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

2/7th, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). A photo history of the 1st Cav at the 101st base???

You left out that guys like you were our lifeline. No ammo,no water,no chow, no live to tell lies about it all. Guys like you,for me guys like Woody and Brother Jorge.

Speaking of men I admire, and ET shows up! . Flying in and out of that place in a friggin helo took brass balls amigo...

OK, I was just a passenger, I went where the pilot took me.

We sure didn't want to leave the guys on the ground hanging though.

Gimme a break here, somebody had to do it and it was my turn in the barrel.

nope, you're my hero

A little story of an aftermath to LZ X-Ray and one of its stalwarts. Joe Galloway was a reporter. Legendary. He was with Ltc. Moore at Ia Drang. Well, many years after, Desert Storm Gen Schwarzkopf put reporters in a pool and assigned them where HE wanted. Except that the Divisional Commander of the 1st Cav heard that Joe Galloway was a pool reporter. He told Stormin' Norman he would only accept Joe. Imagine the reporters watching as the 1st Cavalry Division sent a helicopter for Joe galloway alone. He was brought to the front lines of the Cav. A Ltc. approached and SALUTED him. "Sir,welcome to the "Fighting Falcons". The artillery unit that fired NON-STOP for days in support of 1/7 at X-Ray from LZ FALCON. That is where their name came from. The entire Artillery Battalion was standing inspection formation FOR A CIVILIAN!!! This is the regard that Joe Galloway was held in with the First Cavalry Division. Awesome when I learned about it.

Yeah know EXACTLY what you mean! Took me 41 years later to find out about a certain someone left hanging

No, only the 101st involvement. Airmoble is now the name given to the 101st. At some point since the 70's it was dropped from 1st Cav. Div. which is at FT.Hood. They've become primarily an armored/mech. inf. Div.

The 7th Cav. was broken up also. With the 4th Sqdn. 7th Cav. being in the ROK. I don't know if the other Sqdn's of the 7th Cav. had their colors folded after the VN war or not.

Watch the video trailer in the link below for a brief interview with the reporter/photographer, Joe Galloway, portrayed by actor, Barry Pepper, in the movie "We Were Soldiers". His retelling of the "Broken Arrow" napalm drop incident from the movie truely is a heart breaker.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/27/history-to-unveil-vietnam-in-hd-with-michael-c-hall-exclusive/

History to unveil 'Vietnam in HD' with Michael C. Hall- EXCLUSIVE
by James Hibberd
Categories: Scoop
Comments 41 Add comment
Image Credit: History
Apocalypse wow: History channel is set to announce a six-hour miniseries that brings the Vietnam War into 2011 with a true high-definition telecast.

The network collected thousands of hours of uncensored war footage for the project, much of which has never previously been seen, then restored and and converted the most compelling moments to HD. Much of the footage was from soldiers� personal handheld cameras. Dexter star Michael C. Hall will narrate the project, with the words of more than a dozen war veterans voiced by Edward Burns, Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Zachary Levi, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dean Cain, Dylan McDermott, and others.

The project follows up History�s 2009′s Emmy-winning miniseries, WWII in HD, which similarly told the story of a war using the first-person accounts of soldiers, reporters and other personnel. The miniseries premieres this fall.

UPDATE: Here�s the trailer as promised (warning, contains graphic descriptions):

I don't think there is an Actor/Director in Hollywood that could have taken Lt.Gen Hal Moore and Joe Galloway's Book and turn it into a movie as well done as what Mel Gibson turned out. What ever his personal short comings may or may not be, there is one thing, he knows how to make a movie. If anybody else did it, we would be talking right now what a crap fest.

Thanks for that ET, I was not aware of that.

On the original topic, I can vouch that nothing around LZ English (just south of the I/II Corps line, along Hwy 1 at Bong Son pass) looked like grassy plains. Solid rice paddies in the low-lying areas; karst upthrusts and jungled mountains everywhere else.

But eastern Cambodia is a California double: great swaths of rolling grasslands cut with jungled waterways and triple-canopy hills. It was a tan and deep green mosaic in the dry season and an Irish-like emerald paradise in the wet.

From the air, the whole of Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos/Thailand was stunningly beautiful. When I wasn't ducking tracers.

And the heroes keep rolling in today!

A quick check of the current structure in the 1st Cav. Div. shows 1st Bn & 2nd Bn 7th Cav. as operational units.

The Battalion designator must be the difference in separating ground Cav, from that of Air Cav. that normally goes by a Squadron designator.

Even at Ft. Hood, i was in 2nd Sqdn 6th Cav. we were an Air Cav. Squadron, not a Battalion.

We used to tease the 1st Cav. folks at Ft. Hood about their patch, the horse they never rode, the line they never crossed and the yellow down their backs, it was all in good fun and jest.

Terrain and cover is as varied in 'Nam as anywhere except there is no desert. There are areas of coastal dunes around Cam Rahn, Quin Nhon and perhaps a few other places. A lot of grasslands in the high country from the old DMZ down to Pleiku and points south. The high mountains in those regions also have some of the tallest timber on earth. It has snowed in in the region of Pleiku...saw the photos.

