|
I quit
watching Viet Nam movies. All of them cynical, with thinly
veiled tut-tutting that left
me more pissed-off than inspired. Oliver Stone values; not John Ford's.
Last Friday, by chance, I stumbled over We Were Soldiers Once, and Young (2002).
I'm the last male in the room who hadn't seen it, I reckon. I may
have read the book, but forget; I've read so many. We Were Soldiers stars Mel
Gibson as Lt. Col Harold G. Moore, in a film about the initial
battle of Ia Drang Valley in
1965. I got caught up in it. Saturday morning I was
compelled to watch it again.
The telegram sequences were poignant; the battle scenes intense,
and
believable. This is by far the bloodiest war film I've ever seen.
Intense? The Pop-Tart in my hand at the beginning was uneaten and
crumbled as the credits rolled. There must have been 500
gross of
blood packs used in it's making.
The First Bn. of the 7th Air Cav ( once Custer's command) killed
1800 of 4000 Vietnamese soldiers to
72 out of 395 American fatal casualties It was the
American fighting
man at his best. I had a good movie hangover
afterwards. Sense of
well-being; I dunno, hope? Calm? Pride? Satisfaction and
pride?
Unlike every post-war film about Viet Nam I've seen, this was uplifting
and positive. I remember that John Wayne made The Green Berets
(1968) partly to counter the leftist message of failure and doom that
was by then pervasive in the media. This, 34 years later, is the
second attempt.
| “
|
The
book was adapted into the movie We Were Soldiers, directed by
Randall Wallace and starring Mel Gibson as Moore. In the book, Moore
complains that "Every damn Hollywood movie got it wrong"; Wallace has
said he was inspired by this comment and became "determined to get it
right this time." [Wikipedia]
|
” |
I just tonight watched it a third
time.
On Sunday, at my granddaughter's second birthday party, I was talking
with my son-in-laws step-dad. Turns out we're the same age, and
had
many of the same experiences. He was turned down by the Army
because
of a medical problem, but his brother was in Nam. Fought at, "was it Pork Chop Hill?"
No, I said that was Korea. I mentioned that I'd just watched a
movie
about IA Trang Valley and he jumped, "That's it." He was in that
first
battle (it went on for 300 days). His brother said the movie was pretty
damned accurate.
| “
|
The
Vietnamese government did not greet the film with approval. In fact,
Don Duong the Vietnamese actor, who played the Vietnamese commander Lt.
Col. Nguyen Huu An, was officially condemned as a traitor, subjected to
interrogations to force him to sign a "confession" to "crimes" he had
supposedly committed. Duong refused to give in. After months of
negotiations between the Bush White House and Hanoi, Duong and his
family were allowed to immigrate to the United States in 2003.[Ibid]
|
” |
Anyway, when I began watching tonight, I was very
wound up over all the same things that you are upset
over. When it ended, I was again filled with a certain
calm. I don't know why. I may have to watch it every day from now
on.
|
|
|
A New York
Democrat voting to cut spending? In fact, the budget was not cut
one cent in this amendment. The
