Goofs

In the modern-day Vietnam scenes at 1h15in, the former soldier takes the civilian investigator into a butterfly enclosure where Blue Morpho butterflies are prominent. Blue Morphos are found in Central America and Northern South America -- not in Southeast Asia. This filming location was in Costa Rica.

When the bill proposing that Pits be awarded the MOH was presented to Congress, he is addressed as Staff Sergeant Pitsenbarger, a rank he had not achieved. While there are occasions when promotion can be awarded posthumously, this was not the case. The MOH was awarded to Airman First Class Pitsenbarger, which (at that time) was one rank below Staff Sergeant.

At 08:32: a USAF Lieutenant seated at the conference table has a full beard. Beards are not permitted in the US military.

During the Vietnam War period, USAF enlisted rank symbols were not the usual silver on blue as shown throughout the film but instead were subdued black stripes on olive drab patches, with the same being for the embroidered name patches.

The uniform worn by Pits is NOT incorrect. He is shown with his name in white on blue over one breast and USAF in white on blue over the other as well as blue & silver stripes on his sleeve. There are several photos of the real-life A1C Pitsenbarger taken in Vietnam while wearing jungle fatigues with the white on blue name tags and blue and silver rank insignia. Subdued name tags and rank insignia did not become mandatory in the Air Force until the 1970s.

From photos and clips seen, all show A1C WILLIAM H. PITSENBARGER with 3 stripes. In 1966 at the time of his death, 3 stripes was the rank of Airman First Class (A1C), as the rank of Sergeant did not exist in the Air Force and the next higher rank with 4 stripes was Staff Sergeant. In 1967, the next year, the Air Force changed the enlisted rank structure where 1 stripe was Airman Second Class (A2C), 2 stripes was Airman First Class (A1C) and 3 stripes was Sergeant (Sergeant).

The Vietnam Airlines plane shown during the 1999 fact finding trip in this movie, has the current modern all blue paint scheme. Only in place since 2007. Their planes would have been all white with blue stripe and lettering at the time.

A scene with Tully late in the movie was outright plagiarism from a scene in Ordinary People between the teenager (Timothty Hutton) and his psychiatrist (Judd Hersh).

When Frank Pitsenbarger was looking at the various notes and clips tacked on Scott Huffman's board, the word "endorsement" is misspelled in one of the handwritten notes.

They actually used Kaman HH-43 Huskie helicopters for this rescue mission.

The Huey UH-1 helicopter shown during the insertion has a 'toilet bowl' engine exhaust heat deflector, which was not in use at that time, due to the fact there are few remaining period helicopters in flyable condition which may now be found for use in such a film this many years later.