We Were Soldiers

By Anthony Quinn

08 March 2002

The first casualty is truth

There is a new tendency in Hollywood war movies, discernible first in  Black Hawk Down and now in We Were Soldiers,  a  blood-and-guts  account  of the first major battle of the Vietnam War in November 1965. These films ply the basic war-is-hell line but artfully smudge the geopolitical context in  which the conflict is being waged. American troops are seen  fighting  with  courage and distinction on  foreign  soil;  why  they  are  there  at  all  isn't  a  question pursued very closely. They're just soldiers  doing  their  job,  looking  out  for their companions. Professionalism,  not  patriotism,  is  now  the  watchword, though this film isn't entirely capable of telling the difference.

Written and directed by Randall Wallace (who wrote  Braveheart  but  also, alas, Pearl Harbor), We  Were  Soldiers  also  continues  the  hyperrealistic presentation of men under fire that since Saving Private  Ryan  has  been  a sine qua non of the  modern  war  movie.  We  are  now  braced  to  expect horrific close-ups of  exit  wounds  spouting  crimson  plumes,  of  burned  or lacerated flesh; even the camera screen is flecked with arterial blood.  Before the chaos busts loose, however, the film attempts to share the focus around a little. So while Mel Gibson takes centre-stage  as  Lt-Col  Hal  Moore,  with Sam Elliott as his gruff, grizzled Sergeant Major, we are  also  reminded  that soldiers are family men, too. Back in Fort Benning, Georgia,  Moore  has  an adoring wife, Julie (Madeleine Stowe) and   several  young  children,  one  of whom asks, with saucer-eyed innocence, "Daddy, what is war?"

He's certainly the right  man  to  ask.  Moore (on whose book, co-written by Joseph Galloway,  the  film  is  based)  is  a  historian  of  warfare,  and  sees ominous precedents in commanding the First Battalion of  the  7th  Cavalry – this was General Custer's regiment. He knows, too, that the Ia Drang Valley, where they are soon to be dispatched, was the  site  of a massacre of French forces 10 years before. But decisions have been made,  first  in  Washington, then at military HQ in Saigon, and the 7th Cavalry ready themselves  for  "the Valley of Death".  Wallace  acquaints  us  with  a  handful  of  Moore's  men, including Greg Kinnear  as  a  helicopter  flying-ace  and  Chris  Klein  as  an idealistic young 2nd lieutenant, and makes  much  of  the  Big  Chief's  stirring appeals to his soldiers as multiracial brothers-in-arms – Jews and blacks  are specifically welcomed into the fold. It would be as well to  remember  at  this point that this is the South in the 1960s, and such retrospective  massaging of racial prejudice affronts plausibility, even if you buy the idea of  Moore  as  a charismatic father-figure.

In fact, the film  pretends  to  an  even  greater  inclusiveness.  In  the  book's prologue,  Moore and Galloway salute not only their fallen comrades, but the hundreds  of young North Vietnamese soldiers killed in the battle: "They, too, fought and  died  bravely.  They  were  a worthy enemy. We who killed them pray that their bones  were  recovered  from  that wild, desolate place where we   left  them,  and  taken  home  for  decent  and  honourable  burial." Fine sentiments, which Wallace apparently took to  heart  as  he  was  writing  the script – "I'm telling the story of soldiers on  both  sides, " he  says in the press notes. But is he? Once the choppers swoop down and disgorge the men into the valley, the camera stays almost entirely within the American lines, offering only a brief, occasional foray into the subterranean HQ of the Vietcong forces.

Down here Lt-Col Ahn (Don Duong) prepares his men for battle, though the hectoring staccato of his voice is a poor match for the  air  of  calm  authority around his opposite number Moore, a man who has  vowed  that  he  will be first on to the battlefield and the last to leave. The Vietcong  may  have  been "a worthy enemy",  but  for  the  purposes  of  this  movie  they're  simply  an overwhelming horde to be mown down or blasted to atoms by American fire power. Later in the  battle,  we witness a soldier – listed in the cast as "NVA Soldier with  Bayonet"  –  take  a  lingering  look  at  the  photograph  of   his sweetheart inside the  pages  of  his  diary.  The  reward  for  being  the  only enemy soldier individually  acknowledged  is  to  be  shot dead, mid-bayonet charge, by the vigilant Lt-Col Moore himself.

The ambush to which the 7th Cavalry fell victim finds  a  tragic  echo  back at Fort Benning, where telegrams (thoughtlessly delivered by taxi cab)  arrive to inform soldiers' wives that, suddenly, they are widows. The best scene in  the film comes when Madeleine Stowe, holding a bad-news telegram, knocks  at the screen door of her best friend Barbara  (Keri Russell),  who  immediately assumes   that  Stowe's  husband  is  dead.  The  way  Barbara's  expression switches  from  appalled relief to recognition – the telegram is actually for her – has a truthful and ghastly poignancy. Yet the film can't resist cheapening the device as a harbinger of doom. As Stowe is  waiting  at  home  she  sees  (or perhaps hears) a taxi pull up at  the  kerb outside;  a  knock  is  heard  at  the door and, in fear and trembling,  she  goes  to  open  it.  Of course  –  you've guessed   –  it's  not  a  man  with  a  telegram,  but  her  marvellous  husband standing  there,  though  not  so  marvellous that he thought of phoning ahead and telling her he was coming home. Come on, Hal, it's good to talk.

We  Were  Soldiers  is  fundamentally  dishonest,   both   in   its   sentimental calculation and its vaunting of  the  idea  that  it's  "for  soldiers  everywhere". While it pretends not to bang the drum for patriotism, images of the flag keep fluttering across the screen,  and  when  crisis  looms  we  are  still  invited  to watch Mel Gibson rise heroically to action – the difference being that,  where he was once the scourge of colonialist scoundrels in Braveheart and The Patriot, here he leads a line of invaders. Gibson is solid, in a  marquee-name way, though his expressions of tearful remorse aren't the saving ambiguity the film   imagines  them  to  be.  It  may  have  been  part  of  Randall  Wallace's intention not to pitch the  film  exclusively  to  Americans,  but  it's  principally Americans who are going to enjoy it.