accurate portrayal of the battle or entirely faithful to the book. For instance, the film depicts a heroic charge under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore at the end of the battle that destroys the Vietnamese reserve, ending the battle in an American victory (a fact that the director noted in his commentary). In fact, there was no heroic final charge in the book, and the North Vietnamese forces were not destroyed, although the Moore did report 834 enemy bodies and 1215 estimated KIA (one third of the enemy force). The US forces were reduced by 72 out of 395, with 18% fatal casualties. The Vietnamese commander, Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An, did not see the conclusion at LZ X-Ray as the end of combat, and the battle continued the next day with combat action at LZ Albany, where the 2/7th, with A Company 1/5th, found themselves in a fight for their lives against Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An's reserve. Despite the differences from the book and departures from historical accuracy, Moore stated in a documentary, included in the video versions, that the film was the first one "to get [the war] right." Reception Critical response Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave We Were Soldiers 3.5 stars out of 4, and praised its truthful and realistic battle scenes and how it follows the characters: "Black Hawk Down was criticized because the characters seemed hard to tell apart. We Were Soldiers doesn't have that problem; in the Hollywood tradition it identifies a few key players, casts them with stars, and follows their stories." Lisa Schwarzbaum, from Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a B and noted its fair treatment of both sides: "The writer-director bestows honor – generously, apolitically – not only on the dead and still living American veterans who fought in Ia Drang, but also on their families, on their Vietnamese adversaries, and on the families of their adversaries too. Rarely has a foe been portrayed with such measured respect for a separate reality, which should come as a relief to critics (I'm one) of the enemy's facelessness in Black Hawk Down; vignettes of gallantry among Vietnamese soldiers and such humanizing visual details as a Vietnamese sweetheart's photograph left behind, in no way interfere with the primary, rousing saga of a fine American leader who kept his promise to his men to 'leave no one behind dead