It's popular to view SE Asia is all wet fetid jungle or rice paddies. Ain't so.

B/2/17th Cav was the catalyst that started Hamburger Hill the day I reported for duty, first tour. Recollection has it the players were in place and spoiling for a battle. On or about 13 May '69 one of our scouts was following some phone wire up the hill and got shot down. No pun intended, but it was all down hill from there.

Anyone know anything about the Sgt. MacKenzie by Joseph MacKenzie song in the movie?

It is haunting.

Here is the Sgt. MacKenzie song with both original Scottish version and English translation and the pipes. Ya gotta have the pipes.

http://www.trustinglogic.com/blog/

Here are three quotes:
Joseph MacKenzie wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in the Great War. Sergeant MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at the age of 35, while defending one of his badly injured fellow soldiers in the hand-to-hand fighting of the trenches.
[�]
Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie went to fight in France during World War I and was shot in the shoulder. The military sent him home to Scotland for treatment, where the surgeon wanted to amputate his arm. Sgt. MacKenzie refused, stating that he had to go back to his men. While recuperating in the hospital, he was asked what it was like to kill "the Hun" (as the Germans were called then). He replied, "what a waste of a fine body of men".
[�]
Man you did a good job with the translation, Translating from Scots to English can be hard if you're not from Scotland but you got it pretty much bang on. Don't listen to the bawbags that tell you its crap. I'm Scottish and you did it well.

Man ye did ah gid joab wae eh translation, translatin' fae Scots tae English kin be herd if yer no fae Scotland, bit ye git it pritty much bang oan. dinny listen tae eh bawbags aht tell ye its [bleep]. Ahm Scottish an ye dun it well.

And some script quotes:

Wikiquote:
Joe Galloway: (voice-over) These are the true events of November, 1965. The Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam, a place our country does not remember in a war it does not understand. This story is a testament to the young Americans who died in the Valley of Death, and a tribute to the young men of the People's Army of Vietnam who died by our hand in that place.

[In a flashback sequence: after ambushing a French column, Viet Minh troops stand over the wounded survivors.]
Viet Minh soldier: (in subtitles) Do we take prisoners?
Lt. Nguyen Huu An: (in subtitles) No. Kill all they send, and they will stop coming.

General: The White House anticipates a buildup and wants a victory... over cavemen in black pajamas.
General Kinnard: We wouldn't be there if they hadn't already beaten the French Army.
[�]
Hal Moore: So, your men call you "Snakeshit".
Bruce "Snake" Crandall: That's an affectionate appellation from my comrades-in-arms, sir, 'cause I fly lower than snake [bleep].
Moore: Well, I got a problem, Snakeshit, and I think you're the solution.
Crandall: I've been called a lot of things, Colonel. Never a solution.
Moore: You know what "Air Cavalry" really means? You fly into hostile territory, outnumbered, ten thousand miles from home. Sometimes the battleground's no bigger than a football field. And if the choppers stop coming... we all get slaughtered. Now, I figure chopper pilots won't fly into hell for strangers, so � I'm Hal Moore. (they shake hands)
...
Moore: They want to fly with you for some reason. I guess it's 'cause they think you're the best.
Crandall: That's 'cause I only recruit the dumb ones, sir.
[�]
Sergeant Savage: Good morning, Sergeant Major!
Sergeant Major Plumley: How do you know what kind of god-damn day it is?

Sergeant Savage: Beautiful morning, Sergeant Major.
Sergeant Major Plumley: What are you, a [bleep]' weatherman now?

Moore: Now, I hope you men like training, 'cause me and the Sergeant Major... we love it!

Moore: When Crazy Horse was a baby, he nursed at the breast of every woman in the tribe. The Sioux raised their children that way. Every warrior called every woman in the tribe "Mother". Every older warrior, they called him "Grandfather". Now, the point here is that they fought as a family. Take care of your men. Teach them to take care of each other. 'Cause when this starts... each other is all we're gonna have. (Moore goes aside with new radio operator)
Plumley: Any of you sons-of-bitches calls me "Grandpa"... I'll kill ya.

joken2 - thanks for that link with Joe Galloway's story. It was very touching. The clip at the end, where the soldier talks about coming home in uniform and the reaction in the airport brought back some poignant memories for me, of flying home on emergency leave from RVN in my dress whites for the birth of my son and not being able to get a drink or even a glance from a stewardess. I also endured the same reaction from the people at LAX when I arrived there. I had taken a military flight from RVN to Hawaii and had my mother-in-law buy me a ticket from there to LA as the military flight had a mandatory lay-over and I was in a rush to get home, not knowing how the birth was going. (My ex-wife was having some severe medical issues, hence the emergency leave to come home for a couple weeks.)
From being proud of my uniform and ribbons to feeling embarrassed and somewhat bewilderingly-ashamed.

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

As I understand it, A LRRP team from L Company Rangers (101st ABN) found the initial indicators that that hill was occupied and being fortified.

We know how things developed from there.