First Potato

Lets just say Colonel Bo Gritz is definitely the kind of guy who reads his own press clippings. His not-even-a-little-abashed website reminds us that Gritz is the real-life Rambo, that hes the most decorated Green Beret of all time, that he leads unofficial POW rescue missions back into Vietnam seemingly as a way to stay fit during his golden years. It also reminds us that Gritz 70-hour video course, "Spike Delta Force Training," is the only way to really be prepared in these dog-eat-dog days of apocalypse soon.

Gritz hair and mustache are silver now, and in his picture exudes something of a portly contentment. Still, I wouldnt bet against Bo Gritz when he heads into the North Carolina woods after Eric Rudolph. Gritz says hes going to coax him out alive, and pay for a lawyer with the reward money. Of course if Rudolph is guilty, thats not much of an offer Gritz got the Freemen out alive too, and theyre in jail now. But you never know.

Gritz is certainly aging gracefully, having segued, in First Blood (1982) terms, from Sly Stallones tortured hero/animal to Richard Crennas steely Colonel Trautman, a soldier/diplomat with a soft spot for the killing machine he made all those years ago. The transformation suits him; as Crenna paces through the last third of the movie, giving Brian Dennehy the fish-eye and cocking a cool ear to the carnage, you definitely get the feeling he could still hack it in the jungle. And you get that feeling about Gritz and those Carolina woods.

Theres just one thing -- in First Blood, Dennehys small-town sheriff wonders aloud which side Crennas on. Is it impolitic to wonder that about Bo Gritz? Put the Americas most talented militia-movement member in the same woods with Eric Rudolph and a column of FBI guys, and stir. Rudolph may come out alive after all. But those G-men had better watch their backs.