[OT] We Were Soldiers

MINOR SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen it, 
this discusses briefly a couple of things that 
happen.

Brian, 

I saw WWS, and then within an hour of getting 
home, an episode (on PBS) of (I think) Soldier's 
Story called "The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley" 
which had Hal Moore, Crandall, the Sgt. from 
the detached platoon, etc. and the reporter. 
They showed real footage. Interesting points:
1) terrain looked identical to that in the movie 
(or very very close), 2) events like the Napalm 
strike, the platoon chasing off, Crandall hurling, 
etc were all apparently real, 3) They showed the 
fight for X-ray but not the ambush that 2/7th 
Cav took on the way to Albany following the 
fight at X-ray, which was a pretty bad slaughter 
for the US (they lost a lot of guys), 4) I was 
very interested to note that they had someone 
storm an anthill, throw grenades, and shoot up 
the MG team behind it, but they didn't mention 
that in the real world, he got the CMH for his 
actions! (Must have offended the producer or 
something... he was on the documentary). 

So, it looks like they actually took what the guys 
who were there said about the battle to heart. 
Good or bad tactics, they appear to be 
somewhat like what actually happened. 

One of the funny parts was one of the officers 
(a Captain, the guy who had to go for the lost 
platoon) mentioned that he thought he was 
calm until he issued an order to fix bayonets 
and the NCO told him to calm down, that was 
the FIFTH time he'd given that order....

Interesting story, worth seeing movie. Especially 
notable in that it didn't seem to villify the North 
Vietnamese. 

Tomb. 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. 
[The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.]
-- Tacitus