WE WERE SOLDIERS

"Having not ever been embroiled in any serious combat one has to try and access that experience and try and be real with it. I was fortunate in that my character, Hal Moore, is still alive and kicking and he was very generous in letting me see it through his eyes."

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    In 1965 the first major battle between United States and Viet Cong forces was fought. Four hundred American soldiers parachuted into enemy territory in the Ia Drang Valley and found themselves surrounded by 2,000 enemy troops. Facing these overwhelming odds was Harold Moore, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry troops and Joseph Galloway, a Associated Press Reporter assigned to cover the story. There they held their ground for the longest month of their lives.

"But I swear this, before you and before Almighty God. When we go into battle, I will be the first to step onto the field and I will be the last to step off. And I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive. We will all come home. Together." Colonel Harold Moore (We Were Soldiers).

"None of us have slept for three days. We started understrenght, and now we´ve lost more casualties than any regiment, north or south, at Gettysburg. Our enemies are fresh, and their numbers are growing. You ever wonder what Custer was thinking, once he realized just how tough and determined the Sioux were?." Colonel Harold Moore (We Were Soldiers).

    The script is based upon the book "We were soldiers once...and young" by Lt. Gen. Harold G.Moore and Joseph L.Galloway. This great book of military history reveals to us, as rarely before, man´s most heroic and horrendous endeavour.
    The cast of the film was enrolled in boot camp at Ford Benning, Georgia, where the Green Berets and Special Forces train their troops. There Gibson and the gang were getting in shape before they served in director Randall Wallace´s army.

"We did a little boot camp. It wasn´t what the real Rangers do which is so tough. We didn´t have to go there. In fact, I´d have died if I´d had to go there, as they push you to 98 percent of your capacity, if you´re 25. So if you´re 45 and doing it, you´re toast!. So it was a wimp celebrity boot camp but it was still really tough. I´m not saying it was easy, but it was easy compared to what those guys do. We were crawling under live fire at night for 130 yards, keeping your ass down, so you had to use your elbows. Do you know what does that to your insides? It seems like 5 miles! You´re crawling under barbed wire in the mud and jumping over things and doing weapons training and jumping out of helicopters." Mel Gibson.
    Each of the actor, including Madeleine Stowe and Keri Russell, were presented certificates of training completion by Infantry Center Commander Maj. Gen. John LeMoney. Filming got underway March 5, 2001.


  • Mel Gibson.- Lt. Col. Hal Moore
  • Madeleine Stowe.- Julie Moore
  • Greg Kinnear.- Maj. Bruce Crandall
  • Sam Elliott.- Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley
  • Chris Klein .- 2nd Lt. Jack Geoghegan
  • Keri Russell.- Barbara Geoghegan
  • Barry Pepper.- Joe Galloway


CAST
  • Don Duong.- Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An
  • Ryan Hurst.- Sgt. Ernie Savage
  • Robert Bagnell.- 1st Lt. Charlie Hastings
  • Marc Blucas.- 2nd Lt. Henry Herrick
  • Josh Daugherty.- Sp4 Robert Ouellette
  • Jsu Garcia.- Capt. Tony Nadal
  • Jon Hamm.- Capt. Matt Dillon

    "We Were Soldiers" opened in February 2002, most critics were impressed and the film made a fair amount at the box office.

"Flesh and blood only takes you so far, and there´s no such things as an atheist in a foxhole. It requires something more than your own human effort to get through that, so you have to call on something greater than yourself." Mel Gibson.





WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE AND... YOUNG

"We discovered in that depressing, hellish place, where death was our constant companion, that we loved each other. We killed for each other, we died for each other, and we wept for each other. And in time we came to love each other as brothers. In battle our world shrank to the man on our left and the man on our right and the enemy all around. We held each other´s lives in our hands and we learned to share our fears, our hopes, our dreams as readily as we shared what little else good came our way.", from "WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE...AND YOUNG"



FATHERS, BROTHERS, HUSBANDS & SONS

"Even in a just cause, I´d still hate to send my kids to war. I´d rather go myself than send them. I believe there are just causes for defending or bring aggressive. I mean, if people hadn´t been ready to defend all those things we take for granted, then where would we be? But I couldn´t face sending off my children."
  • Director.- Randall Wallace
  • Scriptwriter.- Randall Wallace
  • Director of Photography.- Dean Semler
  • Music.- Nick Glenne Smith
  • Editor.- William Hoy
  • Production Designer.- Tom Sanders
  • Casting by Amanda Mackey Johnson
  • Producers.- Bruce Davey, Stephen McEveety, Randall Wallace
  • Executive Producers.- Jim Lemley, Arne L. Schmidt
  • Country.- USA

"General Moore is a man of great faith who believes in something greater than himself, and it´s the only way you can get through stuff like that. When your back´s against the wall and you haven´t eaten, drunk or slept for three days and people are trying to kill you, and you have to prevail somehow."





HAROLD G. MOORE commanded the 1st Batallion, 7th Calvary in the Ian Drang Valley and served six more months in Vietnam, commanding the 3rd Brigade. On January 31, 1966, The New York Times profiled Moore as "Tha Man Who Can Find the Viet Cong". He pressed for another assigment to troop command in Vietnam, only to be told that he had already had his turn. Moore commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, was commanding general at Fort Ord, California, and then was the Army´s deputy Chief of Staff for personnel. Moore retired in August 1977, with thirty-two years´service. He and his wife have five grown children: sons Steve, Dave and Greg; and daughters Cecile and Julie.

"Moore said Hollywood got it wrong every time, sharpening their twisted political knives on the bones of our dead brothers and that wasn't the war they fought. Usually war films are about the Vietnam conflict focus on the very negative aspect of it, drug use, and all that kind of stuff. The film doesn't only focus on the American point of view. It looks at it from the North Vietnamese point of view as well. It's almost impartial in that way. There's kind of a compassion and an understanding of both sides and what they're both doing. They're both trying to do the same thing."



"Flesh and blood only takes you so far, and there´s no such thing as an atheist in a fixhole. It requires something more than your own human effort to get through that, so you have to call on something greater than yourself."

"My goal is to make a movie that will make Moore, Galloway and everybody who served in Vietnam proud. I want America to embrace this film. These were extraordinary men doing extraordinary things. It´s most important to Randy and me to be true to the book."
Mel Gibson

"It's a very compelling story. They were ordinary people in a extraordinary situation and what we're doing, I think, is making a living monument, like a moving monument on film to these guys."



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