The following comment is copied from an e-mail received from reader Eugene Brady (thanks, Gene). Gene was one of the earliest members of the 20th PMU and was stationed in the central highlands, just a couple of months after the famous highlands battle of Ia Drang memorialized in the book and movie We Were Soldiers Once … and Young. His detachment was attached to the 1st Air Cavalry. You can see a picture of him in the TROOPS section of the blog. The way in which the digital preservation of books and the “cloud” work these days, this should additionally help ensure the memory of the 20th PMU.
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I JUST FINISHED A BOOK THAT HAS, FOR THE FIRST TIME, A MENTION OF THE 20TH PREVENTIVE MEDICINE UNIT. THE TITLE OF THE BOOK IS HEROES: A YEAR WITH THE FIRST CAVALRY DIVISION BY MIKE LARSON. HE WAS AN ENLISTED MAN WITH THE PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE, VIETNAM 1967-1968. ON PAGES 34 AND 35, 1ST LT. GEORGE A. MATUZA OF THE 20TH IS QUOTED ABOUT SETTING RAT TRAPS AND LIGHT TRAPS AND SPRAYING FOR MOSQUITOES. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE IS ALSO MENTIONED SEVERAL MORE TIME TIMES A LITTLE LATER IN THE BOOK. I SEE LT. MATUZA’S NAME* UNDER A COUPLE OF THE PICTURES IN THE TROOPS SECTION OF THE BLOG. I HOPE THIS HELPS A LITTLE.
* Lt. Matuza was the officer in charge of this blogger’s Entomology Lab, which included the mosquito larvae and adult labs as well as the vector lab (other disease vectors such as fleas and “kissing bugs”). Men may recall him as being more enthused about the fauna of Vietnam than he was about the Army. His hair was usually tousled and his uniform something less than “strak”. The light traps mentioned were used to capture a sample of adult mosquitoes. Battery-powered and set out at night, they had a light to attract the mosquitoes and a vacuum mechanism that would gently pull them into a net bag so as not to damage them. Such traps were used in many parts of the country. The captured specimens were then identified in the adult mosquito laboratory, using binocular microscopes, to look for the presence of disease-carrying species. That information, in turn, was used to determine the optimal areas to spray for mosquito control. Believe it or not, some mosquitoes were quite beautiful under magnification.
20th PMU, VIETNAM 
20th PMU MENTIONED IN A BOOK
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The following comment is copied from an e-mail received from reader Eugene Brady (thanks, Gene). Gene was one of the earliest members of the 20th PMU and was stationed in the central highlands, just a couple of months after the famous highlands battle of Ia Drang memorialized in the book and movie We Were Soldiers Once … and Young. His detachment was attached to the 1st Air Cavalry. You can see a picture of him in the TROOPS section of the blog. The way in which the digital preservation of books and the “cloud” work these days, this should additionally help ensure the memory of the 20th PMU.
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