Who Were They Really, During Vietnam?

Long before Vietnam or Cambodia ever became the country they are today, there existed a purely native group people that eventually became known as the Montagnards. Coined by the French nearly hundreds of years ago, the Montagnard means "people of the mountain, or mountain dweller". They lived peacefully and sustained a fully working and structured community, until the French released the rule of the country to the Vietnamese people, making it purely independent. The culture and base of the whole country soon began to crumble, leaving confusion and violence. The Montagnards fled their communities, and hid in the jungle. All during this process, Americans invaded the country and intern began the Vietnam War. During the near 20 year period that both countries were involved, they had to struggle through the harshest of environments. The Montagnards were forced deeper into the brutal Vietnamese jungle. For sometime, the Montagnard Degar people had increasing tensions with the Vietnam majority.Both the Montagnard's political and social views were quite different than how the Vietnamese saw it. In the early 1960's, we began to see contact being made from the Montagnard Degar people and the US. Slowly, they began to be trained by American forces in unconventional war. Soon nearly thousands of Montagnard Degar people began fighting along side American forces, especialy once we began working along the Ho Chi Minh trail. As the end of the war finally came into sight, the Montagnard Degar people fled the country, moving into the United States. It wasn't until 1986, when a large sum of the population began making the long trip. Once in the country, they settled all around, but especially rooted in North Carolina.  Through the mid 1970's, through the late 1980's, several major motion pictures captured what they believed the Vietnam War to have been. Films such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, and Full Metal Jacket were releases over a period of 20 years. All of the motion pictures seemed to have a very similar outlook onto how the natives and locals were treated with in vietnam. Was the relationship between the Montagnard Degar people displayed truthfully in the films, or exaggerated. Did Americans miss treat them, or did we work well together and sustained a good relationship, fighting side by side? 

"There were too many of us, we had access to too much equipment, too much money, and little by little we went insane. My movie is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam"  - Francis Ford Coppola