[leadpenny]

I'm still unclear on whether or not there is any documented evidence that the North used any form of their air power over the South during the time the Americans were involved. I don't belive there is.

BTW, I had two trips as a Huey Driver. On my second tour (nov69-nov70) I had many good opportunities to see the lay of the land in the Khe Sanh AO. Of Course, during the most of that time it was completely deserted.

As for movies. I've seen most of 'em. "Full Metal Jacket" was great until it jumped to Nam. Although never a beloved grunt, I thought the night firefight in "Platoon" had to be close to reality. The ambush and firefight in "Forrest Gump" took my breath away. And for an early film that has been mostly overlooked, I recommend "Go Tell the Spartans" with Burt Lancaster. Most of the rest of the stuff out of Hollywood is just too much Hollywood for me. I know the story of the Ia Drang. I flew into some of the same landing zones on my first tour about a year after the battle.

[Snowyman]

Thanks. I'm sitting here reading about how good Wayne's movie is and it really isn't ,thinking there was another movie ,better, that was good, but be damned if I could think of the name, It was a long time ago. "Go Tell the Spartans" , that's it.

[sneakypete]

I'm still unclear on whether or not there is any documented evidence that the North used any form of their air power over the South during the time the Americans were involved.

If you mean tac-air,it never happened. I'm not even sure the north HAD fighter-bombers. They did have fighters though,and they did scramble them early in the war to try and defend the north from bombing attacks. There are two SF guys I know who participated in the very first "Bright Light" insertion into North Viet Nam (within sight of the Hanoi lights)to try to rescue a shot-down pilot,and as they were inserting,one turned to the other and asked him,"What would you do if you saw a MIG now?" When the second one answered "Shit",the first one pointed out a MIG coming after them. The MIG saw their fighter escort though,and ran away.

There were also reports of Soviet helicopters seeing limited use in Laos and Cambodia. Mostly for ferrying advisors and NVA brass,though.

[norton]

"Gardens of Stone"

Still and always best telling of the whole picture - not just the fights, the questions, or the issues, but the feel.

[Red Jones]

I checked my bookshelf. There's a book called 'Khe Sanh', volume 5 in a series called 'The Illustrated History Of The Vietnam war' written by Michael Ewing. In that book he says that at Khe Sanh the north vietnamese had both heavy artillery deployed, the best from the soviet arsenal, and Migs. He says they didn't know for sure, but they strongly believed it was russians piloting the migs. But, maybe they just used em in that 1 battle. Maybe they decided there was no fruit in sending them south of khe sanh which was on border between north andsouth. maybe russians decided it was suicide mission and stopped sending migs and pilots into battle.

Either way, I don't know if it was right or wrong for us to fight that war, I'll never know. But it was one heck of a war. And our troops performed so very well.