Vietnamese soldiers who vastly outnumbered the americans(4000 to almost 400).
Hard to believe my government when inflated body counts were the norm. I can still remember Walter Cronkite reporting that 400 North Vietnamese commies were killed to our 18.
"We Were Soldiers" however, demonstrates the futility of such a benchmark of success: how many of them did we kill? "We Were Soldiers" openly questions the body count strategy. The US went into a strategically worthless area in search of killing as many of the enemy as possible. A lot of US soldiers died, and lot of North Vietnamese soldiers died, and then the US abandoned the battlefield. As the movie says, the Army declared it a victory because more of them died; but what was the point of it all? Did the US "victory" at Ia Drang get us any closer to ultimate success, or was it just a lot of pointless death and destruction?
lewrockwell.com 
Vietnam war crimes hearings.
LAUGHLIN: My units never took up this practice, and I don't now how many did.
The fact that it was promulgated in jungle warfare school I think is indicative of the feeling at the time: Okay, yes, we can't put out official policy to cut off people's ears. Our unit was guilty of throwing dead bodies on our APCs until it came down as a policy that we couldn't throw dead bodies under the APCs and parade them through town any more. That was a policy that was stopped about 3/4's through my tour. But the severing of members, I never saw it, but I heard it. It was a definite, informal, unwritten policy.
RYAN: Was the BODY COUNT exaggeration of finding 197 when there was actually 13, was that typical of the way the count was reported in your experience?
LAUGHLIN: In my opinion it was. I think the body count was used as a measure of success in Vietnam, a measure of a general's, a commander's success. They made every opportunity to get the BC.
members.aol.com
A, supposedly accurate movie, is no harbinger of movie 'goodness'.
OOPS, I guess I'm looking for an argument. Sorry. No movies of late of any interest. Enjoyed Lord of the Rings but the King of the Elves should not have been a Matrix clone. |
