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60 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
wistful and weepy, August 21, 2008
Hal Moore sums up his interesting life in this short book. It's only partially tied to the 1965 battle in the Ia Drang Valley. Still, he describes moving events in 1993 when he, Joe Galloway, a few veterans and a couple of former North Vietmanese officers meet to reflect, re-live and celebrate sacrifice on both sides. They even hold hands and pray.
The book is more about the important events in Moore's life: how he got to West Point,side-trip to Dien Bien Phu, assignments to Korea, leadership lessons and views on warfare.
One of the problems I had reading the preface is I couldn't figure out who wrote it. I also question why the authors characterize the war as good nationalists driving out the bad foreign invader,namely the United States. Moore seems to say in the end, the good guys won: "...they (the North Vietnamese) were fighting so hard because, like America's own revolutionaries, they had a burning desire to drive foreigners out of their native land...and now that the guns had fallen silent and peace had return to their land they proved to be proud fathers, good husbands, loyal citizens, and, yes, good friends."
My impression was and is the North Vietnamese were fighting to unify the country under an NVA banner. The real losers were not the Americans but the South Vietnamese. After the NVA victory an estimated 100,000 South Vietnamese were executed, others died in reducation camps and at sea. Despite what Moore/Galloway write, I don't think there's any moral equivalency between us and the North Vietnamese on one side, the South Vietnamese on the other.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Guns are Silent, but the Memories Remain, September 12, 2009
The Guns are Silent, but the Memories Remain
I've always enjoyed "where are they now" reminisces. General Hal Moore and Combat Reporter Joe Galloway do yeoman's work in this sequel to We Were Soldiers Once...and Young. The original book was about the horrific first major battle of the Vietnam War in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Surrounded and barely able to escape with the remnants of his battalion after 3 days of ferocious combat, General Moore longed to one day return to that hallowed ground that so many American and Vietnamese fought and died for. Finally after lengthy bureaucratic delays, he and 10 veterans of that now fabled battle, plus several of the enemy commanders, returned to the "Forest of the Screaming Souls"-The Ia Drang Valley. This book is their story of completing the circle, of putting to rest the combat demons that try men's souls. Further, the book allows the authors to explore how that war changed them all, as well as the two countries. It was an emotional journey both back to the past and to the future as Moore and Galloway examine how that battle impacted their lives and their soldiers' lives forever.
The Chapter on Leadership is very good and pertains to the realities of life whether in the military or fighting the corporate wars of today. The Chapter on War is interesting in light of the struggles America is undergoing today in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The touching Tribute to Hal Moore's wife Julie is very inspirational and worth the read, as most non-military families do not understand the heavy price military wives pay for their husband's career choice.
All in all an excellent book. As a retired military officer who served in Vietnam, Panama, and Desert Shield/Storm, I found it both touching and illuminating. The guns may be silent but the memories remain forever. It is when one is alone that those days of intense camaraderie grips one's soul to its very core and whispers that it is for the living to remember and NEVER FORGET.
Hearty recommend. It would be best if you read We Were Soldiers Once...and Young first to give you the full flavor, but it's not an absolute requirement. All in all General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway have written a fine book and I salute them.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential closure, June 13, 2009
I need hardly add superlatives to the monumental epic that was "We were Soldiers Once..." I consider myself priveleged to have read and thereby shared the epic events described in the company of a humanitarian, reflective and yet ultimately humble hero, General Moore.
You rocket in on that chopper and the book gets it on from the get go.
Once you are through the X-Ray and Albany horrors don't expect a respite. I cried like a child as the fallout from the deaths of these brave men was spelled out by those they left behind.
I recommend that you then watch the Mel Gibson movie to compare your mind's eye picture of the battle with Hollywood's. Old Mel did a fine job. It was exactly how I had pictured it. Book followed by movie; usually such a move is a fraught exercise but this only enhanced my understanding.
The film does not address the subsequent Albany ambush and what appears to be a huge embarassment for the army. Failures all along the line led to a needless massacre. The army looked the other way in the aftermath. Moore does not shy away from the controversy in this second book and Westmoreland gets a lot of stick. (Nothing compared to Moore's later stinging rebuke of Dubya and Rumsfeld...may they burn in hell for the US lives they have so recklessly thrown away)
"We are Warriors Still" I found compulsory reading in order to complete my Ia Drang experience. I found it mesmerizing and heartbreaking. Moore and his comrades do the ultimate service to their dead buddies by flying to the now deserted battlesite and walking the lines on one last patrol.
I ate up the book barely pausing in my need to equate now with then; in my pleasure at feeling the noble warmth of Moore's humanity. Those troops could not have had a better commander in the field. A Rommel of a man!
That being said, I share my fellow reviewers' consternation at Moore's forgiveness and embrace of foes who callously murdered both US POWs and wounded in the field.
The NVA General An's comment that they were worried that the wounded soldiers would kill them if not silenced is simply not good enough. I know some of you out there will bring up Mai Lai but that was an exception. An seems to talk of this murder as an unfortunate but necessary policy. People have gone to the gallows or the Hague for less. Moore also mentions the massacres by the NVA of the civilians in Hue and on the road to Cambodia. We're talking in the tens of thousands here. Never heard Hanoi Jane bleating about that side of the conflict. Yet Moore incomprehensibly still finds it in his heart to see the NVA as patriots. I'm sure Stalin was one too but I'd still like to have put arsenic in his tea if I'd sat with him.
There's also a chapter on leadership which seems a little out of place in this book and seems more geared to military cadets reading the book as a designated text.
In closing, you simple cannot not read this if the first book hooked you in.
I'm just waiting for the book and movie on Ricky Rescorla. A life so extraordinary it couln't have been scripted better by Shakespeare.
General Moore, Joe Galloway I salute you.
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