He broke a written rule to enforce what he considered a more important unwritten one. Obviously he doesn’t get to do that, that’s why he’s arrested at the end of the film, but I don’t think that’s inherently hypocritical. Of course, he’s very hypocritical in other ways (talking about honor and loyalty despite lying and cutting two of his men loose after they follow an order he gave them).
No, he broke a written rule in order to enforce a written rule. He was pissed about the chain of command thing, not about any unwritten rule being broken.
That’s what I got out of it - the fact that he “can’t run from here to there” is a unit problem - the other men won’t trust him to be able to handle the rigours of combat and won’t want him as a fire team partner - that’s an issue and one that needs to be corrected (obviously in this case he had a medical issue that should have been caught by the doctor).
BUT…
the fact that he broke the chain of command and thus made Lance Corporal Dawson and therefore his squad look bad to outsiders? Much bigger deal, and a command failure that a trained soldier doesn’t seem to understand the “Chain of Command”, a very basic protocol.
That’s one of two elements that most annoyed me about this movie. Martinson vanishes for no apparant reason, spills the beans to Caffey for no apparant reason, than offs himself for no apparant reason. Is this how Marine officers behave? Either say it openly without fear or keep your damn mouth shut.
I could imagine Martinson killing himself after testifying, after he’s burned Jessep and realized his own career is a sham, or something, but within the movie, his character is just a contrivance to reveal information to Caffey (and the audience) in way that reveals the situation but doesn’t resolve it, i.e. removes all doubt that Jessep was involved and in fact removes virtually all the tension - Caffey isn’t risking his career and the lives of his clients on a hunch that Jessep is involved (at this point he knows Jessep was) but on a hunch that he can rattle Jessep enough to blurt out something incriminating (which is a risky game of chicken to play with a Marine Colonel). The story might have worked better with more ambiguity, not revealing to Caffey or the audience exactly what happened until the moment of “You’re goddamned right I ordered the Code Red!” Heck, up to that point, I bet a sizable chunk of the audience would be sympathetic to Jessep and view Caffey as a smarmy pissant who shouldn’t be in the military at all.
Of course, it would still be an implausible and unrealistic courtroom drama, as most courtroom dramas are,
The other aspect that annoyed me was the emphasis on the apparant contradiction between “Marines always do as they’re told and we told them to elaqve Santiago alone” and “We arranged to transfer Santiago for his own safety.” This is played up like it’s some major courtroom epiphany when in fact it’s pretty much the prosecutor’s theory of the case - two Marines violated orders, tried to beat up Santiago and accidentally killed him in the process.
So the prosecution’s theory case is that he was lying when he said “Marines always do as they’re told and we told them to leave Santiago alone.”
Well, the defense tried to make a case out of that, in the typical courtroom drama bit of “were you lying before or are you lying now?” when it should be fairly obvious to the court and anyone with a brain that Jessep meant ideally Marines always do as they’re told, but sometimes they don’t. And in fact, Jessep was arguably correct, according to the prosecutor’s theory - marines obey orders or people die, and these marines didn’t obey orders and someone died.
And the only reason it’s even an issue is that Jessep started speechifying on the stand in the first place. Yeah, I get that he’s supposedly annoyed that the pissant Caffey gets to hassle him about what should have been an internal regimental manner (and would have been if that pissant Santiago hadn’t made the ultimate pissant move and died on them), but if he’s this much of a hothead to not know to keep his mouth shut when it matters most, then he shouldn’t be on that wall.
Or at least basically that’s how I see the characters presented in their entirely nuance- and subtlety-free fashion. The whole thing is pure melodrama.
No, the prosecutions assertion was that Dawson got Downey to help him get revenge on Santiago for reporting the fence-line shooting. Presumadely, Dawson lied to Downey about it being a Code Red order.
It was the defence’s assertion that the Code Red order was indeed one given by the Company Commander, Lt. Kittrick.
Which means that the Colonel was – if taken literally – lying under oath if he said that “Marines always do as they’re told and we told them to leave Santiago alone.” So if Dawson didn’t leave Santiago alone…
Literally, I guess Jessup engaged in a little hyperbole on the stand. So?
It’s clear to anyone that there have been Marines in the past that have been punished (either through a General Court Martial, or Non-Judicial Punishment) for disobeying lawfull orders. Even Jessup could not have failed to hear about these.
It’s also clear that the Marine Corps, and Colonel Jessup, expect their orders to be obeyed non-the-less.
I don’t think a Jury made up of military officers is going to worry too much about Jessup’s hyperbole about all Marines following every order. I think they would just chalk that up to something along the lines that Jessup wants to leave us with the impression that he “runs a tight ship”.
