SHOP WE WERE...
IMDb >
We Were Soldiers (2002) > Memorable quotes
![[Add to My Movies]](http://i.media-imdb.com/images//tn15/button_addtomymovies.gif){kind=small}
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotesOverview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv scheduleAwards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage boardPlot & Quotes
plot summaryplot synopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotesFun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQOther Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDeskPromotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo galleryExternal Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clipsMemorable quotes for
We Were Soldiers (2002)
Sergeant Ernie Savage:
Beautiful morning, Sergeant!
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: What are you a fucking weatherman now?
[after savage is rescued]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: That's a nice day, Sergeant Savage.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I can hear you laughing you know.
Julie Moore: I'm not laughing, I'm marveling.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: At what?
Julie Moore: That you can find stubbornness in your children and think it comes from anywhere but you...
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: They attack us; no casualties. They retreat into the mountains and, naturally, we follow them. Smell like an ambush to you?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I wonder what was going through Custer's mind when he realized that he'd led his men into a slaughter?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I'll never forgive myself.
Joseph Galloway: For what, sir?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That my men... that my men died and I didn't.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Glad you made it son.
Joe Galloway: Thank you, Sir, You too.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [after a short pause] I'll never forgive myself.
Joe Galloway: For what, Sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That my men - that my men died and I didn't.
Joe Galloway: Sir, I don't - I don't know how to tell this story.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well you got to Joe. You tell the American people what these men did here. You tell them how my troopers died.
Joe Galloway: Yes, Sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Thank you.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] These are the true events of November, 1965, the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam, a place our country does not remember, in a war it does not understand. This story's a testament to the young Americans who died in the valley of death, and a tribute to the young men of the People's Army of Vietnam who died by our hand in that place. To tell this story, I must start at the beginning. But where does it begin? Maybe in June of 1954 when French Group Mobile 100 moved into the same central highlands of Vietnam where we would go 11 years later.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] In Saigon, Hal Moore's superiors congratulated him for killing over 1,800 enemy soldiers. Then ordered him to lead the Seventh Cavalry back into the valley of death. He led them and fought beside them for 235 more days. Some had families waiting. For others, their only family would be the men they bled beside. There were no bands, no flags, no Honor Guards to welcome them home. They went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end, they fought not for their country or their flag, the fought for each other.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [Narrating] Dear Barbra, I have no words to express to you my sadness at the loss of Jack. The world is a lesser place without him. But I know he is with God and the angels and I know even Heaven is improved by his presence there. I know you too are sure of this and yet this knowledge can't diminish his loss and your grief. With abiding respect and affection, Hal Moore.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young.
Joe Galloway: Sir, I don't know how to tell this story.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well you have to, Joe. You tell the American people what happened here. You tell them how my troopers died.
Joe Galloway: Yes sir.
[Galloway is on the ground]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: You can't take any pictures from down there, sonny.
[Galloway gets up and is handed a rifle]
Joseph Galloway: I'm a non-combatant.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Ain't no such thing today.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Where you from, son?
Joseph Galloway: Refugio, Texas, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well, that's the first thing I've heard today that makes any sense.
[Moore and Plumley are looking on at the NVA headquarters]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: You want to know how Custer felt? Why don't you ask him?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!
[Moore and Geoghegan a prayer before leaving for Vietnam]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Our Father in Heaven, before we go into battle, every soldier among us will approach you each in his own way. Our enemies too, according to their own understanding, will ask for protection and for victory. And so, we bow before your infinite wisdom. We offer our prayers as best we can. I pray you watch over the young Jack Geoghegan. That I lead into battle. You use me as your instrument in this awful hell of war to watch over them. Especially if they're men like this one beside me, deserving of a future in your blessing and goodwill. Amen.
2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan: Amen.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Oh, yes, and one more thing, dear Lord, about our enemies, ignore their heathen prayers and help us blow those little bastards straight to Hell. Amen.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [Hal Moore speaks to his men before going into battle] Look around you. In the 7th cavalry, we've got a captain from the Ukraine; another from Puerto Rico. We've got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indians. Jews and Gentiles. All Americans. Now here in the states, some of you in this unit may have experienced discrimination because of race or creed. But for you and me now, all that is gone. We're moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours. And you won't care what color he is, or by what name he calls God. They say we're leaving home. We're going to what home was always supposed to be. Now let us understand the situation. We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.
