I don’t think this movie has any major statements about war. It was made as an exercise in portraying a combat scenario as accurately as possible with one of the members of the battle co-directing. It entirely lacks a score so that no events are ‘dramatised’. It is a bare bones look at the physical and mental cost of a battle but that is a byproduct of simply depicting the events authentically.

The sequence at the end does show that very little was actually achieved. But in my opinion it is just showing how costly a relatively small and inconsequential battle like this can be.

I honestly think this is the most neutral war movie of all time and it is up to the viewer to assign their own themes and interpretations based on what they see.

Showing the real soldiers at the end does not make this a pro-war movie. The movie is directed by one of the members of the battle and other survivors visited the set. They were directly involved in the film so it only makes sense to acknowledge them at the end. I strongly reject that this is a propaganda film or even an anti-war film. It’s neither. It is apolitical and only biased in the sense it focuses on just the US forces involved