Re: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"

["Sonny Carter" <sonc@sonc.com>]

Er, Kevin, they could use airplanes....



- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Argue" <kargue@sympatico.ca>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2002 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"


> B.D.- you said if they could come from Saudia Arabia to the US why not
> Ontario to Vermont. Check you geography book. The borders of the state and
> province do not contact one another. In the TV series they say it does.
Goes
> to show America and some americans no nothing of Canada!
>
> Kevin
> >From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> >To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> >Subject: RE: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"
> >Date: Sat, Mar 2, 2002, 10:02 PM
> >
>
> > Thanks Tim...Funny  to find that reference at the end to Henri Huet's
> > photos. I was just going through Requiem this evening after coming back
from
> > the movie, and was left thinking once again that the work of Huet, who I
had
> > never heard of before seeing Requiem, may just be the absolute best in
that
> > book - as good as Larry Burrow's stuff was, and Burrows was pretty
amazing.
> >
> > As to the movie, I will admit to leaving the theater with tears
streaming
> > down my cheeks - and that from someone who is no fan of the military,
was
> > certainly no fan of the Vietnam war, and did not lose any friends during
> > that conflict. A VERY strong movie.
> >
> > B. D>
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> > [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Tim
> > Atherton
> > Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 8:49 PM
> > To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> > Subject: RE: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"
> >
> >
> > Here is a review by Dirck ("big hair") Halstead -  a great photographer,
a
> > man who will always help you out if he can and UPI Saigon Photo Bureau
Chief
> > at the time
> >
> >
> > tim a
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >
> >> Subject: A Review of "We Were Soldiers"
> >>
> >>
> >> A Downholder's Review of "We Were Soldiers"
> >>
> >> The story of the battle of the Ia Drang Valley
> >>
> >> By Dirck Halstead (SGP)
> >>
> >> Washington, DC: Feb 28,2002:
> >>
> >> "We Were Soldiers", the Paramount version of  " We Were Soldiers,
> >> Once. And Young"  by Lt. Gen Harold G Moore (ret) and UPI's Joseph L.
> >> Galloway opened
> >> to an Army brass filled audience at the Uptown Theatre in Washington
> >> last night.
> >>
> >> The two hour twenty minute film recounts the struggle in November of
> >> 1965 between four companies of the newly-formed second regiment, 7th
> >> Cavalry (Airmobile) of the U.S. Army and the 66th Regiment of the
> >> People's Army of North Vietnam. It was the first time U.S. forces had
> >> joined in a battle with a main-force North Vietnamese Regiment. For
> >> three days, the U.S. troopers held out against an overwhelming force.
> >>
> >> On the first evening of the battle, a young UPI reporter, Joe
> >> Galloway, joined Lt. Col. Harold Moore at his Command Post in the
> >> center of the battle.  For the next 48 hours, Galloway would
> >> alternate between shooting pictures and firing his M16 in a furious
> >> battle for survival.
> >>
> >> The film, directed and written by Randall Wallace is true in both
> >> word and spirit to Galloway and Moore's book.
> >>
> >> To watch, the film is exhausting. For most of the running time, the
> >> viewer is subjected to never-ending rushes of North Vietnamese troops
> >> into the camera, as casualties vividly mount on the American side.
> >> Wallace wisely chose to cut between the heaviest fighting to scenes
> >> of the wives of the troopers receiving telegrams of  the cost of the
> >> battle
> >> Back in Ft. Benning. These scenes help to ground the film.
> >>
> >> Virtually every word uttered by the troopers in the battle was taken
> >> from the book.
> >>
> >> To the moviegoer who was too young to remember the Vietnam War, and
> >> especially this battle, there will be a temptation to think that this
> >> is "just another Hollywood War movie, with Mel Gibson as Col. Moore
> >> wading into
> >> hordes of enemy soldiers. However, I was sitting next to an Army
> >> General who had taken part in the real battle, and he was spellbound.
> >> When I asked him at the end how he liked it, he said "it was
> >> outstanding! It's the first time the movies have gotten a battle
> >> right."
> >>
> >> At one point , actor Barry Pepper, as the young Galloway is stretched
> >> out on the ground as enemy fire whips around him. Suddenly  Sgt Major
> >> Basil Plumley, played in an Academy Award-winning turn by veteran Sam
> >> Elliott, towers over him, and says "you can't take no pictures laying
> >> face down on the ground, Sonny!"
> >>
> >> Some of those pictures Galloway took are used in the film.
> >>
> >> In the three days of battle, the troopers of the 7th Cavalry killed
> >> by body count  some 1,215 North Vietnamese troops, and captured six.
> >>
> >> On the American side, 79 were killed, and 121 wounded and missing.
> >>
> >> The North Vietnamese had lost their first battle of the war. In a
> >> bitter sweet moment, the NVA commander, Col. Nguyen Huu An, portrayed
> >> by Don Duong,
> >> muses as he removes his dead from the battlefield,  "what a tragedy !
> >> The Americans have won this battle, now they will feel they can the
> >> win the war. In the end it will be the same, but so many will die."
> >>
> >> Tech credits are superb. Despite the fact that the movie was
> >> entirely shot in
> >> Georgia and California, Director of Photography Dean Semler captures
> >> the feeling of the place and the soldiers on both sides who fought
> >> the battle, and a young UPI reporter who witnessed it.
> >>
> >>
> >> Dirck Halstead was the UPI photo bureau chief in Saigon from
> >> 1965-1966. He is now the Editor and Publisher of The Digital
> >> Journalist at http://digitaljournalist.org
> >>
> >>
> >> To view Henri Huet's photographs from  the Ia Drang, go to
> >> http://dirckhalstead.org/issue9711/req19.htm
> >>
> >> --
> >
> >
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
> >
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html

- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html