ABSTRACT
Two very different Vietnam War films—We Were Soldiers and The Quiet American—presented two very different answers to these questions, so different that the first had its release date brought up to March 2002 and the second was postponed more than a year from September 2001 until the following December. This chapter examines each film in turn. It begins with a reading of how We Were Soldiers constructs a US we, a moral grammar of war, and a trajectory for becoming a moral America(n) that supports the official story about moral America after 9/11. The chapter explores how The Quiet American contests the character, grammar, and conclusions on which this official story relies. Finally, it concludes by reading the two films together to reconsider who we wish we'd never been.
