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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Interview With Makers of 'We Were Soldiers'

Aired February 28, 2002 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

There's a news conference that has just begun in San Diego on the case of the 7-year-old, Danielle van Dam. Let's listen in to local law enforcement authorities.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

PAUL PFINGST, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: As you know, late last night, the body was transported to the medical examiner's office. An autopsy was started at 10:00 this morning. The autopsy lasted until about 2:00 this afternoon.

Because of the physical condition of Danielle van Dam's body, it was necessary to bring in a forensic dentist in order to do a dental comparison to make sure and to make certain of the identification. That dentist is Dr. Skip Sperber, a nationally renowned forensic dentist who has done a comparison of the dental records of Danielle van Dam and the dental x-rays of the body that was recovered yesterday afternoon.

Based upon the comparison of the dental records, the identification of Danielle van Dam was made certain. I also told you yesterday what we would discuss, whether or not we could tell you the cause of death. Dr. Blackborn (ph) informs me today that because of the decomposition of the body, he is unable to say at this time what the cause of death is for Danielle van Dam.

Chief Bejarano is now with the family, with the van Dam family. He has just, within the last few minutes, informed them of what I have just told you. So the family has been notified and this is obviously a very difficult time for them and a difficult time I think for all San Diegans.

The next time that we will have any press conference or any information on this matter will be the date of the preliminary examination and that's on the 11th. But before I stop today, let me say this. On behalf of police Chief Bejarano of the San Diego Police Department and my office, I would just like to take a minute to thank the civilian volunteers who, for the past three weeks, have stayed with this case and stayed with this investigation and helped search for Danielle van Dam. It has been one of the most extraordinary things I've seen in my years of law enforcement. The result of that search was to find this little girl. BLITZER: And so we have official confirmation that the body that was found in the desert outside of San Diego yesterday was in fact the body of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. She was taken from her home on February 1, about four weeks ago. The police have arrested a suspect, a neighbor, 50-year-old David Westerfield.

Local law enforcement authorities telling us, as we just saw, that based on forensic dental records of the little 7-year-old, they have made certain that this body is in fact that of Danielle van Dam. The family, the van Dam family has been notified of the -- has been notified of this only within the past few minutes.

They can't yet determine the cause of death, but they are still working on that. We will continue to update you on this, but once again, positive identification, confirmation that the body found in the desert in San Diego some 24 hours ago, is in fact that of Danielle van Dam.

In other news that we're following right now, military jets were called out to escort an Air India plane into John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, where FBI agents met that plane. An alert had been issued after the name of one of the passengers was found to be similar to a name on an international watch list.

Our Michael Okwu has been working on this story all afternoon. He is over at JFK in New York. He joins us now live -- Michael.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, good evening. FBI officials tell CNN that they have no investigative interest in the man and the woman who were escorted off Air India Flight 101 after it landed here at JFK at about 4:43 this afternoon.

Now, the man, apparently who was traveling on this flight who was deemed suspicious when it left from Heathrow Airport, was a man who had an Arabic sounding name, and he was traveling apparently with a woman whom one of the passengers tell us spoke with an Irish accent.

Now Air India Flight 101 landed again about 4:43 this afternoon at JFK. Authorities boarded the plane and removed the two people, the two travelers, just moments after a pair of F-15s roared next to it, beside it, and they flew off into the distance after the plane was landed and secure here at JFK. Some of the 370 passengers who were aboard the flight say that it was a fairly normal ride.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we landed, we didn't really know what was going on and then, obviously, we weren't parked at the gate. And the police -- some police came and came on to the plane and escorted two people off, a young man and a young woman. And then they were taken off and we don't know what happened to them.

OKWU: How many people came on the flight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were about two to three police officers or Secret Service. OKWU: Throughout the course of the flight, did you notice anything unusual?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. It was like a regular flight. He was sitting three aisles behind us. It was normal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OKWU: Now what caused all this? Well, apparently this person's face resembled the face of somebody who was on the international watch list. But apparently, Wolf, just a distant resemblance and nothing more -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All a false alarm. Michael Okwu, thanks for that report. It does, of course, underscore how sensitive everyone is about planes coming into the United States.

