Even Band of Brothers showed Lt. Speirs (or implied) that he mowed down German POWs.
Right, and we committed many such acts in WWII, tons, but in Vietnam they were much fewer.
The problem with atrocities in a 90 minute movie is that they become so dominant in memory, there is a reason why they avoid showing Indians gang raping and slitting the throats of white teen age girls in a movie about Geronimo for instance, it just isn’t the kind of thing that you can show as just an element, or a glimpse into a part of the reality.
In a book you can work it in and it belongs, but in a non documentary movie, it becomes a giant neon sign imprinted large on simple minds, the left knew what they were doing as they pumped out those movies of countless scenes portraying GIs in Vietnam as incompetent cowards that escaped into drugs and rape and mass murder, because they were not real warriors, to this day that fake history is what people think of.
Part of that is also the audience, the thoughtful, intelligent and worldly people that read military history, versus non-readers, absorbing history from watching a movie like a turkey looking up at the rain, to them the Sioux will forever be “Dances with Wolves” Sioux and the GIs will forever be attacking at Wounded Knee.