Westmorelands biggest problem with the strategy was that he thought it would work in two or three years when it would have taken 10 or 12.. "I thought I was dying and laid there waiting for death to come. Second Lieutenant Walter Joe Marm, Jr., led an attack against a heavily fortified enemy force on November 14, 1965, personally knocking out several positions in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam. PUJALS, Enrique, fifty, platoon leader, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, woke up on an X-ray table first, then on a C-141 ambulance plane, and finally in Ward One at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. Moore, who says he graduated from West Point by the skin of my teeth, was the first Army officer of his class (1945) to achieve one-, two-, and three-star rank. The enemy was so close he could hear them talking and he could see them right in front of him. 2 Ia Drang also served as a test for the U.S. military of its new air mobility tactics. He lives in Washington, D.C. SPIRES, James W., operations officer, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1976 and owns and operates his own industrial representational firm. These additional troops pushed back the enemy, allowing the others to evacuate the wounded. In January 1991, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf summoned the reporter to his headquarters in Saudi Arabia and said: Im sending you to the commander out here who is most like General Hal Moore, and the division which has the most challenging and dangerous mission in my battle plan. Galloway rode with then-Major General Barry McCaffrey and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) on a hair-raising tank charge through the western Iraq desert to the Euphrates River valley. Easy. Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. MILLS, Jon, fifty-four, Bruce Crandalls copilot in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980. He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. "The XO let out a low moan, and his head sank. Later, after he was evacuated the doctors thought his spine was severed, but discovered later that he had a severely bruised spine from the force of the bullets whipping his head back. It is based on the Battle for Landing Zone X-Ray, part of the Battle of Ia Drang, the first major battle of the Vietnam War. On November 14, 1965, Captain Ed Freeman made repeated flights into the Ia Drang Valley under intense fire to bring in supplies and evacuate the wounded. . Sources 1st Cavalry Division Association: 1st Cavalry Division Medal of Honor Recipients. When the last of his old friends in the 1st Cavalry and the U.S. Marines rotated home, Galloway also left, vowing never to return. He joined IBM as a salesman in Austin, Texas, and spent twenty years with them, rising to the post of Midwestern regional manager. WALLENIUS, Jon, forty-nine, mortar observer, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, got out of the Army in August 1966. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' Lawrence dropped to the ground to take cover in the tall elephant grass and began to return fire like any other rifleman. A battalion of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division was ambushed while marching from the jungle clearing where the Ia Drang Valley fighting started on November 14, 1965. He still grows soybeans and corn on the farm in his spare time. Ia Drang Valley, Battle of the (1965). Lawrence, even in his paralyzed state, was able to give some direction to his company. The group is devoted to bringing together the families and friends of men killed in Vietnam. I marked off 65 names and that's when it really hit me what had happened and it just overwhelmed me. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . The Ia Drang Valley is the place the U.S. really went to warfare. He moved back to his hometown of Tucson, Arizona. New York, Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. Shortly after landing, a U.S. patrol captured an unarmed North Vietnamese deserter who told them that three regiments, roughly an entire division, were hiding in the nearby mountain. Linda Carole Mustion has not added any memorials to this virtual cemetery. To me that seems proper, and just, and so right.. (U.S. Army), This strategy, as flawed as it was, had some potentiality of working, Wiest, the historian, said. Adams and his wife have a three-year-old daughter. As a student, she worked in a variety of research positions, including as an archivist. Shortly after the battalion set out, the North Vietnamese sprang a massive ambush. "I always end my talk with telling my audience 'When people go to the wall [Vietnam Veterans Memorial], they see 58,000 names. Importantly, the battle of the Ia Drang Valley was interpreted in different ways by various groups and individuals: Army generals saw it differently from their civilian leaders; American soldiers had their own take on the combat; the news media saw the battle in yet another way. Read More Landing Zone Xray Lead elements of the under strength 450 man 1st Bn, 7th Cavalry air assault into a small clearing in scrub jungle below the 2300 foot Chu Pong Massif. ADAMS, Russell, fifty-one, machine gunner, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, helps run the family dairy farm on five hundred acres outside Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Lawrence's story is one that he has told so often to so many people that it is fluid and impactful without being rehearsed. He is an executive with a major defense-contracting firm and lives in Centreville, Virginia. He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. After leaving the Army, Braveboy worked as a roofer. It wasn't until about two weeks later, as he read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him what he had survived. Bun-gum operated a 161-acre dairy farm until 1988, when he sold his cows and took a job in town. He served as city manager of Dunsmuir, California, from 1977 to 1980, when he moved to Mesa, Arizona, where he is the citys manager of public works. Forces, was Time magazines Man of the Year. We were taking an administrative break, guys were taking off their packs and lighting cigarettes and the enemy was less than 100 yards on our right flank and deploying and we couldn't see 'em or hear 'em," he said. Towles received a masters degree in history from Kent State in 1989, and is currently working on his doctorate. Galloway served a total of fifteen years overseas with UPI, assigned to Tokyo, Saigon, Jakarta, New Delhi, Singapore, and Moscow. