We Were Soldiers (2002)

We Were Soldiers (2002)

Release Date: 1 March 2002 (USA)
Quality: DVDRip[ENG]
Language: English | Vietnamese | French
Runtime: 138 min
Director: Randall Wallace
Company: Icon Entertainment International, Motion Picture Production GmbH & Co. Erste KG, Wheelhouse Entertainment
Movie Info: IMDb
Cast: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott, Chris Klein, Keri Russell, Barry Pepper, Duong Don, Ryan Hurst, Robert Bagnell, Marc Blucas, Josh Daugherty
Genre: Action | History | War
Watch: Trailer
Size: 699MB

Plot: A French Army unit is on patrol in Vietnam in 1954 during the First Indochina War. The captain of the patrol curses the land when they see nothing. Then, the unit is suddenly ambushed by Vietminh forces who kill the officers and, although the unit kills many Vietminh, it is eventually overrun. Nguyen Huu An, hypothesising that if they take no prisoners the French will eventually stop sending troops, orders the execution of all surviving French soldiers.

Eleven years later, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson), a dedicated U.S. soldier, is deeply committed to training his troops, who are preparing to be sent to Vietnam. The night before their departure, the unit's officers hold a party to celebrate. Moore learns from a superior officer that his unit will be known as the 1st Battalion / 7th cavalry regiment. He is disquieted because the 7th Cavalry regiment was the unit commanded by General George Custer in the 19th Century when he and his men were slaughtered at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Moore is also dismayed because President Lyndon B. Johnson has decreed that the war would be fought "on the cheap," without declaring it a national emergency. As a result, Moore believes he will be deprived of his oldest, best-trained soldiers (a formal declaration of war would have meant mobilization and extension of the terms of enlistment for volunteer soldiers) - about 25% of his battalion - just prior to shipping out for Vietnam. Before leaving for Vietnam, Moore delivers a touching speech to his unit:

"Look around you, in the 7th Cavalry,we got a Captain from the Ukraine, another from Puerto Rico, we got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indian, Jews and Gentiles, all American. Now here in the States some men in this unit may experience discrimination because of race or creed, but for you and me now, all that is gone. We're moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours, and you won't care what color he is or by what name he calls God. Let us understand the situation we're goin into battle against a tough and determined enemy. I can't promise you that I will bring you all home alive, but this I swear: When we go into battle, I will be the first one 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 all come home together. So help me God."

After arriving in Vietnam, he learns that an American base has been attacked, and is ordered to take his 395 men after the enemy and eliminate them, despite the fact that intelligence has no idea of the number of enemy troops. He leads a newly created air cavalry unit into the Ia Drang Valley against over 4,000 well equipped enemy soldiers.

An emotional toll is taken back home, where Moore's wife Julie (Madeleine Stowe) and another soldier's wife take over the job of delivering telegrams that inform families (mainly wives like themselves) living at Fort Benning, Georgia, the unit's base of operation, of soldiers' deaths.