YMMV / We Were Soldiers

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • 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.
• Awesome Music: "Mansions of the Lord." Randall Wallace intended to use an Army equivalent of the Navy Hymn (Eternal Father), but discovered that no such song existed. So, he wrote one. So awesome it was played at President Reagan's funeral.
  • The soundtrack version is sung by the West Point cadet choir. All the more poignant when one realizes that the proud young men and women singing their hearts out are now Army officers leading their troops in combat.
• Narm: When the black woman's husband dies and she reacts to being notified of it by mumbling her Big "NO!" in a hammy, incoherent and stereotypical way. Thankfully, her sobs are considerably less narmy.
• Narm Charm: On the other hand, her initial reaction is also liked as it's been pointed out that for many African American women, it really ''would'' be the way they'd react given the dialect and mannerisms they're taught.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Moore's son is a pre-Middle School Ned Bigby.
  • Jon Hamm as Captain Dillon.
  • Brian Tee (Jimmy Nakayama) would go on to appear in The Wolverine.
  • Agent Coulson apparently served in Vietnam as Captain Tom Metsker.
  • Ryan Hurst is Sergeant Ernie Savage, years before he was Opie or Beta.
  • Taylor Momsen plays one of Hal's kids long before her better known role in Gossip Girl or her music in The Pretty Reckless.
• Squick: Poor Jimmy. Poor Joe too.
  "Grab his legs!" *shudder*^note His legs were so badly burnt, when Joe tried to lift them, Jimmy's skin slid off of his flesh in Joe's hands.
• Too Dumb to Live: Lt. Herrick's response while under heavy fire and separated from the main body of troops is to yell for his men to "grab the wounded" and stand up in the face of said fire and try to make a run for it. He gets cut down before he can get another sentence out.^note In fairness to the man, the real Herrick was not so impetuous; for starters, he did not lead his platoon in pursuit of a single scout. After his platoon began taking casualties, he ordered them to form a defensive perimeter around a knoll in the clearing, and was hit shortly afterwards. Also unlike in the film, before he bled out he managed to radio the company that he was passing command to a sergeant in his platoon, ordering his signal codes burnt, and requesting artillery support.

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