Despite being trapped and desperately outnumbered, the main US force manages to hold off the North Vietnamese with artillery, mortars, and helicopter airlifts of supplies and reinforcements.

When the Army begins using taxi drivers to deliver telegrams that notify the next of kin of the soldiers' deaths, Julia takes over that responsibility.

The aircraft attacked with bombs, napalm, and machine guns, killing many People's Army of Vietnam and Viet Cong troops, but a friendly fire incident also results in American deaths.

Nguyen Huu An plans a final assault on the Americans and sends most of his forces to carry out the attack, but Moore and his men overrun them and approach the enemy command center.

Before the base camp guards can open fire, Major Bruce "Snake" Crandall and other helicopter gunships attack and destroy the remnant of the enemy force.

Hal Moore continued the battle in a different landing zone, and after nearly a year, he returned home safely to Julia and his family.

In the source book, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, Hal Moore complains, "Every damn Hollywood movie got [the Vietnam war] wrong."

Despite the differences from the book and departures from historical accuracy, Moore stated in a documentary, included in the video versions, that the film was the first one "to get [the war] right.

Rarely has a foe been portrayed with such measured respect for a separate reality, which should come as a relief to critics (I'm one) of the enemy's facelessness in Black Hawk Down; vignettes of gallantry among Vietnamese soldiers and such humanizing visual details as a Vietnamese sweetheart's photograph left behind, in no way interfere with the primary, rousing saga of a fine American leader who kept his promise to his men to 'leave no one behind dead or alive.

'"[9] David Sterritt, from the Christian Science Monitor, criticized the film for giving a more positive image of the Vietnam War that, in his opinion, did not concur with reality: "The films about Vietnam that most Americans remember are positively soaked in physical and emotional torment – from Platoon, with its grunt's-eye view of combat, to Apocalypse Now, with its exploration of war's dehumanizing insanity.

We Were Soldiers is shameless in this regard, filling the screen with square-jawed officers who weep at the carnage and fresh-faced GIs who use their last breaths to intone things like, 'I'm glad I died for my country.

[citation needed] In one key incident, the finding of a vintage French bugle on a dying Vietnamese soldier, the Cornwall born Rescorla is replaced by a nameless Welsh platoon leader.