Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question about the movie "We were soldiers"

yes i have seen the movie

Great movie btw

I totally agree. Probably my favorite "war' movie.

Actually several places........down around Nha Trang there are prickly pear cactus patches growing in sand dunes.......up in I Corps there are landscapes that resemble high desert terrain.

It ain't all triple canopy,jungle and swampy delta........another media and Hollywood misrepresentation.
Once while portaging a canoe alone in the Boundary Waters (Minn/Canada border) i experienced a flashback just due to the "triple canopy appearance" of the trees and the way the sun's rays were filtering down.

My reading of the Vietnam War changed my view of the "MOVIE" steriotyping of the land scape.
There were high lofty mountains, desert like dunes and scrub on some coast lines, to the swampy delta areas - and about anything you could imagine in between.

My son that served in IRAQ, a place we all think of as a desert environment, told me of a helo assault to an island in (I believe) the Tigres river that was thick jungle and palm trees. He said they couldn't see ten feet in some places!

"We were solider's once" is a great movie about a horrible battle. One of the most sobering accounts of which is that told by Mr. Jack P. Smith.
http://www.mishalov.com/death_ia_drang_valley.html

I understood the question. I simply offered the observation that I suspected the movie was filmed mostly in California based upon a great many years of roaming that state's wildlands. It seems that guess was accurate. I also spent some Uncle Sam-sponsored time in Vietnam, although (thankfully) not in the Ia Drang.

At any rate, despite the movie's factual innacuracies (which have been well documented and debated at length elsewhere), I still rate it as one of the all-time great war movies. For those who have only seen the movie and are unaware of the full story, the movie timeline ends just prior to one of the deadliest ambushes of the war when two U.S. battalions made a tactical march away from LZ Xray to other landing zones. That ambush cost the U.S. some 280 casualties, with 155 KIA.

I've never been to Vietnam. I did attend a Forestry symposium where a researcher gave a presentation on the landscape of Vietnam and just going from his slides (I didn't read his resarch) I would say Vietnam has a pretty varied landscape with not all of it being triple canopy obviously.

Good old, Hungry Lizard, aka. Hunter-Ligget. Spent about 4mo's there in 1985. Doing a test in air to air helicopter combat. My company of the 9th Avn. Bn. at Ft. Lewis, was tasked as the Blackhawk element.

They'ld mount a MILES system on the aircraft giving the P/CP the ability to aim the MILES. We were fighting against S-model AH-1 Cobras. The AH-1's were rigged with MILES also. This was before the AH-64 came out, hot and heavy.

This project was in response to how US forces could deploy against the Soviet Hokom helicopter, which was designed as a helicopter attack helicopter. Sometimes we were the OPFOR, sometimes we weren't. It was an enjoyable test.

Here's more than you'd ever want to know, including photos showing the OP's interest in terrain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_la_Drang

Hamburger Hill. AKA Hill 937
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/hotshot478/HamburgerHill.html

Wow Terry, I didn't know. You are now high on my last of men I admire. I also read the book. Riveting.

Sadly, few actually get to see the second phase of the Ia Drang Battle. LZ X-Ray was 1/7th and a defensive victory. LZ Albany was 2/7 and it was a nightmare. Ia Drang shared the name of "HELL" with the A Shau and the Suoi Ca.

Very true Sir.

The tunnel complexes found there were mind boggling as well. Whole underground cities, most of the mountain was honeycombed and it took weeks to clear them all out.

We got our azz handed to us a few times there.

No biggie Sir, I was a scared 24 year old buck Sargent that did his job like everybody else. Those guys on the ground are the real hero's.

"no biggie"???? I beg to differ sir. What you and your brothers did there is the quintessential example of one of my favorite quotes; "The price of freedom is a value the protected shall never know" and that is why I go NUTS when all the isolationist kooks around here call guys like you (and my limited combat time) "warmongers." Sir what you did was not big, it was MONUMENTAL.

When I had command, I made all of my staff officers and senior NCOs watch that movie each year and discuss the leadership successes and some failures.

I always believed in Hal Moore making sure the troops had ammo and were squared away. When I was in Iraq, AFCENT had imposed a policy of no commanding officers outside of the gate except with a waiver from the General. I managed to get a waiver, based solely on the argument that my EOD troops were outside of the wire, and commanding officers and first sergeants MUST be seen in the field, and must go where ever the fight is occurring. It was the most rewarding job I've ever had.

IMHO, we've allowed technology to steal from us the most precious gem of command, being with troops in the field, instead of watching the fight on "blue force tracker" or through a drone overhead. There, and only there, can the troops see you as someone who is willing to risk everything to ensure they come home in their boots, and on their feet.

The brave men and women we send into battle in our name deserve commanders and Sergeants Major who are unafraid to die. If I had a fear, it was that one of my troops would perish over something I could of prevented. It literally kept me sleepless for nights on end.

"Feed your horses, feed your men, feed yourself," is the lesson of that film. At least it is for me.

Terry definitely knows what those green dots were.

If you haven't been to the Donald Pratt Mus. at Ft. Campbell, it has an extensive photo. and story of the battle and the Vietnam War in general. When you stated 1/7th & 2/7th, were you referring to 7th Cav.? Been assigned to 4/7th Cav. in the ROK. Garry Owens

Jorge, it was my job so I did it. Don't be trying to swell my head. We flew in and out, those guys LIVED it for DAYS!