The final lines of the movie repeat the refrain from "Black Hawk Down," "Saving Private Ryan," and other recent war movies: Ultimately, they fought for each other, not for a cause or a country.
Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" deserves inclusion.
From the film: "One picture can win or lose a war."
Until I saw this film, I had not realized that the cause of the American failure in Vietnam was the photo of the South Vietnamese police chief shooting a Viet Cong in the head.
Yes. That and the "napalm girl" (which was a phoney in that she had not been "napalmed" at all). And you're right: "Patriot" had the same theme: there are no higher ideals for which we fight, just "each other."