Western Animation / Mickey Mouse in Vietnam

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Officially titled Short Subject, it involves Mickey Mouse wanting to see the world, so he joins the army. He is sent to serve in the Vietnam War, but things take a turn for the worst the moment he arrives in Vietnam...

Initially thought to be lost, an incomplete copy was rediscovered in 2013 by a YouTube user, while the full video was uploaded five years later. Watch it here.

Also see Mickey au Camp de Gurs, another unauthorized Mickey war-related work, as well as Bambi Meets Godzilla, Uncle Walt, Rabbit Habit and Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, other independent animated short films.

Tropes found in this short:

• Anachronism Stew: The US didn't use steamboats or bolt action rifles in The '60s.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Mickey didn't even fire a round before getting killed.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Like many underground animated films of this era, it's in black and white.
• Downer Ending: Mickey gets shot in the head, and dies.
• Dying for Symbolism: The short uses Mickey as a symbol of innocence, and its loss during the war.
• Extreme Close-Up: The short ends with the camera zooming in on the face of Mickey's lifeless body, where his smile slowly forms into a frown.
• Go Out with a Smile: Subverted. Mickey gets shot in the head still with a smile on his face, but it slowly gives into a frown as he lays bleeding.
• Inexplicably Tailless: For some reason, Mickey is drawn without his tail.
• Le Film Artistique: Short runtime, black and white, and a bleak yet violent conclusion of the innocent protagonist (in this case, Mickey Mouse) all to hammer home a specific moral. Not surprisingly, it was made for the Angry Arts Festival, a "protest event" that encouraged artists to express their concerns about the Vietnam War and their desire to end it.
• Limited Animation: This being an underground animated short and not an official Disney cartoon, animation is only used as needed to carry out the intent of the short.
• Mood Whiplash: At first, it looks to be an homage to Mickey Mouse's 1930s shorts with a wartime theme, then suddenly, Mickey is unceremoniously killed after he sets foot on Vietnam.
• Pen Name: The short's only credits are for "Max Cats" and "Whitney Sledge".
• Perpetual Smiler: Up until the end of the short, Mickey keeps a smile plastered onto his face.
• Public Domain Animation: Whitney couldn't copyright the short since it was unauthorized. The soundtrack is copyrighted, however (except for Hector Berlioz's "Requiem, Op. 5: Sanctus", which is played on Mickey's death), so Wikipedia's sister site Wikimedia Commons only carries a silent version on there.
• Recruiters Always Lie: Mickey takes the invitation to join the army from a billboard promising that he will "see the world". He barely steps foot in another country before being fatally shot.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Herbert Chappell's "The Gonk" (better known nowadays for its equally dissonant use in Dawn of the Dead) plays once more after Mickey's death scene.
• The Speechless: Mickey never says a single word throughout the short.
• The Vietnam War: Of course.
• War Is Hell: The moral of the short is that war is horrible.
• Wartime Cartoon: Deconstructed, as it uses the conventions of the trope to criticize not just the World War II cartoons it takes inspiration from, but also war in general.