Why Americans don't like this movie but really need to see it

Well first off, don't speak for all Americans if you choose to look knowledgeable in retrospect. Second, maybe you should start a "French should see this movie" thread since they were in Vietnam before we were. And come to think of it, visit http://thewall-usa.com/ prior to shutting the *beep* up.

Kisses

There are actually about a billion movies, made in America no less, that depict American involvement in Vietnam as wrong/ill-conceived/futile/a losing situation. Actually, probably more than those general "American heroes wipe out Vietcong" movies that the original poster just made up to make an ignorant comment.

If I recall, the last two dozen Vietnam War movies I've seen depict Americans getting slaughtered and/or strung-out. I have no idea what movies you've been watching? I think U.S and its citizens has made it pretty clear that Vietnam was a huge mistake. You seem like you're trying to open old wounds that have already healed. I have no idea what your post is trying to prove or state, you say "Americans should watch this film" like we all think the Vietnam War was a grand victory? Why don't you talk to some Americans and study our history before stating or hinting that we're all ignorant slobs.

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Americans don't like this movie because it's inaccurate as hell and it's creator clearly didn't give a damn about doing his research.

"Yes, Americans are defeated in this war."

You could say both sides were defeated in the war. The Vietnamese more so because they took far more casualties and had to suffer under communism for another 30+ years. Some "victory" eh?

I think the Marines at Hue or Khe Sahn, or the 173rd at Dak-To or the 101st in the AShau Valley, and any other grunts in Vietnam would tell you tunnel warfare is not more brutal than traditional warfare.

Tunnles were less a fighting position (like trenches/bunkers) than they were operational sectors. They were like big US basecamps--yes they had defenses but they weren't designed as forts. Because the US controlled the air they went underground and kept things secret and away from prying eyes. This would be in contrast to the Japanese in WWII who used caves and bunkers as fighting positions that caused great casualties.

Like WWII the GI's in VIetnam quickly adapted to the tunnel complexes. The largest ones were found in areas controlled by the 25th Infantry Div(ID), 1st ID, and the Australians. All formed crack tunnel teams.

Unlike in WWII, since these were basecamps the tunnel rats were used not to battle VC in tunnels BUT to check the tunnels for intelligence and weapons. When the sweeps were done they pulled out.

Some tunnels were small and could be blown with explosvies. Others required more elaborate demolition.

As for the tunnel complexes as a whole they were knocked out. The US defoliated the jungle from the air and used massive Rome Ploughs to scrape back even more. This exposed all but the most cleverly disguised entrances. Sometimes B52's would come in and bomb the tunnels into oblvivion.

But the fact is the tunnels resulted in fewer American casualties than large land battles. By Tet (1968) the biggest tunnel complexes were gone.

Were they failures or wastes of time for the VC? NO! The VC didn't have alot to work with and worked miracles, but they failed with the big tunnel complexes in South Vietnam. Lots of smaller networks of foritifications were a CONSTANT nightmare for US forces---look at "Hamburger Hill".

But the tunnel stopping operations involved less GI's, less casualties, and less fighting than "Traditional War".

As to your other points--Americans pretty much did wipe out the enemy. All large scale engagments and 80% of small unit actions resulted in US wins. Over 54,000 Americans died in Vietnam---the NVA/VC losses were over one million.

On the battlefield we won, but our graduated escalation resulted in loss of will at home--10 years of victory is still 10 years of war, and the public percieved that we were spinning our wheels (with the help of biased media reporting). So Vietnam was a loss, but only because the politicans gave it away.

BradLaGrange

First of all, a well made war film, is, in itself, anti-war. If a film tries to be anti-war, that means it misses the truth of the fighting soldier.

Second. there was great heroism in the field by the NVA. Of that there is no question. My siblings who served in the war can attest to fighting the NVA, and how they respected them. But the U.S. forces were not rejects that were drugged out or messed up as the uneducated filmmakers love to spout off.

Historically, the US forces never lost one single battle during the entire conflict in Vietnam. Not one battle. Not half of a battle. Not even a small skirmish. The military forced the north to agree to peace talks in Paris, because the north was utterly destroyed by the U.S. forces. The Tet offensive was a dismal failure, as a majority of the north's forces were killed, many before the offensive actually took place, because of a premature launching of the assault by some of the forces out of contact with HQ. The north was a mess by 1968, and shot their load on Tet.

However, before the meeting took place in Paris, the U.S. Congress convened and rejected funding the war any further, forcing an almost immediate unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam, and the U.S., who had won the ground and air war, were forced by its own government to walk away with it's head hung low while leaving two-million people behind to be brutally murdered by the Khmer rouge, factions of the north as well as the Cong.

By the way, Tunnel Rats was garbage, not because he didn't actually do better than on any other films, but because he has no knowledge of what he was writing. It was like watching porn made by a eunuch.

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