The VVA Veteran

The Official Voice of Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc. ®
An organization chartered by the U.S. Congress

September/October 2002 LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
Randall Wallace
BY RALPH GARCIA

Randall Wallace directed, wrote, and produced the 2002 film, We Were Soldiers, based on the book by Joseph L. Galloway and Gen. Harold G. Moore, We Were Soldiers Once And Young.

Wallace addressed the VVA National Leadership Conference during the Friday Awards Luncheon at Tucson. His words provoked many thoughts and his film brought back many memories. What follows are his remarks upon receiving the 2002 VVA President's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

It is such an honor to be here. It was about eight years ago that I went into a bookstore . I wasn't looking for a topic for a movie story, I was looking for something to read. In the history section there was a book titled, We Were Soldiers Once And Young. I picked that book up and immediately was grasped by the throat by the passion that was in the story.

It is a story about an officer who cared more for the lives of his men than he cared for his own life. The story was a journal, I believed, that the American people needed to know. It was a story about men who fought for each other and a story about families at home. It's a story that I could not ignore, a story I couldn't forget. In the course of time, Gen. Moore became like a father to me and Joe Galloway, his friend from Vietnam, became like a brother.

I grew up a Baptist in Tennessee. I don't know how many of you here are Baptists, but as they say, "I was born a Baptist, I'll live a Baptist, I'll die a Baptist. I have no ambition."

The Bible says, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free." The truth - the simple truth - is Hal Moore loved his men. And Joe Galloway, the civilian, loved the people in that historical valley. And you could not read that story and not sense that truth. So many stories about Vietnam were about politics, were about somebody else's attitude, were about somebody else's grudge. But to me they weren't about the truth. I want you to know that everybody who worked on the movie, We Were Soldiers, felt the way that Hal Moore and Joe Galloway felt. If they didn't, they didn't work on the movie.

Let me tell you about an incident that occurred during the course of the film. The man who did the make-up effects - his father had been in Vietnam, and he himself had been a company commander in the Marine Corps and had seen combat. During the course of the filming, we were out on a hillside one day shooting some particularly dangerous scenes and I heard that Mike Mills's father had died. I immediately gave the order that his second in command would be in charge, and they said, "No, Mike is still on the job. He won't leave. He was a Marine."

I went down, found him, and said, "Mike, you've got to go home." He said, "No, no, no. I've got my job to do." And I said, "Mike, you've got to go care for your father." And Mike said, "I am taking care of my father. I'm making sure that this movie is right."

That is how Mike felt. That is how everybody who worked on the movie felt. They felt that way because the truth is that the people who wrote this story loved it and all of you. Any award that I receive, I receive with tremendous pride. I want you to know that this is not for me; it is not for what I have done. All I did was gear up. I'm a civilian. Unlike Joe Galloway, I was not sharing my life with you. So you all know, without a doubt, it's the duty of us who didn't go to Vietnam to recognize, to value, and to respect what you did for this country.

This past Veterans Day, I had the honor - the singular honor - of getting to go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This past Veterans Day, after September the 11th, after the day when it became so easy, the easiest time in my lifetime, to say, " I am an American. God Bless America," I got to speak at The Wall.

I stood there at The Wall, introduced by Jan Scruggs. Jan stood up and said, "This is the guy who wrote Braveheart and Braveheart reminds us," and I thought that he was going to say the line that is most often quoted from Braveheart: "Every man dies, not every man really lives." But, what he said was, "They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom."

I felt particularly humbled at that moment because I was looking at them through those people for whom those are not words in a movie, they were right with life before God. So I want to share with you this award, which is not for me but for you, because you are the ones who have inspired not just this movie, but everybody's belief in America; that we have to live for each other; that we have to have the courage to sacrifice.

I want you to know that on Memorial Day - we ended the film on Memorial Day - we pulled everyone together and said, "We are able to make movies because people like you have gone out and fought for our right to say what we believe, to live what we believe." Some people have not appreciated that fact, because the names on that The Wall were not appreciated. It is my hope that everyone in America will see this movie. But you have not changed who you are. You have stood for what you thought. You are the truth, and the truth has made us all free. For that I thank you from everybody involved in this movie. I hope the movie is what it's always intended to be for Joe Galloway and General Hal Moore: a testament to the heroism of every soldier and every family. Thank you.

A standing ovation for Wallace was followed by a presentation of an AVVA honorary membership. An autograph session followed. Wallace signed photos of his directing Mel Gibson during the making of We Were Soldiers. After that, Wallace was interviewed by Ralph Garcia of Chapter 698.

Ralph Garcia: What do you think this film has done for Vietnam veterans?

Randall Wallace: I think, specifically for Vietnam veterans, it gives them an opportunity to talk with their families, to talk with those who weren't there about their lives and their experiences. There are as many stories of Vietnam as there are men and women who went there. This story holds up the best and the finest of America. The hope of those who made the film is that soldiers will be able to share the truth of their experience with those closest to them.

Garcia: It never occurred to me what my wife was going through back in the States. How did it occur to you to even think or focus on the family? Why did you focus on the family the way you did?

Wallace: I focused on the family for two reasons. One is that Gen. Moore and Joe Galloway did the same when they wrote the book and painted a picture that I had never seen. But also, in a broader sense, I talked about the family because Vietnam was an experience of a division within the American family. There were those who said we should support our sons in Vietnam and those who said we should get our boys out of Vietnam. They were all Americans.

I felt it was time for us to appreciate that we are a family and back together as a family. Because what was ignored in the politics was the fact that those young men and women sent to Vietnam were human beings. They were not political arguments, they were people. One of the richest rewards of the movie for me has been to hear people say that they got an insight from one side or the other of their experience.

We showed the film at West Point. Joe Mann, who was awarded the Medal of Honor as a young lieutenant in this battle, was there watching the film. When the film was over, he turned to the wife of one of the men who had been married at the time and said, "I had no idea what the wives were going through." So here was a man who had won the Medal of Honor in the battle whose bravery was stuff of legends, and through this book and the movie made from the book, he got an insight of a whole world that he had not been exposed to.

In the same way, the wives and children of these men have, perhaps, been able to see what they experienced. Because the experiences were so intense these men have never been able to talk about them. And in that I think there is healing and hope.

Garcia: What is your next project?

Wallace: I have a new project in mind, but something has happened to me that happened to, I think, everybody touched by these events and this story in particular. I'm having a hard time letting this go. We're going to do a re-release of this film starting here in Arizona. We've done a new mix of the sound in a technical breakthrough that no one has ever used before. When you hear everything in the movie, we're going to have sounds come from directly overhead in the theaters.

We're going to do this at universities around the country so that students will be exposed to the film. They'll be the ones asked to fight the next war, and we think it's important that they see this story and they'll get to experience it in a way that no one has ever seen or experienced a motion picture. After I'm finished with that, I'll begin my next film.

The Official Voice of Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc. ® An organization chartered by the U.S. Congress

The Official Voice of Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc. ®
An organization chartered by the U.S. Congress