Randall Wallace, the acclaimed writer-director behind epic stories like Braveheart, was on the hunt for his next powerful narrative when he discovered the groundbreaking book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young. This wasn’t just another tale; it was a profound challenge to Hollywood’s past portrayals of Vietnam War veterans, calling for an honest and respectful account. Wallace felt a deep personal connection and an urgent responsibility to finally tell the true story of courage, leadership, and sacrifice, ensuring these American heroes received the tribute they deserved on the big screen.
Bringing We Were Soldiers to life was a journey filled with unique challenges. The book’s authors, scarred by previous attempts to adapt their story, initially refused to sell the film rights, fearing further misrepresentation. But Randall Wallace’s unwavering dedication and belief in heroes shone through. He proved his commitment to authentic storytelling, ultimately securing the rights with his own money to guarantee a film that honored the profound experiences of American soldiers and their families. This powerful true story reveals the heart behind a movie that finally got the Vietnam War right.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. We Were Soldiers is a motion picture about the Vietnam War from writer-director Randall Wallace, which stars Mel Gibson, Gibson playing the role of Lieutenant Colonel Al Moore. Here’s Randall to tell the story of his film.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: I was sitting in my office working on a story while Braveheart was still in production. I was writing the next story because I didn’t know if Braveheart would be a titanic sort of failure or a monstrous success. Either way, I needed to have momentum in a news story. You need to feel that your best work is coming, not behind you. So I was working on the story. In the phone rang, and it was an executive from Warner Brothers, a friend of mine, who said, ‘Listen, we didn’t know about Braveheart, and we wish we had, and we would love to fly you to Hawaii to meet Kevin Costner and talk about ideas with Kevin Costner. Would you be willing to do that?’ ‘Like, yeah, I would.’ And they made reservations for me, and I went to a bookstore to pick up something to read on the flight and came across the cover of We Were Soldiers Once and Young. It showed a young lieutenant whose name was Rick Rescorla, who ended up an incredible hero in his own right, not only in Vietnam, but also at the World Trade Center where he lost his life going back up into the World Trade Center to make sure that all of his people had gotten out safely. And I read the book. I came across the statement in the prologue: ‘Hollywood has gotten the story of the Vietnam veteran wrong every damn time, wedding the knives of twisted politics on the bones of our dead brothers.’ And I knew from that moment I was into this story. But it was the part of the story—and the combat scenes were, of course, incredible. But there was the story of a woman named Barbara Gagan, whose husband was a young lieutenant who died going out onto the battlefield to carry a wounded soldier off.
00:02:42
Speaker 3: Do you know the most common thing an American soldier says when he’s dying on the battlefield? ‘Tell my wife.’
00:02:51
Speaker 2: And Hal had gone to visit her, and he asked if he could go to pray at her husband’s grave. He was buried not at our Wellington, but a family plot. Jack Gagan was Catholic, and Barbara wrote so movingly of letting Hal go out. She stayed back in the car because she wanted Hal to have his moment at Jack’s grave, and that she saw his shoulder shake and as he wept, and that kind of love and devotion for his men I recognized to be unique and extraordinary. And then, as I got to know his wife, and to find that her courage was at least the equal of his, I was profoundly moved. But when I read the book, I called my agent and said, ‘Somebody must own the movie rights to this. You tell them that I want to throw my hat in the ring. I would love to write the adaptation of this book.’ My agent called back a couple of days later and said, ‘These guys won’t sell the screen rights. They believe that Hollyoo would mangle their story and would treat them like they were baby killers, and they won’t do it.’
00:04:06
Speaker 4: A responsibility to do honor and tribute to the guys that were there. Yeah, slightly intimidating. In fact, they complained about it in the book, how Hollywood always screws it up. And it’s interesting. The indictment was, if I can be specific, ‘wetting their twisted political knives on the bones of our dead brothers’ so that it becomes very personal. And that’s the aspect from which I think we approached. The film was a very personal one.
00:04:34
Speaker 5: I can’t promise you then I will bring you alive, but this I swear before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind.
00:05:05
Speaker 4: So help me God.
00:05:11
Speaker 2: And so I got their address, and I wrote to them and said, ‘I’m going to send you a screenplay. It’s called Braveheart. It’s being made. You haven’t seen it yet. No one’s seen it yet. It’s not finished, but the screenplay is. And read that. If you like it, call me. If you don’t, then sorry, I’ve wasted your time.’ So they read it and they called me.
00:05:39
Speaker 6: I said, ‘Mister Wallace, I don’t know you. So I have a question for you.’ He said, ‘What’s your question?’ And I said, ‘Do you believe in heroes?’ And he said, ‘I do.’
00:05:53
Speaker 2: And they said, ‘Okay, what do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I can go to a studio and get them to buy the movie rights. But no matter what they tell you, if they buy your movie rights, they will control everything that happens to that story. If you let me buy it, I’ll pay you my own money, and I’ll make you deal that it’s less upfront because I have limited money, but I’ll make you a deal that you’ll make more money and success than you would have made with them. And if you don’t like what I do, you’ll know who to come shoot.’ And they went, ‘Deal!’
00:06:27
Speaker 7: And Randall is the only director in Hollywood who could have done it and done it right.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: So that’s how that came about, and Hal became one of the mentors in my life. He taught me leadership, leadership that I use every day of my life.
00:06:44
Speaker 7: Now, this movie shows the American soldier as he should be shown: not as a doper, not as a guy playing Russian Roulette and Saigon shows, shows the American soldier as he really was in Vietnam.
00:07:01
Speaker 3: And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Randall Wallace for sharing the story of We Were Soldiers. And it is indeed true that the movie We Were Soldiers, a Hollywood film, finally got the story of the Vietnam War right. The story of We Were Soldiers and how it was made here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’m inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday, coming soon.
00:07:38
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