Some will have seen Mel Gibson's latest offering, "We Were Soldiers", a better than average movie telling the story of one of the first major battles between the US Army and the Peoples' Army of North Vietnam in the Ir Drang valley in November 1965. I enjoyed the movie, but the (what seemed to me) very obvious "Hollywood ending" made me go out in search of the book to see what really happened.
If you're looking for a very good read, I couldn't recommend the book on which the movie is based too strongly. "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young" by Lt Gen Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway (Corgi) 0 552 15026 6 is a terrific read.
Surprisingly, Hollywood has stuck very close to the truth in just about 95% of the story - (the fact is, what actually happened is so amazing that a screen writer didn't need to 'jazz it up' in any way). It's just a pity that the studio 'suits' felt they had to come up with the pap and nonesense of that final charge and the helicopter gunships' pure Hollywood intervention at the very end - what actually happened would have been dramatic enough.
If you've seen the movie, do yourself a favour and get the book, for it describes both what happened in the movie and the really nasty battle that occurred two days later only two miles away, where a sister battalion of the American Air Cav was overrun, with one company suffering 100 casualties from an effective strength of 108 men.
If you're only into Aviation stories, then this book might also be for you, because what those Army helicopter pilots did in operating into the 'hot' LZs in the two battles described simply beggars belief, but they did it.
And if you're a middle aged American or Australian who ever took part in any demonstration that denigrated the soldiers who took part in the Vietnam War, I'd like to think you'd feel more than a little uncomfortable after reading this book.