 bigg holes in his shirt foreshadowing his faith.(This could be a coincidence, but still it fits thematically.)

Chris shoots Barnes 3 times in the chest with a Vietnamese weapon (AK-47 or some variant of it). Very fitting that he shoots Barnes with an enemy weapon.

The smoking barrel  of the Ak (barely seen in the picture but visible in the movie) matches with the smoke coming from behind Chris making him almost an angel of revenge.