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980 with twenty years service, and is now a plastics-plant manager. Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. It was the most successful ambush against U.S. forces during the course of the entire war. His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. LZ Albany is essentially two clearings with a large copse of trees in the middle. It was a small football size clearing for the first helicopters to be used in combat. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia. That spring, the Saigon government had begun collapsing under the combined. Hear three personal perspectives from men who survived. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. Recalling the aftermath of the fight, he said, Back then Stars and Stripes would carry the casualty reports and I had a red pen and started checking off the names of guys I knew who were listed as KIA. For Lawrence, telling the story of LZ Albany is not only a way to keep the memory of those who died alive, but also a way to educate others. Word reached the battalion traveling to Columbus, who sent Bravo Company back to Albany to serve as reinforcements. Unlike Viet Cong guerrillas, the northerners were prepared to stand and fight. I thought to myself. The living, wounded and dead of the first and second battalions of the US 7th Cavalry were flown back to their bases, given fresh food and clothes, and reformed for another day of fighting. Lt. Don Cornett along with 154 Troopers from 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment were killed in the Ia Drang Valley, Nov. 17, 1965, at a small clearing known as Landing Zone Albany. Mississippi, Hear Bruces story. As the command ship touched down, other NVA soldiers opened up; Myron Diduryk was struck in the stomach in the doorway of the chopper. Although it was left out of We Were Soldiers, Albany was no less bloody than X-Ray. Of Mrs. Mapsons five brothers, three served in the Army, one made a career in the Air Force, and one is a lawyer. Through good fortune, the enemy's ignorance of their predicament, Specialist Lose's first-aid knowledge . MARUHNICH, John, sixty-two, mortar sergeant, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray, retired a sergeant first class in 1974 with twenty-four years service. Nearly 70 percent of the battalions soldiers were killed or wounded before airstrikes, artillery and reinforcements drove the North Vietnamese into nearby Cambodia. Photo Credit: Wikipedia; Henry Toro Herrick was red-haired, five foot ten, twenty-four years old, and the son of an astronomy professor at UCLA. Crandall won the first Helicopter Heroism Award of the Aviation/Space Writers Association, for two daring nighttime landings under fire to rescue twelve badly wounded troopers from Captain Tony Nadals Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in Operation Masher-White Wing in January 1966. He accepted, I won, but he only recently began paying offone bottle at a time. Plumley says, Scott is so tight with a dollar youd think he came out of West Point.. He was medically evacuated the next morning. The fighting continued all day and into the night with the enemy relentlessly making assault after assault. POLEY, Clinton, forty-eight, assistant machine gunner, 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, was discharged from Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, early in 1966, and went home to Iowa and the family farm. But I remember thinking that I'm just a lieutenant. Major Bruce Crandall made over 20 flights into intense enemy fire during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in November 1965, evacuating 70 wounded and delivering ammunition. They are representative of the more than three million Americans who served the United States of America in its long and bitter war in Vietnam, representative of those who loved one of the more than 58,000 Americans who died in that war. He and his wife, Arlene, have three sonsa banker in Sao Paulo, Brazil; a lawyer in Connecticut; and a divinity student in college. The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. He earned a doctorate in education and is personnel director for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia in Athens. Clinton Poley was an assistant machine gunner, who said they landed in grass that was 5 feet high and didnt know where the other troops were. He went home to Murphysboro, Illinois. He is working on a book on Alpha Companys year in Vietnam. (AP Photo) A wounded American soldier is aided to a helicopter for evacuation from Ia Drang Valley area, near Plei Me, Vietnam, November 18, 1965. 311 memorials MCDADE, Robert, seventy, who commanded the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel in 1975. Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, on the radio during the fight for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. At approximately noon,the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked. They didnt discover I was a doctor until the day I was dischargedwhen I had a long talk with them about treating their patients like pieces of meat. He was discharged in November 1966, and wound up in Boston in 1981. This resulted in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, a forested area just east of the Chu Pong massif, from 23 October to 20 November. He holds two masters degrees, is employed in the defense industry, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. NYE, George (China Joe), demolition-team leader, 8th Engineers, attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, died of an apparent heart attack at age fifty-one on December 8, 1991, at his home in Bangor, Maine. One of the most significant battles of the Vietnam War, the 14-16 November 1965 battle in the Ia Drang Valley in South Vietnam's central highlands between the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the 33rd and 66th Regiments of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) marked