10bears. First of all. You have to admit, using this particular pretty boy, Hollywood, meat puppet, to play Vietnam vets, has some irony.
As far as making a movie. I wouldn't even try. As I have stated in the past. War is an experience. Like any human experience, if it is unique, you are not going to get it on film. If a guy has never eaten a banana. You can show him a thousand movies of people eating bananas, and he still wont know what one taste like.
If I were forced to make one. It would be very boring to people use to Hollywood drama queens. Basically, it would just show solider earning their pay. There would be no background music. Real life dosent have mood music. When someone got hurt, there would be screaming. There is something very disturbing about a grown man screaming. Also it would not be shut off, so as not to get on the audiences nerves. It would go on, and on, and on. Like real life.
I would include one standard, war movie, screen. When Officers, and senior NCOs stand around talking business, while bullets are flying by. I have seen them do this, and it really, was amazing.
There wouldn't be acts of great courage every two minutes. Exceptional acts of courage are as rare as acts of cowardice. Most guys just go along with the program. For most of us the things that we did that took guts. Had little to do with us personally. If you find yourself in a world of total chaos, and you have no idea of whats going on. (fear of the unknown can be a terrible thing). What you will do. Is what you are trained/conditioned to do. Its all you have. Its all you know. How do you show that on film?
Treatment of the enemy, in movies, always makes me scratch my head. Hollywood goes with the hero hating the bad guys for some reason; usually some trumped up revenge issue. Or they are the noble foe well met. Both are BS. To us they were just gooks. Killing them was not personal. It was just the business we where in.
Anyway, film is a lousy medium, for trying to understand this stuff. Books give you a much better way to look inside a guys head. That is where wars are really fought. I recommend Red Badge of Courage. It is an old book, but the guy got it mostly, right.