Onto the Review the Doctor liked, please enjoy and comment:
Movie Review: “We Were Soldiers”- 2002, based on the book: "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young” by Lt. Gen. Harold G.
Moore and Joseph L. Galloway. Directed by Randall Wallace.
This is my review of the movie “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson,
Sam Elliot, and Greg Kinnear as Lt. Col Hal Moore, Sgt. Maj.
Basil Plumley, Maj. Bruce 'Snake' Crandall and Julie Moore (Col. Moore’s wife).
This movie is based on the book by almost the same name "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young" co-written by Joseph
Galloway and Col. Hal Moore describing the 2 day 3 night battle in Ia Drang
Valley (1). The book is based on the telling of the battle of Ia Drang Valley
northwest of Plei Me, approximately 35 miles south-west of Pleiku, mostly the
part surrounding Landing Zone X-ray and the 1st Battalion of the
U.S. 7th Cavalry (Custer’s Cavalry unit) (2). The movie takes a
liberty to fill in some of the backstory and cover 11 years of time between
French Ambush and preparations for Col. Moore’s troops to go, but from all
accounts I have been able to find is mostly an accurate tale of that particular
part of the battle in total. Or at least as close as a watchable movie can be
with time and “story” being a consideration. Movies are not Documentaries.
The movie starts in Vietnam in June
1954, the last year of French occupation, as Joe Galloway says in his book, “In a place our country can’t remember in a
war we don’t understand”. An ambush occurs and French Group Mobile 100 is
overrun by Vietminh forces in the “Valley of Death” as it was known. They take
no prisoners and leave only dead as the NVA commander Col. Nguyen Huu An orders
his soldiers to "kill all they send,
and they will stop coming." We see the French Bugler get shot and the
bugle gets picked up. In what appears to be poetic license showing Vietcong
resistance over time, that same bugle is blown by a Vietcong soldier to call
troops together to fight against Col. Moore later in the movie. I have not been
able to confirm this happened or not, but makes sense poetically for the movie
to show how long the Vietcong had been fighting this battle. After said battle,
we move to Col. Moore learning that his Cavalry is going the change along with
his assignment. He is going to get the Helicopter for Calvary duty, and he is
being assigned to train troops for battle using this new “horse”, the Huey. He
trains with his men for this new tactic that has never been tested before, air
movement of troops quickly in and out of theater. He meets Sergeant Major
Plumley then. Played to be a cantankerous old man by Elliot, I think a little
license was used to make his character seem more “John Wayne” than he really
was. They skip several major details of Moore’s life. The fact he was an
Engineering guy, with a Master’s degree in International Relations from George
Washington University, taught at West Point, and even taught Norman
Schwarzkopf, worked for NATO, and completed a course at the Naval War College,
and then his transfer to Fort Benning for training his troops for this new Air
Cavalry. His education meant he probably understood his enemy better than most
(1).
Shortly before going to theater,
they show Johnson’s speech to the people about how troop strength was going to
be increased from 75,000 to 125,000 immediately in 1965. This was factual, and
was when Col. Moore and his men were geared up to go. At one point in the movie
we see Col. Moore reading about his soon to be opponent in his study and about
this particular ambush and the he has another book open with depictions of the
Little Bighorn debacle and is in obvious study. In the film they show a
confrontation he has with his commander at the celebration before leaving about
how he is losing 1/3 of his men to enlistment leave, and has them being
replaced by mostly untrained draftees. He is upset, and feels this cripples him
for battle. I have not found evidence of the specific talk, but I have found
many interviews where Col. Moore speaks of talks he had with his CO’s about his
worries being “12,000 miles from home
fighting a battle against an enemy with 20 years of war experience on his home
turf…”. He has used that specific terminology in interviews.
Many social issues of the time get a
brief touch as well. The wives are talking at one point when Col. Moore gets
relocated Fort Benning. The issue of “Whites Only” comes up when a wife
mentions that she thinks the off base laundry will only do white clothes and
she doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t wash clothes with color. Then another
woman calls attention to the racial issue. The only black wife is upset, and
the rest of the wives agree if he is willing to die for his country then his
country should support him better at home. They also touch on the fact that so
few had died in the war up to that point that the military hadn’t developed the
type of system used during WW2 where a soldier delivered news of death to your
home. They were hiring Taxi’s to deliver death notices. A truth is the fact
that Col. Moore’s wife did in fact stop the practice of delivery by taxi, and
took over the job for a short time until the base hired a Chaplain, and she
still went with the Chaplain if it was a wife of a soldier under her husband’s
command to console them. A very touching social scene is the silence before the
men leave. Time spent with wives and children reflecting, holding and “feeling”
each other before the ultimate sacrifice may be paid just relishing each
other’s presence.
