RE: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"

["Tim Atherton" <tim@KairosPhoto.com>]

Just a note Marc,

as far as I know, this review was meant for a bunch of colleagues on a email
list, not a "professional" review

If Dirck is planning to post it on his site, you might just want to send him
a polite note pointing out the mistaken detail?

tim a

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Marc James
> Small
> Sent: March 3, 2002 10:54 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] MOVIE LEICA SIGHTING - 'We Were Soldiers"
>
>
> At 08:37 AM 3/3/02 -0500, B. D. Colen wrote:
> >Marc- I do not want to get in a huge to-do here - but there were TWO
> >consecutive battles fought in the Ia Drang in Nov. '65, from, I
> believe, the
> >14th through the 17th. The first, at landing zone X-ray, the
> battle depicted
> >in the movie, was indeed fought by the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry -
> >Col. Hal Moore's outfit - and Custer's old outfit. The second, at landing
> >zone Albany, was, as you note, fought by the 2nd of the 7th. So the movie
> >DID get it right, and, in essence, so did you. For sources,
> which I know you
> >demand ;-), I would refer you to "We Were Soldiers Once...And
> Young" by Hal
> >Moore and Joseph Galloway.(sp?)
> >
>
> BD
>
> You completely missed my point.  The review stated that the unit in
> question was the "second regiment of the 7th Cavalry (Airmobile).  That is
> wrong on two counts -- it was the second BATTALION of the 7th Cavalry
> (REGIMENT), which was part of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).  The
> review misidentified a battalion as a regiment, and got the Airmobile
> designator with the wrong level -- this goes with the division title, not
> the regiment title.
>
> A battalion has approximately 800 men and is commanded by a lieutenant
> colonel.  A regiment traditionally has three battalions and includes
> slightly under 3,000 men, and is commanded by a full colonel.  In the US
> Army, we've had very few true "regiments" since ROAD was adopted in 1958;
> in a line division, battalions are lumped together into brigades, and the
> regiment only survives on paper as a lineage item.  A brigade is now
> commanded, as was the regiment, by a full colonel but is more readily
> adapted to task organization.
>
> And, to be really picky, the unit in question might have been the second
> SQUADRON of the 7th Cavalry Regiment -- normally, cavalry units have
> "squadrons", the same unit as a battalion, but the name is different.  But
> I recall that the 1st AirCav used "battalion" as the troops were infantry
> despite the fancy cavalry titles.  The CMH web site would probably have
> this information.
>
> None of this stuff is hard to get right, and old soldiers DO note the
> difference.  The reliability of a movie reviewer who hacks up the
> terminology collapses, precisely as would a photographer who wrote an
> article in which he spoke of setting his shutter speed by adjusting the
> aperture.  It's just sad when someone who was there in a senior position
> and should have, as part of his job, known these differences gets
> it wrong.
>  But, then, the US media in Viet-Nam often didn't pay much attention to
> what the Army was doing and how they were trying to do it.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +276/343-7315
> Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!
>
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