Wir waren Helden

"We Were Soldiers" hit close to home because my dad and his friend Donald were in this very same battle. In 1965, my dad had just graduated from high school in Wichita, Kansas. He volunteered to enlist in the Army because there was practically nothing waiting for him there...

My dad was stationed with the 1st Cavalry. The "Valley of Death" was where he fought his first major battle and lived. I'll never forget the scenes in this movie because my dad didn't have to be alive and well today. After seeing this movie, there has not been one day where I wondered what would have happened to me if he didn't live to see it.

I am eighteen now, and my dad suggested that I see this and gain an idea on how gruesome the battle was and how he managed to live through it. I cried at the end, the same thing I did when I cried at the end of "Platoon", because I think of so many of those who may have been friends with my dad...who never lived to see the next day after that battle ended. I think of those who came back scarred deeply, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

And I will continue to cry for them....cry as deeply as I can...

There are many war movies, but finally there is a decent one about the Vietnam war in stead of World War II.

We were soldiers is a movie about the first American attack on the Vietnamese. A col. rides into battle with his man and they have to encouter several attacks from the enemy. It also tells the story from the wife of the col., who receives the telegrams of the dead soldiers.

There are moments of action which are needed in a war movie. The action-moments are good and the special effects look real. There are also moments of drama, so the movie does not have full action only, which is good to stay concentrated. But the drama does not hurt the movie, because there's not to many of it.

Overall it's a movie which keeps your focus to the last minute. It's not the best war movie ever, but you should certainly see it. Not only because of the very good acting of Mel Gibson.

I should never be surprised that people, who wouldn't recognize Principle, much less Honor, Duty, or Country if it introduced itself, see virtue as vice. As one who served in that war, I found the movie to be factual to the point of pain. Those who call this movie racist, lack vocabulary. or an understanding of racism. I don't know which is sadder. This movie tells a part of a soldier's story very well. Soldiers march to a different drummer, how tragic that so many, today, still refuse to honor those who protected them.

The millions in Indo-China murdered at the hands of the Communist cry that our "racism" was so poorly lead at the highest civilian levels that we abandon them. Their blood is not on my hands or on the hands of my fellow soldiers. It is on the hands of those who are so blind they refuse to see. A valid case could be made that that there are errors in the story, certainly it doesn't tell the rest of the story, or of the next part of this battle where US casualties were 40%. What it does tell it tells very well. Those men were volunteers, and their nobility shows in this movie. I recommend it, especially for any who would want to understand those who served at that time.

It is hard to stand out and be a unique war film. They've been making war films pretty much since the invention of film it seems. So you would think by now that it's all been done before, and for the most part it has. Yet We Were Soldiers manages to separate itself from the pack and give us a unique take on one particular battle in one particular war. Depicted here is the first major battle involving American troops in the Vietnam War. The fact that this battle takes place in what is known as the Valley of Death tells you all you need to know about what awaits the men who head into combat.

The central figure in the movie is Lt. Col Hal Moore, played by Mel Gibson. Moore, leading the 7th Cavalry, will train his men and lead them into whatever hell awaits them. The film begins back home as Moore assembles his new unit and begins to whip them into shape. Here we learn much about what makes Hal Moore tick and begin to see him for the true leader of men he is. These opening scenes are important as they show many of Moore's motivations and also the obstacles which are placed in his way. The time back home also allows us to see Moore the family man with his strong, stoic wife, played by Madeline Stowe, and their young children. We also meet other key characters. There is Moore's second-in-command, battle-tested Sgt. Maj. Plumley, played with wonderful gruffness and all the appropriate seriousness by Sam Elliott. There is helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall, played by Greg Kinnear, and young Lt. Jack Geoghegan, played, surprisingly well for someone who came to prominence in a silly farce like American Pie, by Chris Klein. But the key figure throughout is undeniably Moore and Gibson's strong, confident portrayal is a key to the movie's success.

While important in establishing the key characters and the emotional ties that bind them to each other and those whom they are leaving behind, the opening scenes back home have a feeling of just biding time about them. The film really takes off when the 7th Cavalry is dropped into the Valley of Death and confronts the overwhelming enemy force which awaits them. The rest of the film deals with this one epic, unrelenting battle. It sounds clichéd but the battle scenes are so well choreographed and photographed that you do truly feel as if you are there. The intensity of the conflict jumps off the screen. The focus is on the valor and heroism of the American soldiers but unlike so many war films which present a nameless, faceless enemy we also get to see things from the Vietnamese perspective. We see the enemy leaders detailing their strategy and also are presented with reminders that the Americans are not the only ones with loving, concerned families back home. We see the toll on both sides, not just for the soldiers but perhaps most poignantly in scenes inter-cut from home where soldiers' wives wait to learn the fates of the men they love.

We Were Soldiers is a brutally honest, unflinching look at the hell that is war. It is a story which begged to be told. Seeing as it is adapted from a book by two of the central figures in the conflict, Hal Moore and reporter Joe Galloway who found himself thrust into the middle of the conflict (and who is played wonderfully by Barry Pepper in the film) you can rest assured that unlike so many other war films this one would focus on "getting it right." The film tells it as it truly was. It is at times invigorating and inspiring and at other times truly heartbreaking. All in all it is a fitting tribute to, as the film states at the beginning, the men on both sides who died in that place.

Short review: I typically do not care for Vietnam War movies. Some, like Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" are good. "Platoon" is alright, "Casualties of War" is okay... "Hamburger Hill" is blah, "Good morning Vietnam" too happy. The running theme is either firefights (which is good eye candy but poor storytelling) or the futility of war.

"We Were Soldiers" has a different take. First, Mel Gibson plays a colonel with a degree, allowing him to not only think like a soldier but an academic. He understands military history and why strategies have or have not worked, and why Vietnam is as pointless as Korea was.

But what really stood out was the focus on the wives. The story is almost always about the boys becoming men in the battlefield. We rarely, if ever, see their parents or spouses. Here is an exception... the wives are their own squadron, bonding together and keeping strong. And that's the reality of war: people don't just die -- someone else has to feel that loss.