We Were Soldiers

“These are the true events of November, 1965… the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam…” This is the first thing you hear as the movie, We Were Soldiers, opens on a dry deserted valley. If you were to ask Davidson and Lytle if this movie was authentic they would probably say no. It follows all of the war movie clichés, such as the unwounded-well-rounded-colonel, the American victory, the morals, and the heart-wrenching emotions it evokes. We can deduce this by reading the excerpt “Where Trouble Comes”. They talk about how certain directors will make choices to make the story seem better and to sell the movie, “…directors and screenwriters will tinker with the plot and characters until the story provides them with what they need.” (Where Trouble Comes”, 404.) The movie itself seems exactly that, until you watch the behind the scenes bonus feature titled “We Were Soldiers: Getting it Right”. Here the director explains he wanted to “get it right” because no Vietnam movie has yet to do so. The Author of the book the movies is based on agrees and is satisfied that the directors follow the story and try not to stray from the book, but who’s to say this book is authentic?
The battle of the Ia Drang valley was the first battle where the Viet Cong were directly fighting Americans, and it lasted for 56 hours straight ending in an American victory. This is the basic plot of the movie and it is factually correct. But what wasn’t factually correct was a multitude of things. The actual conversations, the love stories (although I’m sure they had wives and families waiting for them), and the way the battle actually took place. The movie even shows the Viet Cong plotting their attacks. How would the American Army have any clue what conversations these Vietnamese men had with each other? This was probably added to round out the plot, or some other crazy artistic decision.
Something that Davidson and Lytle mention, is that mythical war stories always show the enemy as vicious and the Americans as the superior ones. In We Were Soldiers there are quite a few scenes that humanize the VC soldiers, in example a young soldier writing in a journal that holds a picture of his wife and gets brutally murdered, later the Colonel mails the wife a letter telling her he was an honorable man.
This movie may be an exaggeration of the truth but it's still the truth.