Mudbound (2017)

Jason Mitchell: Ronsel Jackson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jamie McAllan : You ever miss it sometimes? Being over there. I don't mean being shot at, but sometimes, I actually miss it.

  Ronsel Jackson : Yeah, me, too. Over there, I was a liberator. People lined up in the streets waiting for us. Throwing flowers and cheering. And here I'm just another nigger pushing a plow.

• Ronsel Jackson : [narrating]  Should my story end there? Silenced and defeated? Oppression, fear, deformity. It would take an extraordinary man to beat all that. I would have to wean myself off laudanum and self-pity... and travel with a little card in my shirt pocket that said "mute."And then, finally... I would have to cross the Atlantic yet again. This time not for war. But for love.

  [Resl answers her door] 

• Pappy McAllan : I don't know what they let you do over there, but you're in Mississippi now, nigger. You use the back door.

  Henry McAllan : Go on, son. Son, we don't want no trouble here. Go on. Go on.

  Ronsel Jackson : You know what? You're absolutely right. When we was overseas they didn't make us use the back door. General Patton put us on the front line. Yes, sir. You know what we did? We kicked the hell out of Hitler and them Jerries! While y'all at home, safe and sound...

• Jamie McAllan : You tanker boys ever piss in your helmets?

  Ronsel Jackson : [coughs]  Plenty of times.

  Jamie McAllan : We had a relief tube up in the cockpit. Sometimes it was easier just to go in our flak helmets. But at 20,000 feet that piss freezes solid in less than a minute. It's that cold up there? Shit. I'm talking 20, 30 below. One time we were on this long haul, I pissed in my helmet, I forgot all about it. We were just over the target. I put the helmet back on. We're doing this bombing run, dodgin' enemy flak, and all of a sudden I started feelin' something runnin' down my face.

  Ronsel Jackson : [laughs] 

  Jamie McAllan : Yeah, I thought I was hit.

  [both laughing] 

• Ronsel Jackson : [narrating] 

  [leaving for war] 

  Ronsel Jackson : Daddy borrowed Mr. Robert and 'nem truck to take me. That's what I remember most. The first things and the last things... they always stick the hardest.

• Ronsel Jackson : So, what about you? What's the worst thing you ever done?

  Jamie McAllan : Who, me? I'm a saint.

  Ronsel Jackson : [scoffs]  I bet. I bet.

• Ronsel Jackson : Coon, spade, darky, nigger... . Went off to fight for my country to come back to find it hadn't changed a bit.