Nous étions soldats

We Were Soldiers is not for the squeamish. It ranks up there with Saving Private Ryan for realistically showing the brutality of war. I was moved almost beyond description by the ordeal these 390-odd US Army Air Cav soldiers endured at the hands of thousands of Viet Cong troops. It is as close to Hell as one could get on earth--a charnel house of horrors, where death is sudden and swift. Mel Gibson and Sam Elliot lead a group of green recruits into the Valley Of Death on an impossible mission in the early days of our involvement in Vietnam.

Based on actual events in 1965, this was the first major involvement of US troops and North Vietnamese regulars. The writing, directing, and acting are first rate, and the battle scenes are too real for comfort. What really makes the mind reel is that after the slaughter depicted in this film, Mel's character Lt. Col. Hal Moore goes back to the valley of death for more than 200 days. The American dead are listed on 3 East of the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I stood at attention and cried when the names of the fallen were listed at the end of the film. You will, too.

This film is so different from the traditionally cynical (and rightly so) Vietnam War movies. While it goes without question that this film depicts the bloody and gruesome horrors of the tragedy of the first major conflict of the war, it does so while juxtaposing the story with that of stories of the home front and the enemy. The enemy in this film is not the animalistic, silent enemy we are used to. We hear this enemy speak, we see his love for his family and his devotion to his cause. While being bombarded with images of death and destruction on the battlefield, we are brought back home to see the wives as they face the death themselves.

While of course not a flawless movie, it was without a doubt moving, and I highly recommend it.

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.

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.

I for one am someone who was inspired to read the book "We were Soldiers Once and Young" after seeing this movie. WWS is about a distinct event that actually happened. SGM Plumley was a soldier's soldier, with five combat jumps in three wars and an astounding three combat infantry badges. LTC Moore was the sort of leader who could keep his head and lead his troops through the worst of battle. People who complain of clichés in this movie might as well complain that people in 18th century movies wear three-cornered hats.

To those looking for an anti-war message, it is there. When Moore goes to Division headquarters and gets his mission, he asks about projected enemy in his area of operations. The staff officer standing next to the general says "a manageable number." To this Moore responds with words to the effect of "which means you have no idea." It turns out that Moore's battalion gets dropped on top of a vastly larger enemy force (if I remember correctly, they get dropped right next to an NVA brigade). Ordinarily, it order to assure success in attack, you want to have three times the numbers of your enemy. In this case, the ratio was 4:1 going the other way. Then the battle is about how artillery and air support makes up the difference in numbers.

The obvious criticism here is that the command was fumbling around in the dark. At the end of the movie, the names of the 70+ men who died are prominently displayed on the screen. A military mind is not treasonous and will not disrespect its superiors, but it will let facts speak for themselves.

The next comment is only tangentially related to this movie. However, many voices here have taken the opportunity to vent their views on Vietnam, so I feel compelled to put things in a broader historical context.

There was a war that did not take place between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin wall. It would have been called WWIII. The Soviet Union and the US stood eye-to-eye for 40+ years, but did not blink. It was an ideological conflict with an evil that meant death to 50+ million people in communist countries in this century. It was conflict with a system that vastly constrained freedom. Fortunately for the world, the US finally prevailed. The struggle fought between communism and the west was fought in a variety of ways: in public relations, in sports, in propaganda, and in a series of proxy wars. In Korea, Greece, Vietnam, Afghanistan and a variety of smaller stages, East contested with West. To the people caught up in these local conflicts, these wars were absolute tragedies. However, in the grand scheme of things, these conflicts pale to insignificance when compared to the 500,000,000 who would have died in WWIII.