"Apocalypse Now—Surfing in the Mekong Delta: an Interview with John Milius" ran in the February 1980 issue of SURFER. Two years earlier, Milius had directed the Hollywood surf epic Big Wednesday; this interview was published during the release of Apocalypse Now, for which Milius wrote the screenplay.

Surfing is used as an expression of the American value system in one of the most important scenes in the movie. Could you talk about what happens in that scene and how you envisioned it as you were writing the script?

Yeah, it’s pretty early, about a third of the way into the film, during a big helicopter attack on a Viet Cong village. Kilgore [Robert Duvall] finds out there's a surf spot right out front, and decides, against huge odds, to storm the village and take it. His troops say, “Well, Charlie is pretty thick in there, but it's a good surfing break.” So they attack. It's is a left point and Kilgore is a goofyfoot, so he really wants to surf there.

Why did you use surfing in a war film about Vietnam?

Vietnam was this clash of cultures; one culture is 200 years old, and the other is thousands of years old. And the most interesting thing about the 200-year-old culture old is that it is manifested most strongly by a subculture that is maybe ten years old, which is California. And so really what is fascinating to me about Vietnam is not just that it was an American imposition on Asia, it was a California war, and everything about it smacked of that, really.

Well, if you look at movies about World War II, you see the guy from Hoboken, another guy from Brooklyn, you know, maybe a guy from a farm somewhere. But a movie about Vietnam has to have a surfer in it. It was definitely a California war—all the dope, the peace symbols. And more than anything else, the rock and roll; fighting to rock and roll, and being stoned. You take the outlook of kids who are working on their cars in the San Fernando Valley one day, and suddenly they’re working on helicopters, and they paint “Acid Queen” on the side of the helicopter and put two extra M-60’s on it because this thing is really "Death From Above” (motto of the 333rd Air Cavalry). And they get into that, and it was really terrific California culture!


You had to portray surfing in the film to a general audience. Do you find non-surfers reacting to it differently than surfers?

We don't explain anything about surfing in the movie. Same as 

, I never tried to explain anything about surfing in that one either. In the middle of this battle, the aide sees Lance [a fictitious famous surfer], recognizes him from SURFER Magazine, and runs up to Duvall to tell him Lance is on the beach. Duvall goes up and shakes Lance's hand. He doesn’t introduce himself as Colonel, just “I'm Bill Kilgore; I'm a goofyfoot.” You don’t have to tell anyone what a goofyfoot is. Who cares? He goes on to say, "I really enjoy your noseriding and your cutbacks; you have the best cutback in the world.” Talking surf while things are blowing up all around them!

What was the idea behind Kilgore’s surf break invasion? Where did you get that from?

I put surfing in because it was something I knew, but the idea came from an incident in 1967, during the Israeli-Arab conflict, in which an Israeli colonel led one of the most brilliant armored runs in history. He also happened to be was a skin-diver; they had pictures of him in LIFE Magazine with his goggles on. He brought all his skin-diving equipment on the campaign, and he had a very small unit, and the odds are ten to one against him. But he broke through, chopped up all this Egyptian armor, took his objective. And where his objective was there happened to be a certain kind of fish, or abalone, or something, that was found only in that area. The colonel had his tanks circle up in a defensive position, and he went skin-diving. Just this sort of ultimate kind of counting coup, you know. Just slapping the face of the enemy. He'd down there, in battle, and it's like, “I’ll go skin-diving; I'll take fish from their waters.” And I thought that’s exactly what a warrior would do. A warrior would wipe out the place and say, “I will surf their break. I will surf Charlie’s point, and I will get tubed, and I will ride well. That's how much disdain I have for the Dinks.” So that was the idea of it entirely. Kilgore really caught on to that. He knows that it’s all madness. He takes off his shirt and he's getting ready to surf this place while they’re still under fire, and the other surfers won't go in with him. Kilgore is enraged. He says, "You either surf or fight!” He's crazy but he's not 

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