I served as a 0311 Marine rifleman in Vietnam 1967-68. 13 mos. Never heard anyone using the "N" word. The black and Hispanic people I served with were indistinguishable from white people regarding whatever array of personal characteristics you'd want to discuss. No one gets shot repeatedly by a 7.6239mm cartridge, gets up and continues running. Never heard of the NVA in I Corps cutting someone's throat, tying them to a pole and putting a sign around his neck. Most people would be amazed at the ordinariness of the grunts I served with. One or two years post high school. The characters in the movie were generally accurate amalgamations of people we all served with. I thought the guy who played company commander was especially authentic as was the 2nd lieutenant. Never met anyone like Barnes. King character was excellent. Bunny and Junior characters were caricatures. I thought the firefight at the end was Hollywoodish. Exciting. I appreciate the fact that the movie had to sell and make money. We Were Soldiers had an over the top quality about it. I think a movie about LZ Albany would have been better. That was the second big battle of the Ia Drang. There were frightening stories floating around about it when I arrived in Vietnam.

We Were Soldiers is far better than Platoon which is vastly overrated IMHO.
It's all a deep end.

The different responses suggest that Vietnam remains controversial. Someone from the long logistical tail would have had different experiences from someone in the field units and if they returned home, have different attitudes. Blacks might feel different from whites etc. WW1 veterans in many countries who survived reacted differently too - some were pacifists, others could not adjust to life without fighting, going as far as to participate in often fascist paramilitary groups.
"Chicken soup - with a beep straw."

But those movies were nothing but violence, and both films didn't bother to tell us about any of the real men with the exception of Hal Moore. If that's the kind of movie you like then that's fine but let's just be honest about what they really areAction movies.
I'm also apparently not the only person who feels this way because Platoon won Best Picture and Best Director and is considered to be one of the greatest war films ever, neither WWS or BHD reached that level of critical acclaim. Also I am by no means a military history buff but I heard that the Ewan McGregor character in BHD was a complete work of fiction, so it seems like BHD may not be 100% accurate either.
"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine

The battle in these movies
were the story
. If you note, Platoon was a fictionalized account of Vietnam. Not one of the depictions was a real person. Blackhawk Down and We Were Soldiers were nonfiction accounts and the characters were all based on real men.