Please answer the following question: Build a movie plot around this: What do the telegrams notify the next kin of soldiers of? deaths in combat
Answer:
A French unit on patrol in Vietnam in 1954, during the final year of the First Indochina War, is ambushed by Viet Minh forces, probably the Battle of Mang Yang Pass. Viet Minh commander Nguyen Huu An orders his soldiers to "kill all they send, and they will stop coming".Eleven years later, the U.S. is fighting the Vietnam War. U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) is chosen to train and lead a battalion. After arriving in Vietnam, he learns that an American base has been attacked, and is ordered to take his 400 men after the enemy and eliminate the North Vietnamese attackers, despite the fact that intelligence has no idea of the number of enemy troops. As the haunting lament "Sgt. MacKenzie" plays, Moore leads a newly created air cavalry unit into the Ia Drang Valley. After landing in the "Valley of Death", the soldiers learn that the location they were sent to is actually the base camp for a veteran North Vietnamese army division of 4,000 men.Upon arrival in the area with a platoon of soldiers, 2nd Lt. Henry Herrick spots an enemy scout, runs after him, and orders reluctant soldiers to follow. The North Vietnamese scout lures them into an ambush, resulting in several men being killed, including Lt. Herrick and his subordinates. The surviving platoon members are surrounded with no chance of retreat. Sgt. Savage assumes command, calls in artillery, and uses the cover of night to keep the Vietnamese from overrunning their small defensive position. Meanwhile, with helicopters constantly dropping off units, Lt. Col. Moore manages to secure weak points before the North Vietnamese can take advantage of them.On the second day, despite being trapped and desperately outnumbered, the main U.S. force manages to hold off the North Vietnamese with artillery, mortars, and helicopter airlifts of supplies and reinforcements. Eventually, North Vietnamese commander Nguyen Huu An orders a large-scale attack on the American position.At the point of being overrun by the enemy and with no options left, Moore...