Independent Films, Film Profiles

We Were Soldiers
by Randall Wallace

We Were Soldiers is a 2002 American war film that dramatized the Battle of Ia Drang in November 1965, the first major engagement of United States military forces in the Vietnam War. The film was directed by Randall Wallace and stars Mel Gibson. It is based on the book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, both of whom were at the battle.A French Army unit is on patrol in Vietnam in 1954 during the First Indochina War and is suddenly ambushed by the Viet Minh; although the French unit kills many Viet Minh, it is eventually overrun. Senior Lieutenant Nguyễn Hữu An (Don Duong), hypothesising that, if they kill all they send; the French will eventually stop sending troops, orders the execution of all surviving French soldiers.Eleven years later, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson), a dedicated United States Army officer, is deeply committed to training his troops, who are preparing to be sent to Vietnam. The night before their departure, the unit's officers hold a party to celebrate. Moore learns from a superior officer that his unit will be known as the 1st Battalion / 7th Cavalry regiment. He is disquieted because the 7th Cavalry regiment was the unit commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer when he and his men were slaughtered at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn. Moore is also dismayed because President Lyndon B. Johnson has decreed that the war would be fought "on the cheap," without declaring it a national emergency. As a result, Moore believes he will be deprived of his oldest, best-trained soldiers (a formal declaration of war would have meant mobilization and extension of the terms of enlistment for volunteer soldiers) - about 25% of his battalion - just prior to shipping out for Vietnam. Before leaving for Vietnam, Moore delivers a poignant speech to his unit:After arriving in Vietnam, he learns that an American base has been attacked and is ordered to take his 395 men after the enemy and eliminate them, despite the fact that intelligence has no idea of the number of enemy troops. He leads a newly created air cavalry unit into the Ia Drang Valley against over 4,000 well equipped enemy soldiers.An emotional toll is taken back home, where Moore's wife Julie (Madeleine Stowe) and another soldier's wife (Keri Russell) take over the job of delivering telegrams that inform families (mainly wives like themselves) living at Fort Benning, Georgia, the unit's base of operation, of soldiers' deaths.After landing in the "Valley of Death", the soldiers capture a Vietnamese lookout who informs them that the location they were sent to is actually the headquarters of an entire North Vietnamese division. An American platoon is isolated some distance from the battalion's main position, after 2nd Lieutenant Henry Herrick (Marc Blucas) saw a scout and ran after him, ordering his reluctant soldiers to follow. The scout led them into an ambush, resulting in some of the platoon members, including Herrick, getting killed and several wounded. Sergeant Savage assumes command of the platoon by default, and by calling in artillery and using the cover of darkness, holds off the Vietnamese from their position. The story switches between the Vietnamese and American points of view several times. Despite being trapped near the landing zone, and desperately outnumbered, the main force manages to hold off the Vietnamese with artillery, close air support, and even calling a last-resort Broken Arrow just before being overrun, killing some of their own soldiers but eliminating most of the Vietnamese offensive force. The American troop secure the area and, shortly after the attack on the second day, rescue Lieutenant Herrick's trapped platoon.On the third day Moore and his men charge up the mountain where the Vietnamese division headquarters is located. The Vietnamese have set up heavy machine gun emplacements near the hidden entrance of the underground headquarters spoken of by the scout. Hal and his men charge right at them, into a seemingly impending massacre, but before the Vietnamese can fire, Major Bruce "Snakeshit" Crandall and wingman Captain Ed W. "Too Tall" Freeman fly in with their helicopters and kill the Vietnamese guards with their side-mounted mini-guns. The Vietnamese commander is alerted that the Americans have broken through the lines, and the headquarters has no troops between them and the Americans. He orders the headquarters evacuated. Moore, having completed his objective, returns to the L.Z. to be picked up, and, after all of his men, dead or alive, are removed from the battlefield, steps on to a helicopter and flies out of the valley. Strong visual emphasis is placed on Moore's being the last American to set foot off the field of battle.At the end of the movie it is revealed that Moore (having been promoted to Colonel) returned home safely after 235 more days of fighting.