i just watched this movie and i was wondering if anyone could tell me some historical signifiagances they learned from watching this movie? I need to do a report on it for AP US history.
shareThe historical significance of this battle was that the U.S. Army basically destroyed an entire NVA regiment on that hill. Sure the 101 took heavy losses, but the NVA lost 10 times as many soldiers in that battle. They probably lost 100 times more over the course of the war. This is signicant because the people of the U.S. are in a similar situation today. Do we have the stomach to take losses? It's been proven that our soldiers do. When I went to Gulf-1, my comrades were pumped and prime to go and kick some butt.
Nobody wants to die, but HH is a prime example of our soldier's willingness to sacrifice thier lives in the cause of thier brothers and sisters in arms and thier nation. In the film, Doc Johnson was the most reluctant to want to fight, because he had the task of cleaning up the mess that was left after each assault. He always leaped forward when he was needed. He stayed in the thick of it until he fell. In the end he showed his fighting spirit by saying "take the hill, and those bastar*s back in the world can never take that from me". Then he died.
At the bottom of the hill stood a Newsman who said the war was unwinnable. He was a symbol of those who undermine the real mission, which is the destruction of our enemies. It's the whining cry-babies that would never pickup a gun to save themselves, much less thier homes or families, that have a problem with war. The funny thing is that those kind of folks will never stop a war. They are too afraid to get physical about it and most of them don't vote. Picket signs don't work anymore, so in the immortal words of PVT Vincent Languilli "there it is"..
Either Americans can show the world that we have the stomach for war, or we can just back down and let our enemies come over the borders, steal our wealth, and rape and kill our women and children.
SGT Uptight
@aonwest
The truth is, there is NOT always a reason for war. And being against it or questioning it dosen't make you a damn coward. Hell, you're just an another clueless sheep if you don't ever question the need for war. Look at the fact that people now think that we should have already been the hell out of Afghanistan, or that we should never have gone to Iraq in the first damn place (hell, even a lot of soldiers who have gone to Iraq have said the exact same thing.) I even saw some Iraqi veterans at a protest in Chicago say flat out that the war in Iraq was some bull****, and that it had only been started so that the government (starting with Bush) could get their hands on their oil---they also tossed any medals they had earned away---these were veterans of different ages doing this. I guess you'd call them cry-babies because they wouldn't agree with your crazy right-wing nut war-at-all-costs mentality, which is what got us into situations like Vietnam AND Iraq in the first place.
And let's be for real---we as a country have been invading FAR more countries in the last 20 damn years,than they ever did us. So all that right-wing BS you spread below:
"Either Americans can show the world that we have the stomach for war, or we can just back down and let our enemies come over the borders, steal our wealth, and rape and kill our women and children."
is just THAT---some bull****. Now get the hell over yourself,already, you rabid right-wing nut.