History Film / WeWereSoldiers

* CoolGuns: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. Colonel Moore seems to like the new M16 rifle. Sergeant Major Plumley thinks it feels too much like a toy compared to the weapons he's accustomed to. So instead he decides to play the trope straight with his Colt Model 1911A1 (in real life, he also carried an M14 for a rifle, as a lot of older soldiers did at the beginning of the war, as well as those not yet equipped with the M16). He picks up an M16 only once in the entire movie [[spoiler: to hand to the photojournalist to defend himself with during a fierce NVA attack.]]

** Only enlisted men wear the white kepis, NCos and officers wear black ones.

* AluminumChristmasTrees:
** Picking up radio transmissions from the far side of the world is very possible with radios operating on certain bands, due to a quirk of signals under certain atmosphere conditions: they can bounce off of one of the upper layers of the atmosphere, using it like a reflector to bankshot transmissions around the curvature of the Earth.
** The scenes that critics complained were cheesy, corny, melodramatic or unrealistic tended to be the ones lifted ''directly from real life!'' This includes lines said by soldiers as they were dying. In the director's commentary the director himself brings this up, which makes the rather ironic point that it would have been far more unrealistic if the soldiers had said something witty or clever as they were lying dying in enormous pain with little mental faculties left. Critics also tend to forget that the dark cynicism now associated with the Vietnam War only set in as the conflict dragged on for years; soldiers going into combat and civilians at home were both quite optimistic and supportive at the outset of the war, so a dying soldier declaring how proud he is to give his life for his country wasn't exactly out of the ordinary.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Sergeant Savage.
** FluffyTheTerrible: Sergeant Major ''Basil'' Plumley. [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in a deleted scene, no less.

** An officer uses a Browning Hi Power, rather than a Mle. 1935 or Mle. 1950 pistol, due to the film's armourer having Hi Powers on hand but not the correct French pistols.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: [[spoiler:The bayonet charge in the finale never happened in RealLife. Moore's troops were reinforced by two other battalions and then evacuated before a B-52 carpet bombing strike moved in to finish off the enemy headquarters]].