One of the best

Rating: 10/10 (24 March 2002)

I was a young helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and this movie is the first Vietnam movie I've seen that's not leftist anti-vet propaganda, with an overdose of whining soldiers and crazed officers. Instead, it turned out to be the best war movie I've seen, for at least two reasons: (1) it's a rare factual account (like Patton) - the events and people are real, and therefore are far more compelling than any imaginary story could ever be, and (2) the movie's realism - it accurately depicts what it was like to be a soldier and a helicopter pilot in battle in Vietnam, complete with having to put up with some of the cowards in the rear who never got their uniforms dirty. I can't find the words to respond to those who obviously never flew over or fought in Vietnam who claim to know the vegetation and scenery well enough to be critical of the movie in that regard.
No movie can ever possibly recreate in a viewer the true intensity of the fear of taking fire and how to function in battle over extended periods of time spite of it, but that's all it lacked. The movie also helps explain why men don't normally talk of such battles, because the movie makes it so easy to see why words would fail them.
Since the film is about the ultimate sacrifice each man depicted in the movie knew he may have to make, it also rightfully and poignantly shows what it was like for his also very real family waiting and hoping he would come home. And what it was like to arrive home and open the door and look at your wife again, a day you weren't sure would ever happen. Those who trivialize those scenes as Hollywood sappiness just don't understand, and have never been there. If anything, the movie is not dramatic enough.
At a fundamental level the movie is really about what it's like to fight for your country on any of history's fearsome battlefields, and how important it is to have smart and courageous battlefield leadership, and the difference one man can make. No movie I've seen has done that better. Indeed, that is no doubt why the movie took the time to show the human face of the North Vietnamese soldiers, and to show that they too had courage and families who missed them.
Those who have written to bash the US and this movie have apparently failed to appreciate that the movie is really about the heroism of their own nation's soldiers who have with similar bravery and sacrifice fought for their country, as the movie made no claim that the valor depicted was unique to the American military of the 1960's. I think few battlefield veterans of any nation would think this a poor movie. A 10 out of 10.