Holmes: Mel Gibson's 'We Were Soldiers' honors warriors on both sides of the Vietnam War

Athens Banner-Herald ^ | March 17th 2002 | James Holmes

[risk]

Holmes: Mel Gibson's 'We Were Soldiers' honors warriors on both sides of the Vietnam War

I cringe involuntarily whenever a new Vietnam movie opens. Not so much because Hollywood has been a remorseless critic of the Vietnam War -- there's plenty of latitude to disagree about the wisdom of the American war and the manner in which is was prosecuted -- but because even the best films in the genre radiate disdain not only for the war itself, but also for the American fighting man who went to Indochina to battle communism.

James
Holmes
more Holmes columns

You know the stereotypes: the butcher of women and children, a la Lt. Calley; the pathetic loser, probably on drugs and suffering from shell shock, destined to become homeless after the war; the draftee compelled to fight an imperialist war and thus perpetually embittered by his wartime service. While it makes for some fine films -- notably the revised ''Apocalypse Now'' -- Hollywood's reigning orthodoxy has slighted Vietnam veterans for a quarter-century.
That was then. Now, along comes ''We Were Soldiers,'' Mel Gibson's latest flick, which recounts the November 1965 battle of the Ia Drang Valley and, in the process, helps restore some luster to the popular image of the American solder. The film shows how the U.S. Army tested its ''operational concept'' -- that is, its understanding of the war and how it should be fought -- in action against a numerically superior force of North Vietnamese regulars.
Beguiled by memories of World War II and Korea -- conventional wars in which the United States had achieved satisfactory results by weight of technologically sophisticated firepower -- the brass crafted a similar strategy for Vietnam. The Army concept envisioned using helicopters to ferry troops into landing zones (LZs). Once on the ground, lavishly supported by ground-attack aircraft and artillery, the Americans would bring the North Vietnamese army to battle on their terms.
In time, U.S. forces would inflict enough casualties to convince Hanoi it could not prevail by force of arms. A negotiated peace settlement would follow. Or so the generals thought.
''We Were Soldiers'' relates the story of a battalion -- about 400 men -- of the 1st Cavalry Division, dropped into the Central Highlands of South Vietnam to prevent the communist North Vietnamese and Vietcong insurgents from wrestling away control of this strategic region. Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Gibson's character) and his men ended up in a ''hot'' landing zone, ''LZ X-Ray,'' defended by around 2,000 Vietnamese soldiers. Surrounded and outmanned, the U.S. detachment fought for its life.
The battle of the Ia Drang Valley lasted two days and exacted a fearsome toll on both sides: 74 U.S. soldiers killed, and more than ten times that many North Vietnamese. Unfortunately, the mismatch in casualty figures in favor of the American side convinced the Army its operational concept was sound.
Yet there was another side to the story. North Vietnamese forces at Ia Drang had amply demonstrated their tenacity in the face of withering firepower, suggesting that Hanoi would be willing to put up with losses of unfathomable -- to Americans -- proportions in its quest to forcibly unite the country. But that lesson remained unlearned for years after the clash at Ia Drang. U.S. forces continued to seek out conventional battles of attrition in this most unconventional of wars.
So much for the historical angle. Does the movie glorify the Vietnam War, as some critics have charged? No. It's curiously apolitical -- especially in comparison with other, more caustic Vietnam films. The American soldiers portrayed in ''We Were Soldiers'' fought gallantly because their country, locked in a global struggle against communism, asked it of them; their Vietnamese opponents are also portrayed respectfully as serving in what they believed to be a good cause.
Nor did the filmmakers downplay the savagery of close combat. Think of the wrenching D-Day sequence in ''Saving Private Ryan,'' expanded to two hours, and you about have the idea. And images of rows of American body bags and Vietnamese corpses stacked like cordwood scarcely constitute a paean to the glory of armed conflict.
And rightly so. War is a morally dubious enterprise, no matter how just the cause. The ''irony of American history,'' as Reinhold Niebuhr put it in the 1950s, is that the United States has to resort to tainted means -- maintaining, and sometimes using, a vast arsenal -- to protect its lofty principles. What ''We Were Soldiers'' does is show that it's possible for warriors to acquit themselves honorably, even amid this moral ambiguity. Even in the hellish environment of war-torn Indochina.
Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of our troops did just that. It's time for a new stereotype of the Vietnam veteran.
James Holmes is a Fellow in International Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a graduate school co-administered by Tufts and Harvard universities.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, March 17, 2002.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/031702/opi_0317020005.shtml