[pauses]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I can't promise you that I will bring you all home 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. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God.
[On the radio]
Colonel Tim Brown: Colonel, what's the situation down there?
[Colonel Moore spins around and shoots a Vietnamese soldier that was just about to bayonet him]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: It's getting pretty sporty down here, sir!
[At night]
Specialist Galen Bungum: I can't see a thing, but I can smell them.
Sergeant Ernie Savage: Dead bodies smell, Bungum.
Specialist Galen Bungum: No it's not the dead ones! I can smell them creeping up on us.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: If any of you sons of bitches calls me grandpa, I'll kill you.
[to Major Crandall]
2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan: Our guys are being killed, sir, you gotta get us in there!
[after Ouellette takes a prisoner just after landing in Ia Drang]
Mr. Nik: [translating] He say he deserter.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Bullshit, he's a lookout.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Ask him where his friends are.
[Mr. Nik asks the prisoner in Vietnamese]
Mr. Nik: He say this is basecamp for whole division. 4,000 men.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Where?
[Mr. Nik talks in Vietnamese to the prisoner who responds in Vietnamese and points to a nearby mountain]
Mr. Nik: [still translating] That mountain. Same army that destroyed French. They want to kill Americans very badly, but have not been able to find any yet.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: He died keeping my promise.
Crandall: My men call me Snakeshit, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Why do they call you that?
Crandall: Because I fly "lower than snakeshit," sir.
Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An: Those who are about to fight and die, I am grateful.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Nothing's wrong except there's nothing wrong!
[the Viet Minh look down on wounded French soldiers]
Viet Minh Sergeant: Do we take prisoners?
Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An: No. Kill all they send... and they will stop coming.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Broken Arrow!
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Pass this along; tell your men to fire three shots at anything that looks suspicious, on my order.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Seen the new rifles too, the M-16.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That's supposed to be a pretty good weapon.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Ahh, lotsa plastic. Feels like a BB gun to me. Believe I'm gonna stick with my pistol.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Think we're gonna get close enough to the enemy to use that?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: What do you think, sir?
Maj. General Henry Kinnard: The White House anticipates a buildup and wants a victory over cavemen in black pajamas.
General in Hallway: We wouldn't be there if they hadn't already beaten the French Army.
Maj. General Henry Kinnard: French Army? What's that?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I got a problem, Snake Shit, and I think you're the solution.
Maj. Bruce Crandall: I've been called a lot of things, Colonel, never a solution.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: You know what Air Cavalry really means? You fly into hostile territory, outnumbered, 10,000 miles from home. Sometimes the battleground is no bigger than a football field, and if the choppers stop coming, we all get slaughtered. Now, I figure chopper pilots won't fly into Hell for strangers, so, I'm Hal Moore.
Sgt. Ernie Savage: Good morning, Sergeant Major.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: How do you know what kind of goddamn day it is?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: You got a death wish, Galloway?
Joe Galloway: No, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Then why are you here?
Joe Galloway: Cause I knew these dead boys would be here, sir.
Diplomatic Spook: I don't like it. First time out a whole battalion gets massacred?
Army Intelligence Officer: You think this is a massacre?
Diplomatic Spook: I call losing a lot of draftees a bad week. Losing a Colonel's a massacre.
Joseph Galloway: [narrating] Some had families waiting, for others their only family would be the men they bled beside, there were no bands, flags no honor guards to welcome them home, they went to war because their country ordered them to, but in the end they fought not for country or their flag, they fought for each other
Joseph Galloway: We who have seen war will never stop seeing it, in the silence of the night we will always hear the screams. So this is our story... For we were soldiers once and young.
[first lines]
French Captain: Anything?
French Lieutenant: No, Captain.
French Captain: Fucking heat. Fucking grass. Fucking country.
[Vietnamese bullet hits him in the head]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I think you oughta get yourself an M-16.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, if the time comes I need one, there'll be plenty lying on the ground.
photos
board
trailer
details
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: What are you a fucking weatherman now?
[after savage is rescued]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: That's a nice day, Sergeant Savage.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I can hear you laughing you know.
