David Sterritt, from the "Christian Science Monitor", criticized the film for giving a more positive image of the Vietnam War that, in his opinion, did not concur with reality: "The films about Vietnam that most Americans remember are positively soaked in physical and emotional torment – from "Platoon", with its grunt's-eye view of combat, to "Apocalypse Now", with its exploration of war's dehumanizing insanity. Today, the pendulum has swung back again. If filmmakers with politically twisted knives once sliced away guts-and-glory clichés, their current equivalents hack away all meaningful concern with moral and political questions. "We Were Soldiers" is shameless in this regard, filling the screen with square-jawed officers who weep at carnage and fresh-faced GIs who use their last breaths to intone things like, 'I'm glad I died for my country.'"