We Were Soldiers

Randall Wallace adapted the 1992 book Hal Moore wrote with reporter Joseph L. Galloway, who also appears as a character. Moore complains in it that every Hollywood movie got this war wrong; Wallace has said that line is why he set out to get it right. The ending is not in the book. On screen a charge led by Moore breaks the enemy reserve and ends the battle in American victory; Wallace says in his commentary that he added it. The fighting actually went on the next day at Landing Zone Albany. The home front material is documented. The Army was having death telegrams delivered by taxi drivers; in the film the commander’s wife Julia takes that over. It also opens in 1954, not 1965, with a French column ambushed and the opposing commander given the first line. The base scenes were shot at the real Fort Benning in Georgia, while Fort Hunter Liggett in California stood in for the Ia Drang valley, its ground taken as a dead ringer. Worldwide the film took $115.4 million. A good fit if you want the battlefield and the kitchen table cut against each other, the telegrams passing hand to hand on screen. Not for you if you want the engagement as history; the charge that ends it was written for the film.