NEWS ANALYSIS, MARCH 9, 2002

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On March 1, 2002, "We Were Soldiers," a movie about the Vietnam War was opened for the first time all over the United States. The movie was written and directed by Randall Wallace who also wrote "Braveheart." The movie "We Were Soldiers" is based on the memoir by Lt. Colonel Harold G. Moore in which he recounts the bloody battle at Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands of the former Republic of (South) Vietnam. The film has attracted a large audience, and made more than 20 million dollars at box offices in the first week.

Many Americans and maybe people in other countries greatly welcome the motion pictures that illustrate the scenes of combat as they really were and honor the sacrifice of the American soldiers fighting the Vietnam War, who were defamed by a large number of their American fellow citizens when they came back from Vietnam. As the American public was infected with international Communist propaganda venom, American Vietnam veterans have long been misunderstood in their homeland, some even treated as villains, even as murderers in the lofty war against the Communist North Vietnam to save the free South Vietnam. The film brings a new light to reveal the truth of the American soldier's soul and spirit, not only their flesh and blood, on the screens at least.

Mel Gibson, who has also been famous in "Braveheart," is playing Lt. Colonel Moore. He is approved by the audience in the overseas Vietnamese community as a talented actor by his manners of a brave commander, a typical American officer but exceptionally brave and decisive. His characters and actions in combat is more than any statement eulogizing the willing to fight and high morale of the forgotten American heroes.

"We Were Soldiers" reconstructs the image of a typical fearless military commander with Colonel Moore promising that he would be the first to step on the battle field and the last to step off. And he has done just that. Though none in the movie intended for political purpose, the whole thing exudes a fragrance of patriotism, or at least a sense of duty: performing what you are required to do by your country.

The pictures are closer to combat realities, especially to Americans and Vietnamese who had been fighting battles like one in the Ia Drang Valley, the very thinly populated jungle region southwest of Pleiku province, south of National Highway 19 and east of the common borders with Cambodia. The 1st Air Cavalry Division launched the operation in Ia Drang Valley after its force had been supporting the RVN soldiers fighting the North Vietnamese regiment that attacked Plei Me, a Special Force base to the east of Ia Drang on October 19, 1965. The Ia Drang operation started October 27, and after minor contacts with NVA troops, Lt. Colonel Moore and his 1/7 Battalion engaged a bloody battle that lasted three days.

Probably for technical reasons of the film directing, Moore is seen engaging in many close range shooting with his M-16 as if he were a platoon leader, without his battalion staff by his side, fighting the enemy soldiers sometimes at about 20 yards. A battalion commander seldom acts like that for hours, except in a battle where his battalion strength has been reduced by the enemy fire to, let's say, less than 30 percent, leaving only scores of soldiers who are still able to fight.

The presence of Moore's wife and children in the film is an important part of the story. Very few movies like this one that shows the profound relation between the young men at the battle thousands of miles far away and their relatives in military housing at Fort Benning, Ga. In fact, the soldiers' dependents are a part of any war, who share with other civilians the larger part of war sorrow but a little of war glory. The taxi with Western Union envelopes containing the lifeless official letter "regret to inform..." and Mrs. Moore, who volunteers to deliver the mail, strongly reminds the Vietnamese veterans of the South Vietnamese military wives of all ages, old and young, cried and fainted the same way when the dreadful messages arrived.

The Vietnamese widows even suffered much more than their allied soldiers' wives. The images of the Vietnamese war widows with toddlers on their arms, a white mourning bands around their heads, their eyes hollow and eyelids blackened from sleepless nights an endless crying, if shown in similar movies could have viewers shed much more tears. It's worth mentioning that the wives and children of their enemy soldiers in North Vietnam suffered much more than that: Relatives of most of the 1.1 million NVA fallen soldiers have never received such a letter.

Therefore, Vietnamese émigrés feel much relieved in the movie. It has been successful in restoring due respect from the American public who have long forgotten their heroes in Vietnam, and so indirectly asserting the honors of the RVN soldiers. For years, Communist propaganda with slanderous techniques have distorted the true images of an army that had bravely fought the war like any soldiers in the world.

In "We Were Soldiers," the RVN soldiers do not appear because it was based on the true story recounting the fighting of an all-American unit. So it reflects only the operations of the Communist soldiers and the GIs in the 1/7th Cavalry of the 1st Airmobile Division. The director could do only that much.

Unlike many other Hollywood production about the Vietnam War, the Communist soldiers in "We Were Soldiers" appear closer to realities. They use the Vietnamese language the way ethnic North Vietnamese dialect and in a style full of political terms. But other scenes do not resemble the true pictures of the fighting men on the other side.

The North Vietnamese commander, a lieutenant colonel, is played by Don Duong, who was praised in his "Cyclo," a movie directed and produced by a Vietnamese émigré and filmed in Vietnam. But his stature and figure in the role of the NVA colonel in We Were Soldiers are far different from that of an NVA commander in war. It is absolutely certain that in the war, none of NVA officers was so fleshy and businessman-like, due to years of hardships and malnutrition in the jungle environment.

He looks too handsome and too fleshy to play one of the NVA officers, in 1965. They might be fat and look healthier only after 1975 when they began to get well-fed with sufficient nutritious food.

The NVA officers were strictly prohibited from wearing rank or other insignias as those who appear in the movie, but their insignias might be needed to help foreign viewers identify the NVA lieutenant colonel and others beside him as an enemy commander and his staff officers.

Electric light in the tunnel is an impossible in such battle environment. Small generators and electric lights existed only in field hospitals installed deeply underground sites on the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trails. But again, for the convenience of the movie makers, it is acceptable.

North Vietnamese soldiers' combat gear in the film look like actual NVA uniforms. But a dozen other Communist troops probably representing the Communist local guerrillas of the so-called Viet Cong, are wearing conic hats. "VC in conic hats" is the most serious mistake in fake pictures depicting the VC troops in the Vietnam War. The VC fighters "never" wore conic hats in combat. They used soft hats made by thick cotton cloth.

Another flaw in the movie is at the beginning. The scene of a French Legionnaire unit ambushed and butchered by the Viet Minh troops might have helped the Americans compare the French army conditions with that of the American ground forces in Vietnam. It serves that purpose partly. But it also misleads people who have little idea about the Vietnam War into associating the behavior of the American GIs with the French Legionaries.

The French soldiers before 1954 had been applying "terreur blanche" (white terrors) to frighten their enemy and scare the peasants away from the Viet Minh (burning the whole village, raping any woman, killing any Viet Minh suspect by head chopping, eviscerating, torturing..) Scores of My Lai-styled massacres were committed by French soldiers during the 9 years of the 1946-54 war. Consequently, terrorism fostered undying animosity against the French and boosted very high willing to fight in most Vietnamese patriots.

The Americans , besides some cases of raping and the My Lai massacre (with a case done by a South Korean unit), have been appraised as well disciplined troops, much better than the French and second only to the Australians . But the Communist side strove every way possible to make up sensational and slanderous stories to arouse people's vengeance against the Americans, and Hanoi won that war of propaganda. People who only saw GIs in pictures, would have believed that the American soldiers, clad in similar uniforms, with the same color of eyes, hair and skin, must have acted the same way the French did.

Therefore, the scene of the Legionnaire fighting is somehow unfavorable to the aloft objective of recovering the true image of the American soldiers. Hanoi may permit We Were Soldiers to be shown in Vietnam after editing to get rid of some scenes or even mistranslate some words Hanoi censors don't like.

Despite some small mistakes, the movie is worth watching to anyone, Vietnamese and American veterans, former war supporters or protesters.

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