Apocalypse Now illustrates the damaging psychological effects of war. As the characters in the movie move deeper and deeper into the jungle— which becomes more and more dismal the further upriver— so do the crew’s psychological state. It serves as a parallel to the soldier’s psyches. The shift in mentality is seen in each crew member. Lance at first seems unaffected and occupies his time tanning. As the crew moves further upriver, he begins having to use drugs to cope with the horrors around him. He is last seen running tripping on (what I assume to be) acid in a field with his face painted. Chef initially seems naive and optimistic. Naive enough to go fruit picking in a war-zone. He reaches his breaking point after a run in with a tiger. Clean’s psychological deterioration is shown during the sampan inspection, where he ends up shooting prematurely when a woman moves for something in one of the barrels, which turns out to be a puppy. Chief, who seems to be the most calm and collected of the crew, ends up having an emotional breakdown when Clean gets shot. In his finally scene he tries to kill Willard because of the resentment he feels towards him. And finally Willard, who is already further down the line of psychological trauma due to his first tour. I imagine Willard went through a similar experience as the other crew members during his first deployment. To me, he represents what happens to a soldier after he has reached his breaking point. As the crew moves deeper into the jungle, he becomes increasingly obsessed with his mission and his target. As the environment gets foggier so do his thoughts. 

Just a thought: A Soldier’s mind is almost like chameleon, changing to adapt with its environment to make sense of whats going on around them.