All Rambo really wanted was to talk to Trautman
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — First Blood
lonnieanixt — 9 years ago(December 26, 2016 02:06 PM)
He couldn't reach Trautman, he tried, and Trautman who was like a second father to Rambo, and more like a first, since John's father was abusive, for some reason lost track of Rambo. Basically that is the whole story in a nutshell.
Both men are hurting, Rambo's pain is more obvious because Rambo isn't as calm and collected as Trautman.A career soldier Trautman keeps it all bottled up inside, Military stoicism, but in reality he blames himself for the deaths of all the men under his command. He hides behind his medals, and he has learned to disassociate himself from painful thoughts, but it isn't till Rambo breaks down at the end of the story in the police station, That Trautman realizes, that's him sitting there crying, that's him. He misses his men, his valiant soldiers, his strike team, the finest men America produced, wasted in a mismanaged War, a War fought by bureaucrats , who sent soldiers into a meat grinder. Trautman brought a gun along, his thinking was to shoot Rambo, That Rambo is too dangerous to leave alive, and he is dishonoring his own legacy and the legacy of Baker team, but it was only because he saw that as an honorable way to go, because sooner or later he was bound to put a bullet in his own brain. Everything Rambo says as he sits there on the floor of that police station, every word of it is exactly what he has been thinking and feeling, the lack of a code of honor, nobody having your back, it's exactly what he has been thinking about , all those long days at Bragh, all the lies he grew up with, honor and dignity and a grateful nation, all store bought lies In Bragh. where he learned that war heroes only belong to wars that have been won, and nobody wants to hear anything about Vietnam, the country has collectively turned its back on that war, the only defeat in the countries proud history. The valor was the same, if not more so, the men just as courageous, even more so but the results didn't please the populace. Rambo was spit on when he returned from Nam, an act that probably shook him to his very soul, he was falling ever since.
No one ever spit on Trautman, but the Army did the very next best thing, the decorated war hero was a reminder of a lost war. Vietnam tarnished him, and he knew why the War was lost, he knew Bureacrats in Washington had loused it up and people had gotten rich on the blood of his boys. They stuck him in a moldy office and waited for him to retire.
Trautman knew Rambo was trying to reach him, but he was ducking him, because he was ashamed, he had built Rambo up to be elite,Rambo was his golden achievement, he bragged about him, and now he couldn't even hold a job parking Cars, he had become an embarrassment , but Rambo was acting out for a reason and Trautman ever in denial, Trautman the perfect soldier, Trautman who refused to believe the war had been lost went on deluding himself, wearing ribbons on his chest in an age when nobody cared about such things as honor, people would rather get high or stoned,thats what America had become.
Ashamed, Trautman couldn't face Rambo. There is a big father son thing going on between Trautman and Rambo, But for Trautman to come to grips with Rambo, it means Trautman has to come to grips with the deaths of his other boys from Baker company, the Boys he led into battle, his valiant noble boys, Trautman has built a moat around the reality of that situation, in doing so Trautman has become less than human, not remembering or longing forward, just going about day to day, following a military code and a military schedule. No family, no friends totally alone.
it isn't till he sees his boy crying, hears his boys painful story, that he realizes all the military training, all the codes of honor, the way a soldier is suppose to behaveit's all just some more lies. He knells down and cradles Rambo in his arm, and touches him, and in that touch, that hesitant touch, for the first time in a long time, Trautman becomes a human
being again.no longer alone. No longer without a friend.He can be hurt again, yes, he has opened himself up to that, but the same doorway lets in love.