I recently saw Oliver Stone on Bill Moyers, talking about his experience as a soldier in Vietnam, where he earned both a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and how it informs his opposition to the current Afghanistan surge. Credit where credit is due, Stone gave up a cushy life to go, but I still thought this exchange about why the self-described “cerebral young man” chose to volunteer was chuckle-worthy:

Bill Moyers: Why did you go? You didn’t have to go.

Oliver Stone: Because I wanted to go

Moyers: You could have stayed at Yale.

Oliver Stone: I wasn’t happy. George Bush was in my class, class of 68. It wasn’t my class. It wasn’t my type of people. 

It looks like Stone got on the Dubya bashing bus approximately forty years earlier than his political fellow travelers, and was much more committed to it to boot. And that’s why he’s got them A-cademy Awards.