Talk:Battle of the Ia Drang

Popular culture; a good question

I have Moore's book next to me, but never saw the movie; there were some rumors that Moore didn't like it. Do note I have an article on LZ X-Ray.

Hmmm. As far as educating the general public, there's still a lot of misinformation, even on the early air assault techniques. It's a little fragmentary, but I now have a top-level article on air mobility, with air assault under it. If you look at air assault historically, rather than Vietnam and later, there's the general concept, and then parachute, glider/assault transport, and rotary-wing under it.

I do want to pull the material on helicopter operations out of Vietnam War, and refer both to the Air assault (or possibly a more specific airmobile opeations), and to a general article (in my sandbox) on Vietnam era technology.

Now that you mention it, either in the LZ or article or here, perhaps there should mention of Airman William H. "Pits" Pitsenbarger, an Air Force pararescueman who stayed on the ground to get more wounded out, and give medical assistance on the ground. No one reasonably could have expected him to stay there. Killed in action, he was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but it was downgraded at the time to an Air Force Cross. After review, his family recently was presented with the Medal.Howard C. Berkowitz 23:19, 12 July 2008 (CDT)

I bought and read about half of the book at the PX when I was in Iraq, and that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the Ia Drang article in Recent Changes. Dunno if we need a "In Popular Culture" section or what. It's easy to get overwhelmed with too many things to write about here - be careful you don't fall into that trap! Eric M Gearhart 01:53, 13 July 2008 (CDT)