And there's another developing story we are covering here in Washington. After months of marching in step when it comes to the war on terrorism, have Democrats and Republicans come to a parting of the ways? Let's go live to our congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl -- Jon.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, as you full well know, Democrats have been reluctant to utter even a single word that could be interpreted as being critical of the president's war effort. But today on Capitol Hill, there were clear signs that that is beginning to change.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: Clearly we have to find Mohammed Omar. We've got to find Osama bin Laden. And we've got to find other key leaders of the al Qaeda network or we will have failed.

KARL (voice-over): Senator Daschle's comments, which came in response to a reporter's question, were echoed by another key Democratic leader.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: We will not go on blindly forever just supporting a commander in chief against a war on terrorists when there seems to be no limit and it seems to me that we are expanding our efforts.

KARL: The comments signal a coming fight over the Pentagon's request for a record $379 billion budget. Before signing off on that, Senator Byrd has concerns about the direction of the war.

BYRD: Now we are talking about going into Georgia, the republic of Georgia. And now it's Yemen. Where is the end? Where is the end?

DASCHLE: I think there is expansion without at least a clear direction today, but we will continue to ask the questions required to better understand that direction. And before we make commitments in resources, I think we need to have a clear understanding of what the direction will be.

KARL: Republican leader Trent Lott shot back.

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: Any crack or perceived crack in the support and unity of the American people and our leaders in Washington is not helpful. And I think it's important that we not be critical of the commander in chief at a time when we are at war against terrorism.

KARL: At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer suggested Senator Daschle's remarks may be politically motivated.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, it's never easy to guess what the motives are of the loyal opposition on Capitol Hill. Obviously, people feel heartfelt about various issues. Obviously, there's going to be politics involved. Some people may want to run for president one day. But the president is going to continue to always work productively and bipartisan with members of the Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL (on camera): Now, almost immediately after his press conference this morning, Senator Daschle's aides were quick to say that he completely supports the president on the war effort, that Senator Daschle was simply underlining the importance of finding Osama bin Laden, finding the rest of the al Qaeda network, a goal that has clearly been set forth by the White House as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill, thank you very much for that report.

A new motion picture opens up this weekend. I saw an advanced screening and it is powerful and gripping. Starring Mel Gibson and Sam Elliott, "We Were Soldiers" is a true story of a bloody and desperate battle in Vietnam's central highlands in 1965, the first major battle for U.S. troops in Vietnam, and the first test of the Army's air mobile approach to warfare, using helicopters to bring troops into battle.

Joining me here in the CNN WAR ROOM, retired general Hal Moore, then a lieutenant colonel in the command of the U.S. troops; Joe Galloway, he's a former war correspondent who won a medal for helping rescue a wounded GI in the battle. They are the co-authors of the book upon which the movie is based. Also with us, Randall Wallace, he wrote and directed this film. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us.

And, General Moore, let me begin with you. This is powerful, graphic, very gory stuff in this movie. Were you satisfied with the way Hollywood portrayed what you actually lived through?

RETIRED LT. GEN. HAL MOORE, CO-AUTHOR, "WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE": I certainly was. It's a superb movie and Randall Wallace did a fine job. No other director in Hollywood could have done this movie except Randall Wallace. BLITZER: Joe Galloway, are you satisfied with the way this movie portrays the actual events of 1965?

JOE GALLOWAY, CO-AUTHOR, "WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE": Very much so. Mr. Wallace hewed very closely to the book, and the truth was in the book. And so the truth is on the screen.

BLITZER: I saw the movie with a bunch of friends, and it was hard to watch it. A lot of it was so graphic. What was the point that you wanted to make in showing all of that blood?

RANDALL WALLACE, DIRECTOR: I wanted the American public to know what these soldiers had experienced and the debt that we owe to them. I wanted America to know what these guys have done for America.

BLITZER: Let's take an excerpt. We have a few excerpts I want to show and we will put them up on the screen. There's one here where then Lieutenant Colonel Moore talks about the mission and his responsibility. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WE WERE SOLDIERS")

MEL GIBSON, ACTOR: We are going into battle against a tough an determined enemy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pitch black. I can't see anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need illumination on the perimeter.

GIBSON: When we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the on the need, and I will be the last to step off, but we will all come home together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You know, I was moved when throughout that was a three- day battle. He was getting orders that he should leave. They didn't want you, a lieutenant colonel, to be killed during the course of that battle.

