I may have missed it, but I haven't read anything on this list about We Were Soldiers. My email got a little mixed up so if I'm bringing up an old subject forgive me.

I read this book several years ago and it's effect was amazing. I've never been one to despise Vietnam veterans, but it did seem to me that their war was fought in a very strange way. From the movies and a number of books there is this constant idea that they were just wandering around the jungle playing bullseye. "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young" changed my attitude because it demonstrates one thing. Vietnam was just a war, like all the others. The difference was more at home than at the front. The men that fought over there were good men, for the most part. There was valor, loyalty, and honor in great supply among them. Some of the statistics that prove so much media attention wrong are also brought out. Only 25% of the soldiers over there were draftees. Most of them were upper lower or lower middle class, but they were not the poor and downtrodden. They were just fellas, who did extraordinarily brave and selfless things. They were not just dutiful, they were noble.

The reason I bring up this excellent book is because it has generated an excellent movie. We Were Soldiers is now (in my not-at-all humble opinion) the best and greatest movie of all time. I am generally quite an unemotional man, but I spent half this movie with tears in my eyes. I woke up the next morning and the tears were still there. I don't really know how they did it, but this movie is perfect. It makes the characters real. I forgot they were actors. Some of the actors I don't even like. Yet it really hurt when some of them died. The tragedy of it all was brought home in a way I have never seen nor read The book did not have such an emotional effect -- though it was excellent, it was easier to stay at one remove. The old saw about the book being better is true in a sense; it's more accurate, more detailed, and captures the characters with much greater clarity . . . but it really isn't as good. The movie is better. The movie is staggering -- stunning. It is also very graphic and awful. This is a movie that definitely needs to be rated "R." This is not something that children should have nightmares about. I saw this movie with a passel of kids, teenagers mostly, and for a while they were up to their usual hijinks. When the fighting started it got really quiet, and when the movie finished there was dead silence. As we walked out people spoke in hushed tones, even the kids. It was a reverent, awed hush, such as I have never seen before at a movie. I turned around and watched them come out, and there were few dry eyes, and no smiles. I wondered if I had just stumbled into another world, it was so unreal. I've only seen it the once -- I'm a little afraid I break down and sob when I see it next, which I intend to do. It's not a movie to see often -- it's too intense. It's not entertainment. Movies are the popular literature of our times, just as Shakespeare's plays of his own time. Most movies are trash, but this one is worthy of the Bard. I had great hopes for Randall Wallace after Braveheart, and was really worried for him after Pearl Harbor. I'm not worried any more. He may not be as prolific as Shakespeare, but he's in that league. This is the only movie I've ever seen that does justice to the men who fought in Vietnam. I just hope it doesn't turn me into a crybaby.

Jim Wilson