a watershed change in the military strategies of both sides. WASHBURN, Richard B., fifty-seven, platoon leader, 2/20th Aerial Rocket Artillery in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. North Vietnamese forces had higher casualty rates, due to the U.S. airstrike and artillery support. YOUNG, James, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in LZ Albany, made it home to the family farm outside Keysville, Missouri, on Christmas Eve, 1965, with an Army discharge in his pocket and a quarter-size hole in the side of his skull. The instructor of that class, Colonel John F. Jeszensky (ret. His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. He co-authored the book We Were Soldiers Once And Young with Hal Moore. The following is a partial accounting, prepared in 1992, of where some of them are and what they have done with their lives: ADAMS, Russell, fifty-one, machine gunner, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, helps run the family dairy farm on five hundred acres outside Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. Dillon is a scratch golfer who does his best to get in eighteen holes every day, even if it means a drive downslope to find a course that isnt closed on account of snow in the Colorado winter. The British-born Rescorla earned a masters degree and a law degree at universities in Oklahoma and went into corporate-security work. It was his first real combat; first, he got a round to the side of his neck. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1985; on November 26, 1987, he was killed in the crash of a private plane in Bakersfield, California. "I realized it when Sgt. The North Vietnamese Army starts with the most flags but to combat this the 7th Cavalry Regiment has superior airpower meaning that the USA can quickly insert and extract players into and out of flags. In 2016, he joined a panel of Ia Drang survivors at the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, Ga., to share their experiences with both young and seasoned officers and noncommissioned officers. He retired from the battlefield only after all possible service had been rendered to the infantry battalion. I think this battle pushes Johnson further into Westmorelands corner. This praise is largely due to the heavy emphasis director Randall Wallace put on ensuring what he created was as accurate to the real events of the Battle of Ia Drang as possible. The Troopers of 2/7 Cav relieved their sister unit, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, on Nov. 16, following 1/7 Cav's three day battle with the People's Army of Vietnam near the base of the Chu Pong Massif. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: Ia Drang Valley Incident. The Battle that changed the war in vietnam Overview A Vietnamese military maxim states: He who controls the Central Highlands controls South Vietnam. The ending of We Were Soldiers comes once Hal Moore makes the decision to call in Broken Arrow, a request for all available combat aircraft to attack enemy positions. The Battle of Ia Drang Valley, fought November 14th-18th, 1965, was the first major engagement between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (abbreviated as PAVN). JEKEL, Alex (Pop), seventy, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany, retired in the late 1960s as a chief warrant officer-4. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977, and lives with his wife in Arlington, Texas. He retired a colonel in 1983. It was the first major combat action between U.S. ground forces and the North Vietnamese Army. They died thinking that their loved ones would never know how they died. However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets. Vince Cantu never went back to his music. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. from around the world. He was 92 years old. James T. Lawrence, a first lieutenant in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, learned a lesson in leadership the hard way 50 years ago. It had been a small undeclared war mainly fought by South Vietnamese troops with a few U.S. advisers in the mix, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in helicopters, said Andrew Wiest, a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and the founding director of its Dale Center for the Study of War and Society. SETELIN, John, forty-eight, squad leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left Vietnam with three Purple Hearts and left the Army a sergeant. RUDEL, Karen Metsker, twenty-eight, daughter of Captain Thomas Metsker, intelligence officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, killed in action November 14, 1965, lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband, Scott. Theres certainly politics involved in it, but I do think these guys, as mythological as it turned out to be, were true Cold War believers. He underwent four operations on his shattered hip and then was shipped home for discharge on December 21, 1965, ten days overdue on his two-year hitch and judged fifty percent disabled. DUNCAN, Ken, fifty-three, executive officer of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, left the Army in August 1966, and returned to his hometown of Thomaston, Georgia, where he works with a textile-manufacturing company. Lawrence and Cornett were roommates at Infantry Officer Basic School, roommates in jump school and on the ship together that brought them to Vietnam. Background. When someone shook me and tried to get me moving I was actually offended. In the last operation, his shattered left knee joint was removed and the leg bones fused, leaving his left leg frozen straight and two inches shorter than his right leg. Today he is vice president for group security at a major stock-brokerage house in New York City. He and his wife, Ann, live in Lilburn, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Rozanski returned to the Ia Drang five times on various intelligence missions and described the place as a cemetery. He was retired, disabled, as a major in the mid-1970s. Please try again later. I think it also speaks to the depths these guys were into the Cold War reality at the time. The North Vietnamese enjoyed numerical superiority in the valley. 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