Charley
Mar 2nd, 2002, 12:42:17 PM
I hadn't read the book, sufficely to say, and I went into the theater blind...and I did not know it was about LZ X-Ray. If I'd know....
...I probably couldn't have gone to see it. Its a hard thing to watch. A story that really must be told, especially in light of the stigma of shame over Vietnam, it shows the honor, bravery, and utter sacrifice of not just the men who bled on the battlefield, but the families they left behind. Yes, they didn't know what they were fighting for, and yes, the war was a bad war, and had no objective, and was a tragic loss. But even if our country turned our back on them, they fought for each other. I've known some really good friends who were in Vietnam, and this is the closest I've ever seen...to their story.
Just a warning. This is no Saving Private Ryan, or Thin Red Line. While those movies capture certain aspects of war very well, this is something far more intense. Its far less of the visceral horror of war...and far more the emotional horror. The horror of knowing the people whom you serve with. The horror of losing family, both in the literal sense and military. Equally hard to watch as the gripping battles ont he LZ, were the taxicabs that came to deliver Western Union telegrams to the wives of the fallen. And when you realize that its not only the grunt who loses an arm in a grenade explosion...its also the mother who hears from Western Union that she no longer has a son. It makes war a thing of realism, and I don't think that many people are ready to see it.
But they need to. To not tell the story of the men of the 1st Air Cav batallion, 7th regiment is to shroud their heroism, their sacrifice, in the ignorance that this country has bred on the vietnam war. Its a hard thing, to see what these men have seen. But for the American people, its high time we did, and support our veterans, the way we should have long ago.
...I probably couldn't have gone to see it. Its a hard thing to watch. A story that really must be told, especially in light of the stigma of shame over Vietnam, it shows the honor, bravery, and utter sacrifice of not just the men who bled on the battlefield, but the families they left behind. Yes, they didn't know what they were fighting for, and yes, the war was a bad war, and had no objective, and was a tragic loss. But even if our country turned our back on them, they fought for each other. I've known some really good friends who were in Vietnam, and this is the closest I've ever seen...to their story.
Just a warning. This is no Saving Private Ryan, or Thin Red Line. While those movies capture certain aspects of war very well, this is something far more intense. Its far less of the visceral horror of war...and far more the emotional horror. The horror of knowing the people whom you serve with. The horror of losing family, both in the literal sense and military. Equally hard to watch as the gripping battles ont he LZ, were the taxicabs that came to deliver Western Union telegrams to the wives of the fallen. And when you realize that its not only the grunt who loses an arm in a grenade explosion...its also the mother who hears from Western Union that she no longer has a son. It makes war a thing of realism, and I don't think that many people are ready to see it.
But they need to. To not tell the story of the men of the 1st Air Cav batallion, 7th regiment is to shroud their heroism, their sacrifice, in the ignorance that this country has bred on the vietnam war. Its a hard thing, to see what these men have seen. But for the American people, its high time we did, and support our veterans, the way we should have long ago.