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Films >> We Were Soldiers (2002) >>

Missing the Political Realities
By Thomas Bianchi, with comment by Nate Macon

We Were Soldiers does an outstanding job of re-visioning the Vietnam War. It also takes into account the heroism of the American soldier, specifically Col. Hal Moore, prior to the societal distress caused by the Vietnam War. This focus, although a great representation of the American spirit, results in a direct lack of addressing the reasons why we are fighting. David Ansen explains in his movie review, "In We Were Soldiers the question of whether we should have been in Vietnam in the first place is never asked.” The issue of America’s moral responsibility to lay out justification behind the constant and ongoing bloody battle scenes is never clearly explored. Aside from a brief explanation by two random military...
Getting It Right: A Vietnam Film for Vietnam Veterans
By Nate Macon

“We knew what Vietnam had been like, and how we looked and acted and talked and smelled. No one in America did. Hollywood got it wrong every damned time, whetting twisted political knives on the bones of our dead brothers.”
- Lt. Gen. Harold ‘Hal’ Moore and Joseph Galloway, Prologue to We Were Soldiers Once, and Young
“American soldiers in battle don’t fight for what some president says on TV, they don’t fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag . . . they fight for each other.”
-Lt. Gen. Hal Moore Interview in DVD...