Death in Platoon

In the “Platoon” analysis posts I  explored the deeper meanings of planes, helicopters, religious objects, people as well as karma. Here I’ll focus on Death.

The last soldiers seems to be different than others. The script states:

As they move out, Chris' eyes moving with the body bags being 
loaded onto the plane.  Moving over now to a motley HALF DOZEN 
VETERANS bypassing them on their way to the plane.  They look 
happy.  Very happy, chatting it up.

They pass the newboys - and they shake their heads, their eyes 
full of an almost mocking pity.

			VETERANS
	Well I'll be dipped in shit - new meat!  Sorry bout 
	that boys - 'sin loi' buddy ... you gonna love the 
	Nam, man, for-fucking-ever.

Chris looking at them.  They pass, except for the last man who 
walks slower than the rest, a slight limp.  His eyes fall on 
Chris.

They're frightening eyes, starved, hollow, sunken deep in his 
face, black and dangerous.  The clammy pallor of malaria clings 
to him as he looks at Chris through decayed black teeth.  Then 
the sun flares out on him and he's past.  And Chris looks back.  
Disturbed.  It's as if the man was not real.  For a moment there.  
As if he were a ghost.

The last man is a personification the death and pain that is following soldiers back home. A specter of the war.

Another death-like soldier is seen in deleted scenes:

The script:

A man is watching him. He's sitting on a sandbag, face in shadow. It startles Chris, something about him. Something different. A deep West Virginia drawl. SMOKING MAN Got a light? CHRIS Uh sure ... Goes over reluctantly, flicks his lighter, cupping it from the wind. The flame catches a sudden, uneasy expression in Chris' face as he sees the Smoking Man. We come around and see what Chris sees in the light of the flame. A face that smiles at him like a death's head, a large ugly blister on his mouth, whiskered, pale - but smiling. A sick man wouldn't smile like this, but he is smiling too intimately, as if he knows Chris from way back. But he doesn't. Or does he? Perhaps it was the man Chris first saw at the airstrip when he came in-country. The same expression of evil, of a man who has seen too much and died, but still lives. Chris feels an unnatural fear passing through him. The Man stands, sucking on his cigarette, stretches. He is thin and very tall, towering over Chris. SMOKING MAN ... later. He goes. Chris watches him, wondering. The man never looks back, a leisurely, confident stroll. In that moment, there is an EXPLOSION from way out in the jungle, about a quarter of a mile. Then another, then small arms fire. Chris looks, knows.

Two personifications of death, one at the beginning and one at the end of “Platoon”.

I believe the second Death-like soldier was cut out, together with the other deleted scenes, so that the deeper themes would remain more subtle and not too obvious.