takes over that responsibility. At the point of being overrun by the enemy, Moore orders 1st Lt. Charlie Hastings, his forward air controller, to call in "Broken Arrow", a call for all available combat aircraft to attack enemy positions, even those close to the US troops' position, because they are being overrun. The aircraft attack with bombs, napalm, and machine guns, killing many PAVN and Viet Cong troops, but a friendly fire incident also results in American deaths. The North Vietnamese attack is repelled, and the surviving soldiers of Herrick's cut-off platoon, including Savage, are rescued. Moore's troops regroup and secure the area. Nguyen Huu An plans a final assault on the Americans and sends most of his troops 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. With no more troops to call on, Huu An quickly orders the headquarters evacuated. Having achieved his objective, Moore returns to the helicopter landing zone to be picked up. Only after everyone (including the dead and wounded) is removed from the battlefield does he fly out of the valley. Sometime later, Nguyen Huu An and his men arrive on the battlefield to collect their dead. He claims that the Americans will "think this was their victory. So this will become an American war". At the end of the film, it is revealed that the landing zone immediately reverted to North Vietnamese hands after the American troops were airlifted out. Hal Moore continued the battle in a different landing zone, and after nearly a year, he returned home safely to Julia and his family. His superiors congratulate him for killing over 1,800 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong soldiers. An older Moore visits the Vietnam War memorial and looks at the names of the soldiers who fell at Ia Drang. Cast Adaptation from source material In the source book, We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, Hal Moore complains, "Every damn Hollywood movie got [the Vietnam war] wrong." The director, Randall Wallace, said that he was inspired by that comment and became "determined to get it right this time." The film's final version got many of the facts of the book presented onto film but is not entirely a historically