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AN
AMERICAN MILITARY COMMANDER REVISITS THE HEROISM & FUTILITY
OF THE VIETNAM WAR
 When
Ho Chi Minh read Vietnam's Declaration of Independence at
Hanoi in September 2, 1945, American planes provided overhead
support to the cheers of the assembled throng; they had backed
his struggle against the Japanese during World War II. The
next time the American military went to Vietnam, however,
the mission was different. We Were Soldiers,
directed by Randall Wallace, is about the first unit of American
soldiers who engaged the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) on
November 14, 1965. As opening credits roll, we see the French
go down to defeat in 1954 as PAVN adopts a take-no-prisoners
approach. The story begins by portraying the men in that unit,
commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore (played by Mel
Gibson), a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. One
day he arrives at Fort Benning, Georgia, newly assigned to
develop the tactical capability of a new battle concept, namely,
using helicopters as a modern version of the cavalry. Fresh
from completing an M.A. in international relations at Harvard,
he is ordered to prepare his men for war in Vietnam, where
he knows from his reading on the subject that he will face
a tough and determined enemy with twenty years of combat experience.
In short, he shares the widespread military assessment that
President Lyndon Johnson's decision to commit American troops
underestimated the situation and thus that soldiers under
his command must develop close personal relationships and
teamwork to survive the impossible objective of defeating
an implacable enemy. Among the featured soldiers are combat
veteran Sergeant Major Basil Plumley (played by Sam Elliott),
helicopter pilot Major Bruce Crandall (played by Greg Kinnear),
youthful Second Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan (played by Chris
Klein), and photographer Joseph L. Galloway (played by Barry
Pepper). Author of the story for Pearl
Harbor (2001), Randall Wallace's screenplay for
We Were Soldiers is quite similar, not only
in regard to the civilian side of the plot but also in the
filmscore. When Moore arrives in Vietnam, ordered to command
the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry (and aware that the same
unit was commanded by General George Armstrong Custer at Little
Big Horn), he is assigned to fight in the Ia Drang Valley
of the Central Highlands (actually, a film location in California).
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Army intelligence does not indicate the strength or exact
location of the enemy, further fueling his pessimism about
the assignment. At this point, filmviewers get a taste of
actual combat realities-the human wave of Vietnamese attackers
and their underground headquarters as well as the American
reliance on air support to even the odds. When the battle
ends, after we view many gruesome scenes, some 1,800 Vietnamese
and 234 Americans have died out of an initial 2,000 Vietnamese
to 400 Americans, and in several scenes we see the impact
of "I regret to inform you" telegrams on instant
widows at Fort Benning. Although we do not get acquainted
with the Vietnamese on as personal a basis as with the Americans,
Vietnamese Major Nguyen Huu An (played by Joseph Hieu) projects
an invincible attitude, though with more respect toward American
soldiers than they receive on returning home in the film,
and we see the widow (played by Zoë Bui) of one Vietnamese
soldier mourn the loss of her husband in battle. Indeed, the
Major articulates some of the most profound statements in
the film--that the Americans fight well, but that the outcome
will be the same as before (presumably referring to Vietnam's
defeat of the French and perhaps even the Chinese). He also
identifies the new phase of the war as "the American
War," Vietnam's name for the bloodbath from 1965-1973.
Galloway's voiceovers at the end explain that Moore remained
in Vietnam for nine months and then returned. Moore's book,
We Were Soldiers Once, and Young (1993), co-written
with Galloway, is the basis for the film. Although the movie
starts out as a tribute to the heroism and sacrifices of American
soldiers in Vietnam, ending with a view of the Vietnam Memorial
in Washington, D.C., We Were Soldiers is also
an anti-war film, showing not only that the futility of the
intervention in a civil war, even when the morale of American
troops was high, but also that the Americans were really naïve
aggressors, as South Vietnamese troops are nowhere to be seen
in the movie, and the role of the battle in an overall strategy
is unclear. Indeed, We Were Soldiers explicitly
makes the point that American troops did not fight "for
God and country" but instead for each other. Accordingly,
the Political Film Society has nominated We Were Soldiers
as best film exposé and best film raising consciousness
about the need for peace instead of war in 2002. MH
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