Hossein Aghababa
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“We Were Soldiers”: Narration of a War
There is not a movie produced so far to cover all the aspects of the Vietnam War. The movie “We Were Soldiers”, however, illustrates major aspects of that ruinous war. This movie is about the Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) and his men from American 7th Air Cavalry who were under siege by North Vietnamese soldiers in La Drang valley a.k.a valley of death. In this movie, Hal Moore is a man of family with religious beliefs. The wives of soldiers and their worries in home at time of war are pictured delicately. A postman with a letter is not a good sign. He may have brought a condolence letter. This movie does not tell the story of soldiers who were not welcome warmly like the movie “First Blood”. There have been some other movies like “The Deer Hunter” or “Rescue Dawn” which partially or fully concentrate on Vietnam War from their own angle of view.
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations [1]. The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People’s Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.
The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state [2]. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962 [3]. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.
U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress [4]. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities.
The movie is “Mel Gibson-ish” in that there is a battlefield with military tactics like his “Patriot” and “Braveheart”. He is a commander with adorable charisma when speaks to his men: “Look around you. In the 7th cavalry, we’ve got a captain from the Ukraine; another from Puerto Rico. We’ve got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, and Cherokee Indians. Jews and Gentiles. All Americans. Now here in the states, some of you in this unit may have experienced discrimination because of race or creed. But for you and me now, all that is gone.” The morphology of an American war is precisely reflected in these statements. America is a land where all religions, creeds, and races live together and also arrive to the war together against enemy. This is like a motto. Another aspect of his personality is his central role in battlefield. He promised his men “I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God.” And he exactly did this.
1.”Vietnam War”. Encyclopædia Britannica.
2.”Learn about the Vietnam War”. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm.
3.Vietnam War Statistics and Facts 1, 25th Aviation Batallion website.
4.Kolko, Gabriel Anatomy of War, pp. 457, 461 ff., ISBN 1-898876-67-3.