MOORE: I did, in fact, receive an order to leave the battlefield in the middle of the fight, which was a stupid order, an order which I could not possibly carry out, and I told the people back in the rear who gave me the order that I would not obey that order. I was going stay with my men, I was in a hell of a fight, and I was not going to leave them. I told them that I was the first man on the ground, I'd be the last man out, and we are going to win this fight.

BLITZER: Did you know at the time that this fight was -- when you went into it -- was going to cause such a huge number of casualties on the U.S. side?

MOORE: No, I didn't realize it would cause that number, but I knew we were going to get in a fight. When I was talking to the division staff before we went in the first cav (ph) division staff, they showed me a map with a large red star on it. I said, "what's that?" They said, "enemy base camp." I knew going into an enemy base camp, it would be a fight.

BLITZER: This was a patriotic movie, Joe, but it was also -- at least I came out of it feeling this was an anti-war movie. Did you see it that way in the sense of the futility? What was the point of going after that hill?

GALLOWAY: Well, I got to agree with you, and the book is the same way. I told General Moore when we finished the manuscript, I said, "you know that we've written maybe the greatest anti-war book of the 20th century." Because we show so graphically the face of war and who pays the price of war, and Randall captured that in the movie.

BLITZER: Did you see it as an anti-war movie?

WALLACE: Absolutely, though I did not see it in any sense as making a political statement. It was a story that just grabbed my heart. Hal Moore is a leader who cared more about the lives of his men than he cared about his own life. And Joe Galloway is a journalist who thought the American people need the truth, deserve the truth, and he was willing to risk his own life to go get that truth. And every time I told that story to anybody, I got a tingle in my spine and a lump in my throat. I knew it was a story that the American people had to know.

BLITZER: Helicopters are used obviously very much in today's warfare, whether recently in Bosnia and the Balkans, but right now in Afghanistan. Let's take a look at another clip from the movie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WE WERE SOLDIERS")

GIBSON: Welcome to the new cavalry. We will ride into battle, and this will be our horse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This was a whole new dimension in warfare, using helicopter warships.

MOORE: That's exactly right. This was a concept that was developed in the Pentagon and sent down to Fort Bening to test. Air assault, air mobility. Free the ground soldier from the tyranny of the ground, send him into battle fresh on a helicopter. That was the horse you saw.

BLITZER: Joe Galloway, you're a world-class war correspondent, and you're portrayed in the movie by the young actor Berry Pepper. He's portrayed the General Moore by Mel Gibson. I want to show one expert that talks about what you were doing there during that battle in Vietnam. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WE WERE SOLDIERS")

GIBSON: Who in the hell are you?

BARRY PEPPER, ACTOR: I'm a reporter, sir. Joe Galloway, UPI, (UNINTELLIGIBLE). GIBSON: Well, we've been fighting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) since last night, and we're greatly outnumbered.

PEPPER: You got more enemy coming too, sir. I saw a whole chain of lines coming down the mountain on the way in.

GIBSON: Is that so?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You went out there, you sort of jumped on a helicopter and went out there, which is what a lot of Vietnam War correspondents used to do, didn't they?

GALLOWAY: Most openly covered war in the history of our country. You know, you signed a few pieces of paper that said you wouldn't divulge information that would help the enemy in time to help him, and they gave you a press card that was a ticket to the war. You can go anywhere you wanted, stayed as long as you wanted, march with any outfit you wanted.

BLITZER: In marked contrast with the Gulf War or even what's going on right now in Afghanistan?

GALLOWAY: Well, that's true. It's been a sort of a spiral downward since then, in not only the relations between the military and the media, but the way that things are covered. The technology has changed so rapidly, so drastically that, you know, if this battle were fought today somewhere, the likelihood of a CNN reporter being there with a live uplink is pretty high. I don't know about Hal Moore, but I'd sure hate to fight a battle like that with -- with all my bosses and the president watching in real time.

MOORE: And the enemy.

GALLOWAY: And the enemy.

BLITZER: Stand by, gentlemen. We are going to take a quick break. We have a lot to talk .a Bout this major motion picture starring Mel Gibson. We will be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WE WERE SOLDIERS")

GIBSON: The men are so young, and when I look at them, I see our boys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think about being a soldier and father?

GIBSON: I hope that being good at the one makes my better at the other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WE WERE SOLDIERS")

GIBSON: Cavalry really means fly into hostile territory, outnumbered, 10,000 miles from home. Sometimes the battleground is no bigger than a football field, isn't it? And if the choppers stop coming, we all get slaughtered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Welcome back. We are talking about a major motion picture about to be released this weekend, "We Were Soldiers." Joining us once again Lieutenant General Hal Moore, Joe Galloway, a war correspondent, and Randall Wallace, the director.