They show a nice speech Col. Moore
might have given before leaving the U.S. for theater in Vietnam during troop
presentation. His speech focuses on the fact he has good troops and diversity
in his ranks that he likes and it means all will fight for each other equally
no matter skin color or country of origin. Col. Moore also states that he will
be the first man with his boots on the ground in battle and the last man to
leave the field of battle and he will leave none behind, dead or alive. Again,
I find no actual account of this speech, but for the film and the war and
social issues it touches upon, I can see license being taken here to spell out
Col. Moore’s personal feelings going in even if he was not able to do so in
real life. Moore also has stated in several interviews that his most proud
achievement as an officer was to not leave a man on that battlefield in
Vietnam.
Now we get to the hard part of the
movie, the deployment to Vietnam and battle of Ia Drang. Of course, this is a
movie and there are time constraints. However, it would have helped in my
opinion to have a clearer timeline. Knowing that Ia Drang was really a battle
in several stages over the course of about 300 days or so made the movie
timeline once they get to Vietnam a bit confusing (2). Yes, for the movie it is
straight forward, but a person who knows history may think they skipped a few
important steps. Like getting to Vietnam taking a month, and it being a few
months before they were deployed to fight once there. The first scene in Vietnam
is another joke between Col. Moore and his troops. They started calling him
“Yellow Hair” in honor of his blonde hair, but also Custer’s locks as well.
They have print “Central Highlands of South Vietnam”, and then zoom out as a
truck passes to a sign calling out the “Garry Owen” division because Custer was
the person who designated that song for that battalion (3)(4). The next scene
is Col. Moore and Sgt. Major Plumley meeting with a CO of some sort named
“Brown” and being told that Plei Me had been hit by VC. Brown informs them that
they must go in, light on troops and hold a position where it is believed the
enemy had a strong hold, but we have no idea how many enemy troops are there.
From what I gather this is a little off, they knew by the time Col. Moore was
going in approximately how many there were and he knew the numbers were
somewhere near 10 to 1. “Simple orders Hal find the enemy and kill him”. Then
he and Plumley are outside talking numbers and ambush and how this is going to
be bad because they are out manned.
Into battle they go. The movie
creates a powerful scene using the Sgt MacKenzie song (3)(4). Galloway’s lines
come in: “It was a Sunday, November 14th, 1965, before that day the
soldiers of Vietnam and those of America never met each other in a major battle”
(book). A very true statement as you have stated in class. They show the
hitting of the deck by the Huey’s, preceding artillery from Falcon, and the
lock and load as they close in. Then they hit LZ X-RAY at 10:48am. This is where
we go a bit Hollywood. This battle was not only focused on a small landing area
and one Colonel, but many “LZ’s” over an area. LZ Albany, LZ Columbus, LZ Tango,
LZ Yankee, LZ Whiskey, and LZ Victor are forgotten, but that is probably based
on the fact Galloway came to this LZ and it was the one in operation most of
the time. They do get correct the capture of the VC guy who tells the 7th
Cavalry “they are waiting and want to kill Americans”. That is in several of
the Documentaries including Vietnam: A Television History. From here it loses
the watcher a bit as far as the actual history goes. The movie solely focuses
on Col. Moore and his men. The ebb and flow of the battle is captured well and
for the most part stays true to what Galloway wrote. The timing between
reported contacts seems a bit off, and only takes Col. Moore’s accounts as
gold. He reported that after the first drop of troops on the LZ that they
received fire, but others such as Major Bruce P. Crandall say it took 4 loads
of soldiers before fire developed and was reported (3). They also don’t tell
the viewer that Crandall had a huge hand in saving these men. While in the
midst of battle he decided to reroute his flights to the firebase 5 miles away
(AnKhe A02) instead of the Plei Me base that was 14 minutes away at full speed
(3). He then called for resupply of the firebase and for Medics to meet and
follow him there to LZ X-RAY. He flew 26 missions that night before he rested
for 15 minutes (3). One thing I think would have helped greatly is for the film
to have been shot on location or at least close. Instead the film was shot at
several military bases located in the United States. Look at the trees and
ground, and if you have traveled any you will pick up on the fact it isn’t
jungle you are looking at, but good old American woods (IMDB). The random
charges between both sides, the pinning down of 1st Platoon, the
downed Huey’s and the cut off of 2nd Platoon when they attempted a
rescue are all referenced. The first night of the battle as Galloway sat back
at base listening in, and caught a ride with “Snake” Crandall to LZ XRAY and
saw the horrible conditions that had developed already. The trouble at the
Knoll, the Creek and the Ridge is mostly right. I do love how they play the
famous part of Galloway’s book where the attack picks up in the morning again
by the VC troops and it cared him so bad he just hit the floor and covered (1).