They can’t ignore the outright admission to ordering the Code Red (“You’re Goddamn right I did!!”), however. This mitigates Dawson’s role in the death of Santiago to some degree, in the case set before them.
Can you show me in this manual where the mess hall is, then?
The physical location of the mess hall has nothing to do with mess hall protocol.
Syndrome: You sly dog! You got me monologuing!
Well, now I really want to see this movie again, it’s been a while.
No, he said, in full-on Tom Cruise mode, Colonel Jessup did not expect that order to be obeyed nonetheless. If he really believed Santiago wasn’t to be touched, then why was Santiago to be transferred for his own safety?
Jessup – when asked a specific question about the particular Santiago order under discussion – made a hyperbolic statement regarding all Marines following every order. I’m not talking about whether he literally meant that universal extrapolation; I’m saying he didn’t even believe the singular instance.
Ok. You lost me.
When I read post #48, I thought you were making the argument that Jessup got caught in the lie that all Marines follow all orders.
My mental reaction was “So? I don’t think it would discredit him as a witness, or a C.O.”.
Are you actually asking why Jessup would have responded with a hyperbolic statement that a) he didn’t believe anyway, and b) didn’t answer the question that was asked of him?
Hmmm. I dunno.
I’m saying picking at that seems like part of Tom Cruise’s over-all plan.
While making a point, he offers to refresh the Colonel’s memory in a manner that gets him called a snotty little bastard; he’s been dismissively needling the guy in a bunch of different ways – sit down because I’m not through with you, and no “sir” about it; I’m brushing off what you say, with a condescending “we’ll get to that in a minute”; I’m contentedly using your little ‘clear as crystal’ bit right back at you – and then he asked his final question to put the guy in the position of (a) uncomfortably looking like he couldn’t trust his men to follow the “Santiago Was Not To Be Touched” order, such that Santiago had to be transferred out of grave danger for his own safety; maybe they’d just think the old man was wrong, he’d cheerfully suggested.
So do you go with Option A like this faggoty-white-uniform-type with the Harvard mouth is insinuating? Or do you opt for (b) making the manly declaration that you’re goddamned right I told 'em to rough up Santiago, because it’s my responsibility to make sure ingrates like you are guarded by people like me, and YOU can’t HANDLE the truth!
Exactly. The whole strategy was to play on his egotism. Cruise even tells the others during the preparation something like, “I think he’s dying to say that he made a command decision and that’s end of it.” He knew (or at least hoped) if he poked Jessup’s ego enough, he would explode. Having to say that his orders weren’t necessarily law was more intolerable to him than admitting the truth. That whole speech exposed him as the shallow egotist he really was.
There’s a line in the scene before about getting Jessup to lead them right where he wants to go, or something like that.
And Caffey’s questioning is rather sly in that he doesn’t present the contradiction immediately. Someone upthread said it was the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case, and I suppose it was, but I’m not sure they briefed Jessup about that, or that it would have done any good if they had. Caffey starts with the questions about Santiago’s transfer order, Jessup’s travel habits, and such. Then he stops, and there’s that break where Jessup starts to leave, and then the questions about following orders. And both lines of questioning start very innocently. I think that was deliberate. (Or was intended to be, by Sorkin.) Let Jessup play the starched-collar Marine commander, lead him to the extremes of both positions, and spring the contradiction at the end.
It’s a good scene to watch twice, once you know what the characters know, like the ending of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Kaffee: Sit down, both of you… good! Jessup told Kendrick to order the Code Red, Kendrick did and our clients followed the order. The cover up isn’t our case. To win, Jessup needs to tell the court members that he ordered the Code Red.
Weinberg: And you think you can get him to just say it?
Kaffee: I think he wants to say it! I think he’s pissed off that he’s got to hide from us! I think he wants to say that he made a command decision and that’s the end of it. He eats breakfast 300 yards away from 4,000 Cubans that’re trained to kill him and no one’s gonna tell him how to run his unit: Least of all the Harvard mouth in his faggoty white uniform. I need to shake him, put him on the defense and lead him right to where he’s dying to go.
Weinberg: That’s it, that’s the plan?
Kaffee: That’s the plan!
Weinberg: How you gonna do it?
Kaffee: I have no idea. I need my bat!
The only thing I can think is that Jessup truly thought/believed that no one would hold him accountable for ordering the Code Red (after all, “don’t we Infantry/Line officers really know what it takes to run a military unit?”), and he let this belief and ego out in the courtroom.
Right?
But…
But…
If that’s the case, then why try to cover up the death of Santiago in the first place?
If Jessup believes that he is that untouchable, why falsify paperwork (the Transfer Order), the flight logbooks, and the initial reporting of the incident in the first place?