This was a movie that showed the love that these soldiers had for each other. They were really fighting more for each other than they were for a mission that they may not necessarily have understood.

WALLACE: That was one of the most profound aspects of this story for me, that in the end these soldiers weren't serving some dogma about the flag, about apple pie, none of the cliches -- it was an inescapable truth -- that when the shooting started, you didn't care about the religion, the skin color, about anything about the man next to you, except who he was as an individual and that he would not leave you, and you would not leave him.

BLITZER: We have another clip, General Moore, I want you to listen to this clip, it shows the then president, LBJ, President Johnson, announcing a major escalation in U.S. troop levels in Vietnam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNDON B. JOHNSON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have today ordered to Vietnam 125,000 men, additional forces will be needed later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: When he says additional forces will be needed later you didn't have enough personnel under your command to really get that job done, did you?

MOORE: No, we did not. And we were all greatly disappointed that President Johnson did not freeze enlistments, freeze discharges, keep us like we were. I lost 130, 140 men. The president of the United States, the commander-in-chief of the military forces of America sent this division to war under-strength. Now that's bad, that's immoral. I lost men killed over there, because what that president did.

BLITZER: When people, now a days, when they watch this movie on Vietnam, a whole generation that was born since the Vietnam War, Joe, and they bring it up to what's happening right now in the U.S. war on terrorism. How will they react?

GALLOWAY: I don't know. I hope they take this movie to their hearts, that it has some lessons that reverberate for a younger generation who have grown up. You know -- interestingly, the young kids, the freshmen in college have an abiding interest in this. They fill up the classes on the Vietnam War, over-subscribe them. They want to know, they know that sometimes they can't get the truth by listening to their parents argue at the dinner table. It's a subject that a lot of families just don't want to touch, and so there's a great deal of interest out there, and I hope that the movie encourages them to read more deeply and to try to understand this war.

And in the end, we've always hoped that it would do one other thing and that is persuade the American people to change their attitude toward those who fought the war and embrace the warrior. It's okay to hate the war -- hate any war -- but you can't hate the warrior.

BLITZER: When you came home, from Vietnam, and all your fellow Vietnam War veterans came home, there were no big parades for you, were there?

MOORE: No, not at all, and we were ignored. Some of my veterans were treated really poorly, and for years and years this went on. Now I sense that the Vietnam veteran is getting more respect for what he did over there in that unfortunate, tragic war. I certainly hope this movie strikes all people in America to honor and respect the Vietnam veteran for what he did.

BLITZER: Do you think that when people see this and the president of the United States is now seeing this movie. Will they -- what do you hope they will learn most from what happened?

WALLACE: Well, I really have to quote the Bible here. The Bible says you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free, and I think this movie will enable veterans to take their families and say to their families this is what I didn't know how to tell you. I also think it will make America say, you know, it's our duty and even our great opportunity to make our country worthy of the sacrifice those who are willing to die for it.

BLITZER: OK. That's it. Got to leave it right there. Randall Wallace thanks for joining us.

WALLACE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Joe Galloway. General.

MOORE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Pleasure. We will be right back with a news alert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEL GIBSON, ACTOR: It's about the men and women, the ordinary men and women who have to go and deal with some of the unpleasant things and it's because of them, it's because they do it that the rest of us don't have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Authorities say a body found near San Diego is that of missing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. That tops tonight's news alert. As you saw live here on CNN, at the top of this hour, the San Diego district attorney says the body found yesterday was identified today, and the child's parents have been notified.

A neighbor of the van Dams, David Westerfield, has been charged with kidnapping and murder, he's pleaded not guilty to the charges.

And a man and a woman on an Air India flight were released shortly after the flight was escorted into John F. Kennedy International Airport by fighter jets. Officials said the man resembled someone whose name is on an international watch list. The flight from London was carrying 378 passengers and a crew of 21.

A federal appeals court has overturned the convictions of three New York police officers. The convictions were for conspiracy to obstruct justice, after the torture of the Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. A fourth officer pleaded guilty to the torture in the restroom of a police station in 1997. Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a request to appoint a special prosecutor in the case.

That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again, tomorrow, twice at 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

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