As a combat medic who served in the 101st Airborne Division fair three months after the events depicted in this film took station, I can say you that it is absolutely the most realistic Vietnam war film to date. I cannot address the bid of the absolute truth of the method specific events are depicted in the film because I wasn’t alive to in this particular action, but I can say with no equivocation that the characters and combat shown in this film are absolutely realistic based on my experience. The fictional soldiers shown in the film talk like we talked, and all aspects of combat shown are grand like my maintain experience. Some aspects of this film may seem cliched to some viewers (view below), but that is unbiased the current reality of war and reveals the simplistic views of the times. Soldiers in combat were young and not especially astute in their views. We really did say “it don’t mean nothin’.” I cried on the blueprint home after I first saw this film in the theatre, and finally achieved the catharsis I needed to leave Vietnam late me. I am grateful to the director and producers for providing that. Someone finally got it lawful. “Doc” Cooper, B company, 2/502, 101st airborne division
This movie is billed as the most realistic war movie to approach out of our experience in Vietnam. From the ping of mortar rounds leaving their tubes to the crump of their impact, I agree. Its heroes are Vietnam grunts who only want to survive, but who give it their all because their sense of responsibility to each other and to themselves demands it. There are no masterful generals, no crusading journalists, no anti-hero politicians — unbiased a group of young men caught up in events they didn’t control, probably didn’t understand, and certainly didn’t want.
There is no shortage of combat scenes. Hamburger Hill depicts in gory detail the action that spanned 11 days (May 10-21, 1969) during which the 3rd Battalion of the 187th Airborne (3/187th, the “Rakkasans” of Korean fame) tried and finally succeeded in taking what was labeled on their maps as Hill 937 (meaning it was 937 meters high) . Hill 937 was actually one of several ridges that comprised Dong Ap Bia on the Laotian border in the A Shau Valley.
A series of coordinated operations was planned with the intended purpose to distinct the valley, order its consume, and disrupt the enemy’s plans. These operations would comprise ten battalions of US and ARVN troops that would recede into various parts of the valley in a coordinated arrangement of maneuver. The Rakkasans of the 3/187th and an ARVN battalion drew the prize: Dong Ap Bia (Ap Bia Mountain), occupied by two battalions of NVA — some 600 to 900 strong and probably reinforced during the battle.
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The movie follows a fictitious infantry squad, along with the supporting medic, and their platoon sergeant and platoon leader. Focusing on a single squad subtly points out how combat in dense terrain becomes very localized. Their link to the outside world is through the platoon leader’s radio and the disembodied bellow emanating from it that keeps urging them on and asking for SITREPs (set reports) . You speedily understand that despite the frustrations of the war, the growing hostility at home, and the growing racism within the military, they understand that their individual and collective survival depends on each other. This binds them in a contrivance that few other situations can.
The movie’s valid strength is its attention to detail. Everything has the apt eye, sound, and feel. From the crack of M-16 rifle rounds, the hollow resonance of the M-79 grenade launchers, and the crump of impacting mortar rounds, to the radio traffic, the banter, jargon, and slang, the locales and locals, the sandbags on the floors of the trucks, the mud, wooden ammo boxes and artillery shell containers littering the tainted areas, the red filters on the flashlights, etc. I was particularly thankful to be spared the hand grenades and mortar rounds that explode like giant balls of fire so typical of war movies.
The mistakes were few and minor. The biggest error was that there were not 11 assaults up the hill as the movie leads you to occupy. May 10 saw the first contact. On each of the next three days (May 11, 12, and 13) the 3/187th conducted a “reconnaissance in force” (RIF) to catch the enemy, probing for extinct points. Deliberate assaults occurred on May 14, 15, 18, and 20. The days in between were either stand-downs for resupply or aborted assaults due to the inability of supporting ground units to acquire into area.
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No company, thus no squad, was committed to each RIF and deliberate assault. The squad in the movie is a composite of all the squads engaged. The various incidents — the squad members’ deaths, the NVA virtually rolling their grenades downhill on the attacking Rakkasans, the apt fire, the torrential downpour on May 18 that stopped that day’s assault, and so on — all happened. They honest didn’t all happen to the same squad.
Other than the platoon leader, the officer chain of screech is never seen; rather, they are depicted as disembodied voices over the radio. This is misleading. The squawk structure at company and below would be on the ground with the troops; battalion whine would be either on the ground or in the air, depending on where the battalion commander understanding he could best control the battle.
The movie’s anti-war message is apparent from the opening credits, which are interspersed with views of the Capitol and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. The symbolism of our seat of government juxtaposed with the memorial to the fallen is heightened by the chilly sunset reflecting off the Vietnam Memorial.
Rather than a history lesson, the movie is a metaphor for the war in Vietnam: the relentless push to attain ground of questionable importance despite the high cost in blood. Friendly men fought and died.
Was it worth it? As the fatalistic mantra among the grunts in the movie said, “It don’t mean nothin’.” That’s a dusky, angering attitude until you purchase that shortly after the battle was over, we left the hill, as we did with so many other hills, and another NVA regiment moved in and retook possession.
Hamburger Hill doesn’t glorify war, but it does present the best attributes of men caught up in war. In so doing it rightfully praises the American soldier. However, one has to enact that the lives of the men who fought at Hamburger Hill — the deaths, the pain, the exhaustion, the physical and emotional wounds — didn’t matter if the assume of the hill didn’t ultimately contribute somehow to victory. In the same design, the lives of the men and women who fought in Southeast Asia didn’t matter since we didn’t prevail in the war. Private Beletsky (Tim Quill) said it all with his quiet fling as he surveyed the body-strewn, devastated slope from the summit of Hamburger Hill at the kill of the movie.
So, the message is fight to accumulate or don’t fight. Compose it mean something. That’s what some came away from Vietnam with, and that’s what makes this a movie worth seeing.
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