Within a few seconds he said he “felt a size 12 boot kick me in the side and I
looked up. It was Sergeant Major Plumley standing there with bullets flying all
around him. He looked down at me and said, “Can’t take no pictures from down
there Sonny” and I agreed. So, I decided if I was going to get mine, it would
be standing upright next to a soldier like Plumley. I found out Sergeant Majors
are always right.” (1) They show examples of the night “probes” the troops had
to deal with in pitch darkness. After that, it is mostly correct as it is a
reporter and Col. Moore’s story, and they lived it together. I notice this because
I have heard Galloway call Jimmy Nakiyama his personal ghost from that war who
had a son born on that day. That is one of the U.S. soldiers we napalmed up
close and Galloway describes his legs “peeling away” when he tried to carry him
to the Huey for Medevac. The boy lived 2 more days and died in agony (2). One
other major thing I noticed that is questionable is the final charge Americans
put up, which according to accounts, never happened. The VC realized losses and
faded away, and Col. Moore was told not to go up the hill. Also, Nguyen Huu An
said years later that he was not at the location when the fight ended (2). They
present American firepower and ability to bring air support to a battle as a
determining factor, and that would be correct, especially during Broken Arrow.
I think the numbers stated in the film of dead and wounded were a bit
exaggerated, but if you are there it probably seems like a million people were
killed or wounded though Col. Moore reported 834 enemy bodies,
1215 estimated KIA, 1/3rd of the enemy force were killed to 72, out of 395,
American fatal casualties (2). General An said that number was high, but they
lost more than expected. Galloway even sneaks in a view from “the other side”
as we watch over a series of shots a VC soldier. He is writing in his diary, he
is kissing the pictures of his family, he is praying. We follow him to the
battle field and watch him attempt a close in failed attack on Col. Moore. This
symbolizes to me the fact that they had “people” on their side as well and not
just nameless “VC troops”. They also might have been able to make America leave
if they could have been successful with such an attack because we don’t like to
lose officers high in rank in a “small battle”. It was an interesting twist written
in from the opposing view.
In general it is a great movie with
a lot of factual support by those who fought in it all the way down to the tiny
American Flag at the end that was flown there as a bit of a joke. I think
however for the film, it took a bit of license with the actual facts, combined
a few Companies and leaders of other units not tied to Moore, but who were
integral to the overall fight so they get thrown in the mix. The movie leaves
the viewer with a sense of what happened, but you get the idea it was a cut and
dry battle the way we American‘s like it, and that just wasn’t the case. If not
for the voice over at the end noting that those who see war continue to live it
and the number and spelling out of the names of those who died there and their
place on Panel 3 at the wall, you may get the idea we were winners and walked
off the field in victory. This was just the first exchange of a long drawn out
battle of touch and go skirmishes over the course of almost a year. This all
lead Westmoreland to believe we would win if we just kept at it long enough. Not
the case at all. I suggest seeing it. It puts the U.S. in a positive light in a
war we had few positive lights to view.
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0l6mDDeUcg
– Ia Drang Veterans Panel Part 1 of 10. AMAZING WATCH talking about the movie
in 2007. Each part has another major player from the film in it. I have watched
all about 15 times each now.
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKi-SyRA7I&index=77&list=PL6FPxe0v_pCwMlwTP2EuzcPZRyjXxc5hu
– Vietnam a Television History. American Experience in Vietnam – Part 1.
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIAEcZ29aG4
– Bruce P. “Snake” Crandall talking service, medal of honor, and Ia Drang work.
(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKI4GQ4c9g0
– Garry Owen Song original way it would have been sung with Custer.
(5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB2Ad04mukI
– Song going into battle. Sgt MacKenzie “Lay Me Down”.