Julie Moore: I'm not laughing, I'm marveling.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: At what?
Julie Moore: That you can find stubbornness in your children and think it comes from anywhere but you...
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: They attack us; no casualties. They retreat into the mountains and, naturally, we follow them. Smell like an ambush to you?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I wonder what was going through Custer's mind when he realized that he'd led his men into a slaughter?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I'll never forgive myself.
Joseph Galloway: For what, sir?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That my men... that my men died and I didn't.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Glad you made it son.
Joe Galloway: Thank you, Sir, You too.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [after a short pause] I'll never forgive myself.
Joe Galloway: For what, Sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That my men - that my men died and I didn't.
Joe Galloway: Sir, I don't - I don't know how to tell this story.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well you got to Joe. You tell the American people what these men did here. You tell them how my troopers died.
Joe Galloway: Yes, Sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Thank you.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] These are the true events of November, 1965, the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam, a place our country does not remember, in a war it does not understand. This story's a testament to the young Americans who died in the valley of death, and a tribute to the young men of the People's Army of Vietnam who died by our hand in that place. To tell this story, I must start at the beginning. But where does it begin? Maybe in June of 1954 when French Group Mobile 100 moved into the same central highlands of Vietnam where we would go 11 years later.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] In Saigon, Hal Moore's superiors congratulated him for killing over 1,800 enemy soldiers. Then ordered him to lead the Seventh Cavalry back into the valley of death. He led them and fought beside them for 235 more days. Some had families waiting. For others, their only family would be the men they bled beside. There were no bands, no flags, no Honor Guards to welcome them home. They went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end, they fought not for their country or their flag, the fought for each other.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [Narrating] Dear Barbra, I have no words to express to you my sadness at the loss of Jack. The world is a lesser place without him. But I know he is with God and the angels and I know even Heaven is improved by his presence there. I know you too are sure of this and yet this knowledge can't diminish his loss and your grief. With abiding respect and affection, Hal Moore.
Joe Galloway: [Narrating] We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young.
Joe Galloway: Sir, I don't know how to tell this story.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well you have to, Joe. You tell the American people what happened here. You tell them how my troopers died.
Joe Galloway: Yes sir.
[Galloway is on the ground]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: You can't take any pictures from down there, sonny.
[Galloway gets up and is handed a rifle]
Joseph Galloway: I'm a non-combatant.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Ain't no such thing today.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Where you from, son?
Joseph Galloway: Refugio, Texas, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well, that's the first thing I've heard today that makes any sense.
[Moore and Plumley are looking on at the NVA headquarters]
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: You want to know how Custer felt? Why don't you ask him?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!
[Moore and Geoghegan a prayer before leaving for Vietnam]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Our Father in Heaven, before we go into battle, every soldier among us will approach you each in his own way. Our enemies too, according to their own understanding, will ask for protection and for victory. And so, we bow before your infinite wisdom. We offer our prayers as best we can. I pray you watch over the young Jack Geoghegan. That I lead into battle. You use me as your instrument in this awful hell of war to watch over them. Especially if they're men like this one beside me, deserving of a future in your blessing and goodwill. Amen.
2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan: Amen.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Oh, yes, and one more thing, dear Lord, about our enemies, ignore their heathen prayers and help us blow those little bastards straight to Hell. Amen.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: [Hal Moore speaks to his men before going into battle] Look around you. In the 7th cavalry, we've got a captain from the Ukraine; another from Puerto Rico. We've got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indians. Jews and Gentiles. All Americans. Now here in the states, some of you in this unit may have experienced discrimination because of race or creed. But for you and me now, all that is gone. We're moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours. And you won't care what color he is, or by what name he calls God. They say we're leaving home. We're going to what home was always supposed to be. Now let us understand the situation. We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.
[pauses]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I can't promise you that I will bring you all home 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. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God.
[On the radio]
Colonel Tim Brown: Colonel, what's the situation down there?
[Colonel Moore spins around and shoots a Vietnamese soldier that was just about to bayonet him]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: It's getting pretty sporty down here, sir!
[At night]
Specialist Galen Bungum: I can't see a thing, but I can smell them.
