Thread by @danielmkim

A rare midweek movie with the boy. Now I have to explain how cavalry went from horses to Hueys, then to Bradley’s & Strykers (puke).

Enter CSM Basil Plumley, who was 20x more imposing in person 25 years after retirement than as portrayed by Sam Elliot.

“Daddy, what is a war?” A question both my kids at different times asked of me, which I answered with varying degrees of success.

That deployment scene with the airborne school’s towers in the background. I can’t see those towers & not think of many stupid drunken nights spent at the Hidden Door, the former enlisted club at Benning that’s now a Subway.

I had to explain how SGT Savage’s platoon got cut off. Junior said, “that lieutenant was an idiot.” Yes, son, & some things just never change.

A question for @H250U from Junior: how correct is the Cav’s request for artillery? 😂

I can’t imagine my then-wife getting a telegram. On one hand, I understand that there weren’t enough CAOs to inform NOK, but goddamn the inhumanity of the notification process back then.

How the actual F does Junior know what “danger close” is, if I haven’t already explained it to him? Last I checked, there was no such thing as indirect fire in Fortnight.

Of all the questions I could’ve asked Joe Galloway when I had the chance, all I could think of at the time was, “How bad was your pucker factor on 15-16 Nov 65?”

At the end of the film, my own son, my blood, trolled me. “Appa, were you ever a cavalry trooper?”
No, son, I was never qualified for cav because your grandparents were literate.

Postscript. Tomorrow he’s getting my copy of “We Were Soldiers” signed by LTG Moore & Joe Galloway, so he can not just read up on the battle for LZ X-Ray, but also the desperate fight for LZ Albany afterward.