when ham is introduced after they rip off johns face.. donvan says we met before.. lous, el salvador.. so obviously ham was in the chopper shooting at donovan but conviently missing hitting him

Thanks for that response, very helpful!
"You can believe what you want, but don't believe it here." - Harry Crumb

I initially thought Donovan said, "I wish we had Ham Tyler now" (after I had seen TFB of course).
But he is actually saying "I wish we had a Tyler mount," which is a rig to hold TV cameras steady.
On a related note, there is a Ham Tyler reference in the El Salvador sequence in the novelization of V (which included both the original and TFB). In the novelization, Donovan sees Tyler in the helicopter. That was likely a liberty being taken by the author of the novel to introduce the character early, as I don't believe the Ham Tyler character had been created at the time they filmed the original mini-series.