Nick Lynch - Apocolypse Now

I very much saw war and violence as being a religion for the majority of the characters in the film. It seemed to give much of them meaning and vigor in life much as Kilgour was languishing without a purpose in his hotel room. Until the M.P.s came to deliver his mission, he seemed ready to die, as if his life had lost all meaning without something to kill.
This theme was certainly apparent in the commander of the helicopter squadron, he ordered the execution of a good number of civilians so that he would be able to surf. Killing for him was a natural part of his job in which each death was an offering meant for the glory of his god which could arguably be death, America, or the military.
The ending involving Kilgour and Kurtz was obviously significant but I feel that we missed a good chunk of the information that was presented before their "showdown" to be able to comment accurately on it as it seemed the movie was constantly adding information involving Kurtz, his background, and so forth. Of what we did see it appeared that Kurtz had ascended into a godhood of death and Kilgour took that divinity into himself by killing Kurtz.