Sergeant Ernie Savage: Dead bodies smell, Bungum.
Specialist Galen Bungum: No it's not the dead ones! I can smell them creeping up on us.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: If any of you sons of bitches calls me grandpa, I'll kill you.
[to Major Crandall]
2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan: Our guys are being killed, sir, you gotta get us in there!
[after Ouellette takes a prisoner just after landing in Ia Drang]
Mr. Nik: [translating] He say he deserter.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Bullshit, he's a lookout.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Ask him where his friends are.
[Mr. Nik asks the prisoner in Vietnamese]
Mr. Nik: He say this is basecamp for whole division. 4,000 men.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Where?
[Mr. Nik talks in Vietnamese to the prisoner who responds in Vietnamese and points to a nearby mountain]
Mr. Nik: [still translating] That mountain. Same army that destroyed French. They want to kill Americans very badly, but have not been able to find any yet.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: He died keeping my promise.
Crandall: My men call me Snakeshit, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Why do they call you that?
Crandall: Because I fly "lower than snakeshit," sir.
Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An: Those who are about to fight and die, I am grateful.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Nothing's wrong except there's nothing wrong!
[the Viet Minh look down on wounded French soldiers]
Viet Minh Sergeant: Do we take prisoners?
Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An: No. Kill all they send... and they will stop coming.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Broken Arrow!
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Pass this along; tell your men to fire three shots at anything that looks suspicious, on my order.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Seen the new rifles too, the M-16.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: That's supposed to be a pretty good weapon.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Ahh, lotsa plastic. Feels like a BB gun to me. Believe I'm gonna stick with my pistol.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Think we're gonna get close enough to the enemy to use that?
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: What do you think, sir?
Maj. General Henry Kinnard: The White House anticipates a buildup and wants a victory over cavemen in black pajamas.
General in Hallway: We wouldn't be there if they hadn't already beaten the French Army.
Maj. General Henry Kinnard: French Army? What's that?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I got a problem, Snake Shit, and I think you're the solution.
Maj. Bruce Crandall: I've been called a lot of things, Colonel, never a solution.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: You know what Air Cavalry really means? You fly into hostile territory, outnumbered, 10,000 miles from home. Sometimes the battleground is no bigger than a football field, and if the choppers stop coming, we all get slaughtered. Now, I figure chopper pilots won't fly into Hell for strangers, so, I'm Hal Moore.
Sgt. Ernie Savage: Good morning, Sergeant Major.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: How do you know what kind of goddamn day it is?
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: You got a death wish, Galloway?
Joe Galloway: No, sir.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Then why are you here?
Joe Galloway: Cause I knew these dead boys would be here, sir.
Diplomatic Spook: I don't like it. First time out a whole battalion gets massacred?
Army Intelligence Officer: You think this is a massacre?
Diplomatic Spook: I call losing a lot of draftees a bad week. Losing a Colonel's a massacre.
Joseph Galloway: [narrating] Some had families waiting, for others their only family would be the men they bled beside, there were no bands, flags no honor guards to welcome them home, they went to war because their country ordered them to, but in the end they fought not for country or their flag, they fought for each other
Joseph Galloway: We who have seen war will never stop seeing it, in the silence of the night we will always hear the screams. So this is our story... For we were soldiers once and young.
[first lines]
French Captain: Anything?
French Lieutenant: No, Captain.
French Captain: Fucking heat. Fucking grass. Fucking country.
[Vietnamese bullet hits him in the head]
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I think you oughta get yourself an M-16.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, if the time comes I need one, there'll be plenty lying on the ground.
Related Links
| Plot summary | Plot keywords | Parents Guide |
| User comments | Trivia | Goofs |
| Main details | IMDb quotes browser | Search quotes section |
| Browse titles with quotes by letter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other | ||
Home
| Search
| Now Playing
| News
| My Movies
| Games
| Boards
| Help
| US Movie Showtimes
| Top 250
| Register
| Recommendations
| Widgets
Box Office
| Index
| Trailers
| Jobs
|
IMDbPro.com - Free Trial
| IMDb Resume
Copyright © 1990-2008
IMDb.com, Inc.
Terms and Privacy Policy under which this service is provided to you.
An
company.
Advertise on IMDb.
License our content.