We Were Soldiers
General Kinnard was in command in November 1965 during the unit's first major operation in the Pleiku Campaign. During this action, the division conducted 35 days of continuous airmobile operations. The opening battle, the Battle of Ia Drang, which resulted in heavy North Vietnamese casualties at the cost of 300 American deaths, was described in the book "We Were Soldiers Once… And Young", which was also the basis of the subsequent Mel Gibson film "We Were Soldiers". The unit also earned the first Presidential Unit Citation (US) presented to a division during the Vietnam War.