R. Schwab

This was a surprisingly accurate description of the battle of Ia Drang and showed Hal Moore to be the hero he was. It's a shame the whole movie was accompanied by funeral music as so many (inaccurate Liberal) Vietnam movies are. It also had a great deal of drama which I Never felt in two years there as a Green Beret and as a LOH helicopter pilot. The result was a difficult win with the NVA sacrificing as many as ten deaths for each American one. They really did not care how many people they lost. No one emphasizes this. With 400 against 4,000 Moore held them to a stand off and then forced their loss. Artillery and bombing was very successful as were B-52 strikes which they fail to mention. This movie accurately shows a ratio of about 10 to 1 deaths as were almost all the battles there except Tet which was an incredible route for the NVA. In a country with about 16 million people the Communists were willing to lose almost two million of their men to fight to a stalemate which the Democrats walked away from. At least the movie was pretty accurate. Most aren't. 11 of 12 GIs there didn't even know it was going on, worked in support, weren't issued weapons and were mainly bored and lonely away from home. Both years I was there more people died on our highways than died in the whole 20 years of the War.