We have set your language to By the end, there were no officers left and only 49 men that were not wounded. One infantry company began the day of Nov. 14 with 110 men. USA, Fort Benning, He spent thirty-two months in the hospital recovering from the wounds he suffered in LZ X-Ray. Lt. Col. Hal Moores 1stBattalion, 7thCalvary wasordered to take on an air assaultin the Ia Drang Valley. They have a son and two daughters. MARTIN, John C., fifty-one, rifleman in Lieutenant Sissons platoon detached from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry for duty in X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. Col. Bruce Crandall, Commander ofCompany A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), led the first major division operation of airmobile troops into Landing Zone X-Ray. He was evacuated, via Clark Field, to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. 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. I think it also speaks to the depths these guys were into the Cold War reality at the time. He and his wife have two college-age children. No one wanted to look weak in the face of communist aggression.. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N.J., fire department. He and his wife and young son live in Lawndale, California. After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. Lt. Don Cornett, along with 154 troopers from 2/7 Cav, were killed in the Ia Drang Valley at a small clearing known as Landing Zone Albany. After two days of intense North Vietnamese attacks and mounting casualties, Moore radioed the code word Broken Arrow, calling for all available aircraft to rescue an American unit about to be overrun. 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. She is an active member of Sons and Daughters in Touch, an organization sponsored by the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The "Lost Platoon," led by Lt. Henry T. Herrick, became separated from the rest of Lt. Col. Harold G. "Hal" Moore's battalion at the start of the battle of Ia Drang on Nov. 14, 1965. VIERA, Arthur, Jr., forty-eight, an M-79 grenadier with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived the terrible wounds he suffered in X-Ray. Bob Edwards saying that these were the stripes Paolone earned at LZ X-Ray but never got. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. Despite their efforts, the North Vietnamese retake the position soon after. Some of them had blood on their faces from scratches and from other guys' wounds. The Huey was the best helicopter ever made. The Ia Drang Valley is the place the U.S. really went to warfare. Privacy Policy "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. Jim also talks about the failure of leadership. He is the perennial master of ceremonies at the Ia Drang dinners; he claims he is the only one of the brothers who can get through an entire sentence without using the f-word. Ernie had gone back to his native Chicago and drove a truck for the city. Winkel retired a colonel in 1986, with over thirty-one years of Army service. Still on active duty, he is a major general, and is deputy to the Army inspector-general. Knowles retired from the Army in 1974 as a lieutenant general. He is a civilian specialist on NATO affairs for the Defense Department; he and his wife, Sally, live in Bethesda, Maryland. The day before he died, George picked up a Christmas tree, which he planned to decorate with yellow ribbons and small American flags for the airport terminal; soldiers from the Gulf were still arriving and he didnt want them to think they had been forgotten. They were platoon leaders together in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. In November, troops would take on North Vietnamese regulars for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. He was evacuated, badly wounded, on January 5, 1970, after serving four years, eight months, and ten days in Vietnam. Outnumbered when they arrive, the men are forced to fight for their lives while eliminating the 4,000-strong North Vietnamese force. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. He and his wife, Louise, live in San Antonio, Texas, and Brown plays a round of golf most days. These men survived the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam from Oct 23, 1965 to Nov 1965. 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. SHADDEN, James Haskell, fifty, mortarman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived half a dozen operations and one year in Army hospitals recovering from the wounds received at LZ Albany. (U.S. Army). It was fifty-five years ago on November 14, 1965, the First Cavalry Division commanded by Lt. Col. Hal Moore landed in the Ia (pronounced Eye) Drang Valley, South Vietnam. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' Fighting was so intense that a battalion commander, Lt. Col. Hal Moore, reported finding a dead American with his hands at the throat of a dead North Vietnamese soldier. Fesmire is a colonel assigned as the Army attache to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. KLUGE, Fred J., fifty-nine, platoon sergeant, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in Albany, retired in 1973, as a first sergeant, after a total of twenty-two years service. The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. The conflict is divided into two engagements: the Battle at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray and. Temperatures reached 100 degrees, and by the afternoon there was a firestorm battle for survival. Please enter your email and password to sign in. Hes in a unique position to want to believe these optimistic reports and hes getting a lot of them.. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Ia Drang set the blueprint for the Vietnam War with the Americans relying on air mobility, artillery fire and close air support, while the PAVN neutralized that firepower by quickly engaging American forces at very close range. Battle of Ia Drang American troops in the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. I felt a flash of panic. Moderate. By whatever measure, the chaotic, bloody Battle of the Ia Drang Valley set the tone for the rest of war. He shares this message with the groups he speaks to, but being able to impart some wisdom and knowledge from his experiences to Soldiers is special to him, because for him it is an opportunity to maybe bring a Soldier home safely. LADNER, Theron, fifty, machine gunner with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in X-Ray, lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he owns a nightclub and a stable of Thoroughbred racehorses. Alpha company along with most of the command group had setup a perimeter in the trees, but the rest of the battalion was cut off. They were promoted to first lieutenants at the same time and both became executive officers on the same day, Lawrence with Delta Company and Cornett with Charlie. When he got back to Refugio, Texas, he called on Joe Galloways parents but mercifully concealed the true circumstances of their meeting on the battlefield in X-Ray. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama. 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. The U.S. unit was moving through the jungle in a long column when the 8th battalion of the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment sprang in to a massive ambush. The North Vietnamese enjoyed numerical superiority in the valley. BUNGUM, Galen, forty-nine, rifleman in Lieutenant Henry Herricks Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, left the Army in April 1966 and went home to Hayfield, Minnesota. The other 58,000 names on that wall are men and women who also had a spouse, or children, they had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. It featured a question-and-answer session with some of the battle's key players, including retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. By the end of the first day, the 1st BN, 7th Cavalry was reduced to approximately 340 men. UH-1 aircraft of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion carry wounded 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry soldiers away during the fight for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. With only 700 effective soldiers left of the original 2,200, the 33d Regiment needed help. SHUCART, William, M.D., surgeon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, had nearly completed his tour in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, when he suffered a broken back in the crash of a Chinook helicopter. He says he did a lot of praying during the Persian Gulf War, when his son, his brother, and his old friend Galloway were all on the battlefield. For the next agonizing 26 hours, that small band of Americans was trapped by a ring of hundreds of enemy fighters determined to kill them all. On November 27, 1965, Diduryk wrote a detailed account of Bravo Companys actions at X-Ray for the ROTC students at his alma mater, St. Peters College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Resend Activation Email. 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). He would recover after some physical therapy and return to duty in 1966 to finish his tour. They and their buddies fought off hundreds of North Vietnamese with the help of artillery. In 1974 he transferred from the infantry to the military police. Death in the Ia Drang Valley, November 13-18, 1965 By Private 1st Class Jack P. Smith The 1st Battalion had been fighting continuously for three or four days, and I had never seen such filthy troops. After they were airlifted out of the combat zone, McDades men were joined by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. Cash served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser to the Royal Thai Army forces. After the Ia Drang, Nye finished his tour with the 8th Engineers and the 1st Cav and volunteered for three more tours in combat with the 5th Special Forces Group. KEETON, James, fifty-nine, battalion aid station medic, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam with an adviser group. 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. He is working on a book on Alpha Companys year in Vietnam. He knew he had to get out of the clearing, so he started pulling himself along the ground using only his arms, when someone grabbed him and dragged him the rest of the way into the trees. 4 Oscar E . MARM, Walter J. (Tony), fifty-six, commander of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, later earned a masters degree in psychology and taught at West Point and at the Army War College. SETELIN, John, forty-eight, squad leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left Vietnam with three Purple Hearts and left the Army a sergeant. I have one very vivid memory of the second morning in X-Ray. "The main point that I try to get across when I speak to Soldiers, and this is what saved me, is the training," he said. The . His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. (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. Cash retired from active duty as a colonel in September of 1992 and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. The plane hit several tombstones and flipped over. 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. A U.S. platoon was lured into a trap and surrounded, holding off repeated North Vietnamese attacks despite the death of the platoon leader and several noncommissioned officers. It was the first major battle of the Vietnam War, and Lawrence and . Scott and Basil Plumley meet most Fridays over breakfast at a local cafe for spirited discussions of the relative merits of their service, their two 7th Cavalry battalions, and other weighty issues. Postal Service in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 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