Watched We Were Soldiers last night and then came across this:
https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.653177
In the summer of 1970, was on a training cruise with some marine veterans of Vietnam.
As a young kid, I was really intrigued with the mobility of the Air Cavalry and knew a little bit about Ia Drang.
I asked the marine Lieutenant Colonel about it, and he had never heard of the Battle of Ia Drang, and cheerfully admitted he had no knowledge of Air Cavalry operations.
It was the first real indication to me of how the war was being fought. The marines fought their way, the army did it their own way, and neither seemed to learn from the other.
It was very disturbing. Even as a newby, this seemed like a terrible idea.
Quote from: mirth on July 29, 2018, 07:22:35 AM
Watched We Were Soldiers last night and then came across this:
https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.653177
Great find! Amazing news coverage.
Saw excerpts of this on Ken Burn's Vietnam...seeing the whole thing really puts it into perspective.
There's an interesting article on the larger picture of the battle in the Ia Drang in the latest issue of Vietnam magazine.
According to the author, the whole idea for the campaign was to draw the PAVN out of the jungle and plaster them with B-52s.