Understand Before You Criticize

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2002)

I'm amazed at how so many people who obviously consider themselves liberal and open minded are criticizing We Were Soldiers--a movie that really let's the viewer walk in another's shoes (pardon the cliche) . . .

We Were Soldiers conjures emotions and memories strong enough to build fifty thousand reviews. From experience and fist hand accounts, We Were Soldiers accurately depicts life on base and on the front. For those of us too young to have fought, but old enough to remember, powerful and painful images persist. Be ready to relive pain.
Sometimes my dad still pulls out the picture of his flight class, and calls the names of the men who died in the war as if asking them to suddenly appear. I dare any of you who criticize the vets or the nation that fought that war to ask a vet to pull out his class picture and show you the men who died.
I hope one day you'll shake with their fear. I hope one day you'll appreciate their sacrifice for your arrogance, and realize that without the US the "Lingue France" of Paris would be Russian. Do you not realize that the Killing Fields of Cambodia were a direct result of the world's unwillingness to confront communism? Such arrogant ignorance once cost the world millions of lives (see, for example, Why Communism Kills by Schwartz) and such ignorant criticism will cost the world millions more one day.

War is an ugly thing--uglier still is the man who criticizes his defenders; the selfish, cowardly man-child who has no cause greater than himself. If there's nothing you'll die for, you may surely one day die for nothing.
I remember little from my young days living on Air Force bases in the early 1970s. I do remember wondering when my dad would come home. I do remember "those cars" with an officer and a priest (I remember specifically that my mom couldn't look at them), and I do remember some kids not coming to class anymore. I thank God I didn't know what those cars were for, and for not understanding why my friend Jimmy suddenly left the base.

As for cliches, perhaps lines are used in so many war movies because they are really used--there are only so many ways to express the horror and pain of suddenly loosing a friend, or realizing you're about to die. What will you miss my liberal friends? Your dolphin?
Ask any soldier--every unit has at least one nut just like the "I am proud to die for my country" idiot. And, as that child on a military base, I can recall asking my dad what a war was. Although I think like many of you that the laundry reference was shallow and could have been done much better, it did serve to illustrate how racism largely died in the military long ago. It is amazing to me how liberal civilians have succeeded in keeping it around so long.
We Were Soldiers demonstrates Vietnam in a new and refreshing way--soldiers were not butchers of civilians or drug-addicts. They were human. They had ideals. They feared. They were heros. Many still fight that war, and this movie (and review) is for them.