According to Oliver Stone, he intentionally cast Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe against type. Berenger was mostly famous for playing good guys, while Dafoe had primarily played villains up until then. Both men received Oscar nominations for their work.
In many U.S. military leadership classes, the character of Lieutenant Wolfe is used as an example of how not to behave as a junior officer.
The Vietnamese child that Kevin Dillon and Charlie Sheen torment had cataracts, but his family was too poor to pay for treatment. Reportedly, Dillon and Sheen felt so bad about it they pooled money together so that the boy could have surgery.
Oliver Stone wrote the script's first draft in 1971, and sent it to Jim Morrison in hopes he would play the part Charlie Sheen ultimately played. Morrison had the script on him when he was found dead in Paris.
Toward the end of the film, when the reinforcements arrive after the battle, Rhah reaches into a dead VC's breast pocket, pulls something out, and keeps it, while looking around nervously. The item he is removing is heroin, which VC soldiers used as a painkiller. Many heroin-addicted U.S. troops did the same thing. The scene implies that Rhah's mystical quality is a symptom of a larger problem.
Oliver Stone: appears in a cameo as an officer at the bunker that gets destroyed by a suicide runner.
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