[Victoria Delsoul]

What ''We Were Soldiers'' does is show that it's possible for warriors to acquit themselves honorably, even amid this moral ambiguity. Even in the hellish environment of war-torn Indochina. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of our troops did just that. It's time for a new stereotype of the Vietnam veteran.

I totally agree.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[SuziQ]

Despite evident manipulation of the successes and the downplaying of failures we have come to accept as wanton contributions to the tragedy, we were there to stem the flow of communism, and we were there to show that we could fight a war of attrition with the Soviets.

Well then, I'd say our time in Vietnam was not a waste.

How successful was the spread of communism in the years after Vietnam? It was pushed in to Africa and South America by the Soviets, but the Reagan administration was tough enough to push back, then up the ante. We're sitting here today with only two REALLY communist countries, North Korea and Cuba. Yes, there are socialist nations all over the globe, including the largest on Earth, but the truly hard-core are limited.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


...After DICK MORRIS' confirming yesterday on National Talk Radio that the CLINTONS did indeed refuse the Sudan President's OSAMA Extradicion Offers during the 1990's...

...we now suddenly see the CLINTON White House Point of Contact for these 3-OSAMA Offers SANDY BERGER coming out and saying it all NEVER HAPPENED =


'SANDY BERGER Defends Decision Not to Extradite Bin LADEN'

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/6/22/140449


NEVER FORGET

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


.."WE WERE SOLDIERS".. Forum =

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8


NEVER FORGET

[ALOHA RONNIE]

Here's a RICK RESCORLA Bump 4-U...

[amom]

Thanks for the heads up here! :-)

[Valin]

To fallen soldiers, let us sing,
Where no rockets fly or bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord

No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night,
Just devine embrace, eternal light
In the Mansions of the Lord

Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard though the angels sleep
Through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord

[ALOHA RONNIE]

'The Mansions of the LORD' =

Composed by RANDALL WALLACE,
former College Theology Student

[Valin]

I love the version they do in the movie, very haunting.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...I love driving around with 'The Mansions of the LORD' just a'playin away in my IA DRANG Licensed Mustang. T'was never in my wildest dreams back in '65.

...Nick Glennie-Smith's outstanding "WE WERE SOLDIERS" Soundtrack is up and ready on Amazon.com as is RANDALL WALLACE's outstanding Screenplay Book.

See the WWS Screenplay Book Link under JOE GALLOWAY's Column Link on:

http://www.lzxray.com

ENJOY.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

...With BILL CLINTON now lyingly telling the American People on CBS' '60 Minutes' that he saw "No Evidence" that he refused offers to bring OSAMA here during the 1990's...

...please see just such EVIDENCE in my Post No. 18 of this Thread ...posted one year ago.

.

[onyx]

Were it not so disgustingly sad, I'd laugh.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

NEVER FORGET

And now RANDALL WALLACE's own "WE WERE SOLDIERS" Hymn 'Mansions of the Lord' and NICK GLENNIE-SMITH'S Movie Sountrack Music are stirringly sung and played at the Washington, D.C. National Cathedral.

...This as President RONNIE REAGAN's Flag-draped Casket is respectfully being carried out of his own Funeral Service before a National TV Audience.

...A Perfect Fit for a President that was every bit a Soldier as we who were standing on the Front Line during the Cold War.

See:

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3520


NEVER FORGET

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT