- The town of Pleiku, capital of Gia Lai Province, is easily recognizable to those who lived through the Vietnam War era: The American Seventh Cavalry, an air brigade and the unit featured in the film Apocalypse Now as the Wagner-blaring helicopter squadron that rains terror in its path, touched down south of Pleiku near famed Camp X-Ray in the La Drang Valley on November 14, 1965, for what would be the first open combat between American and North Vietnamese regulars after full American deployment at Danang.

- The bloody battle pitted 450 U.S. ground forces against nearly 2,000 North Vietnamese regulars, and the 48-hour fight caused many casualties before a tentative U.S. victory. It's not a famous battle of scale but of legend, because it was where warriors on both sides really cut their teeth and sized each other up for what would be 8 more years of war. The clash was also important because it made the war look "winnable" to Americans, but it didn't actually prove to be a model in the war in which the hit-and-run North Vietnamese enemy was rarely in sight, and in which engaged pitch battles were only of their choosing. The area is hallowed ground to the veterans of both sides who fought here, and hosts many returnees.