Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question about the movie "We were soldiers"

Hunter 1960 said:
Good old, Hungry Lizard, aka. Hunter-Ligget. Spent about 4mo's there in 1985. Doing a test in air to air helicopter combat. My company of the 9th Avn. Bn. at Ft. Lewis, was tasked as the Blackhawk element.

They'ld mount a MILES system on the aircraft giving the P/CP the ability to aim the MILES. We were fighting against S-model AH-1 Cobras. The AH-1's were rigged with MILES also. This was before the AH-64 came out, hot and heavy.

This project was in response to how US forces could deploy against the Soviet Hokom helicopter, which was designed as a helicopter attack helicopter. Sometimes we were the OPFOR, sometimes we weren't. It was an enjoyable test.

I remember all the hoopla about air to air helicopter combat. Since we were all flying Huey's at the time we were sure we would be the first USSR "kill".

It all ended in 1989 thank goodness. kwg

I just finished the movie and had a question about the landscape.

Is there anywhere in Vietnam that looks remotely like the dry grassy areas where most of the battle scenes were filmed?

I'd ask my dad (he did two tours),but he really doesn't like to talk about his time over there.

My reading of the Vietnam War changed my view of the "MOVIE" steriotyping of the land scape.
There were high lofty mountains, desert like dunes and scrub on some coast lines, to the swampy delta areas - and about anything you could imagine in between.

My son that served in IRAQ, a place we all think of as a desert environment, told me of a helo assault to an island in (I believe) the Tigres river that was thick jungle and palm trees. He said they couldn't see ten feet in some places!

"We were solider's once" is a great movie about a horrible battle. One of the most sobering accounts of which is that told by Mr. Jack P. Smith.
http://www.mishalov.com/death_ia_drang_valley.html