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When Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Pakistan for talks with President Pervez Musharraf, the three networks treated his flying diplomacy radically differently. CBS ignored it altogether. NBC led from the White House with US worries that the war in Afghanistan is about to escalate. ABC traveled with the Vice President and focused on his fears about al-Qaeda. As a result of these mixed messages, Cheney's visit failed to attract enough attention to qualify as Story of the Day. Instead the most heavily covered was a story of wartime heroics from Vietnam in 1965.

President George Bush awarded the Medal of Honor to Bruce Crandall, a combat helicopter pilot who saved the lives of 70 GIs by continually flying his Huey into a battle zone under heavy fire, 22 separate missions in all. His heroics were recreated in the movie We Were Soldiers. ABC's Martha Raddatz covered the ceremonies at the White House. NBC's Bob Faw narrated archival battlefield footage from the central highlands: "It was the first time the Vietnamese had so directly and fiercely challenged US forces." As part of CBS' American Heroes series, Jerry Bowen profiled the friendship between the two "gutsy chopper pilots" Randall and Ed Freeman, who won the Medal of Honor for the same battle five years ago. "Bruce is a good pilot--do not get me wrong--but he is the second-best pilot," said Ed. Bruce replied that "Ed was the second-best helicopter pilot in the army at the time."

Andrew Tyndall 2/27/07 4:41:03 pm

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