Their mission was to find and kill the enemy. Rate the pronunciation difficulty of Ia Drang. The bullet was still in there. Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. Theres a lot of pain but at least I lived. Jeanette says: When I was in the hospital in 1966, I was down in the doldrums, feeling sorry, and they tried to nudge me out of that. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia. The survivors of Landing Zone X-Ray have always had an aura of fame about them. 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. He spent that night among the dead and wounded. 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. After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. At the end of a year only fifteen of the original contingent were still there, Gwin included. These men survived the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam from Oct 23, 1965 to Nov 1965. He and his wife live in Anniston, Alabama, where Martin is employed at the Army Depot. I believe it is so I can share our story.". A month before the Ia Drang operation, North Vietnamese regulars attacked a U.S. Special Forces base at Plei Me, hoping to lure the ineffectual South Vietnamese army out of its base at the provincial capital, Pleiku, and destroy it. He is assistant principal of a public high school in the Bronx. His lieutenants bars were pinned on by General James Van Fleet and, at Freemans request, his first assignment was as commander of Bravo Company. 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. Where the difference between We Were Soldiers and reality lies is that the battle didnt end with Moore and his men evacuating, nor was there a final heroic charge. He and his wife, Martha, have four children. 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. Things were quiet, but in the morning, the North Vietnamese attacked. He returned for a second Vietnam tour as an adviser in IV Corps in August 1968; in the 1970s he earned bachelors and masters degrees. On November 14, 1965, 450 American soldiers of the 1st Air Cavalry Division were airlifted by helicopter to this valley with the intention of locating and eliminating North Vietnamese forces. A miserly, ungrateful Veterans Administration ruled that Shadden was only thirty percent disabled. He is brutally honest, even with his actions as a leader. MOORE, H. G. (Hal), now seventy, commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang and served six more months in Vietnam, commanding the 3rd Brigade. In August 1977, at the age of forty-four, Colonel Frank Henry died when an aneurysm ruptured. "Survivor's guilt is something that most people who have seen combat, seen friends die, deal with almost daily," Lawrence said. Now a senior writer for U.S. News, Galloway recently had one last combat tour. 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. Five years ago he attended a reunion of Alpha Company veterans of LZ Albany. Assigned as the operations officer of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, Diduryk was killed in action on April 24, 1970, in a Huey helicopter at an abandoned fire base near the Cambodian border. He was in a great deal of pain, so a rifleman named Wilson and I removed his gear as best we could, and I bandaged his wound. EDWARDS, Robert, fifty-four, commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. I've also included soldiers who survived and died later and the wife of the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Julia Moore for her role in supporting the grieving widows of the men slain. Shadden lives on a seven-acre farm outside Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and works part-time at odd jobs. I thought to myself. 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 first U.S. ground combat troops arrived there in March. He lives in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The battle at the landing zone X-RAY (LZ X-RAY) in the Ia Drang River Valley occurred from 14 November to 16 November 1965. He retired from the Army as a master sergeant and, in 1988, became the pastor of a church in Fort Mitchell, Alabama. WINKEL, Paul Patton, Jr., sixty, Orange 1 flight leader, Bravo Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in the Ia Drang, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. In the same way, the story of his experiences at LZ Albany is a story that could be told by the nearly 400 Troopers of 2/7 Cav who fought and died at LZ Albany, or the 1/7 Cav Troopers at LZ X-ray or the more than 2.6 million US personnel who served in Vietnam. It is republished unedited in its original form. I guess I was an oddball; everyone else that year was going into teaching to avoid the draft, and then there was me. Jeanette and his wife, Sandra, were married five days before he shipped out for Vietnam. After years of advising the South Vietnamese against the communist North, and months of chasing black-clad guerrillas, a large formation of American troops faced well-trained, well-equipped regulars of the Peoples Army of Vietnam. Despite their efforts, the North Vietnamese retake the position soon after. "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. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. Charlie Company took the brunt of the assault. Russian missile barrage knocks out power and water to Ukrainian cities December 16, 2022. Crandall and Freeman successfully rescued some 70 wounded men. He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. I think this battle pushes Johnson further into Westmorelands corner. Very difficult. His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. Mississippi, He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977, and lives with his wife in Arlington, Texas. USA, Mendenhall, Fifty years ago today, one of the Vietnam war's most ferocious battles broke out in the Ia Drang Valley. 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. 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. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. The Pleiku Campaign took place from 20 October to 26 . 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. PLUMLEY, Basil, seventy-two, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalrys sergeant major, retired from the Army as a command sergeant major on December 31, 1974, after thirty-two years, six months, and four days on active duty, and a second tour in Vietnam with the U.S. THORPE, Henry, fifty-eight, commander, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, left the Army as a captain in September 1967, after eight years service, and went home to his native North Carolina. South Carolina, Other donors to the fund are readers of the book from across America, Veterans, and supporters of the fund. A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign. Moore and his 450-man 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, flew into Landing Zone X-Ray at the base of the Chu Pong Mountain west of Plei Me and miles from the Cambodian border. He went home to Murphysboro, Illinois. Ia Drang Valley, Battle of the (1965). He became a legend in the unit for his behavior in combat, and his face became an American icon when a young reporter named Peter Arnett snapped his photo. 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. A wounded soldier of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, is attended to by fellow comrades during the fight for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. He added a masters degree in Latin American studies to his M.A. He worked as a sales executive in the corrugated-box industry and went to school nights to earn his MBA. 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. This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. USA, Scranton, PARISH, Willard, fifty-one, mortarman in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who won the Silver Star for his work as a machine gunner in LZ X-Ray, was among the draftees who rotated home in December 1965 for discharge. On November 18, 1965, the US forces were able to gather their dead. Word reached the battalion traveling to Columbus, who sent Bravo Company back to Albany to serve as reinforcements. It was the first major battle between PAVN and US Army units and one of the war's bloodiest encounters. Most of the planes touched down between midnight and six A.M., but George Nye was always there, rain or shine. He retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. Alex Kolyer for MPR News On this Veterans Day,. They died thinking that their loved ones would never know how they died. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. The airstrike broke the North Vietnamese siege and enabled reinforcements to reach the LZ. He retired in 1990. Every night I rub a towel over all my scars and see them in the mirror. "Why did I deserve to live? Hear Bruces story. When I go to the wall, I see Don Cornett's name 58,000 times.'. STINNETT, Robert L., fifty-eight, Bravo Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. Shucart says, It was interesting; they just figured I was another grunt and I didnt tell them different. "I can't even begin to explain it," he said. 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. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. Lacking confidence in the South Vietnamese, Gen. William C. Westmoreland ordered the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, which had been in country about a month, to pursue the enemy, using newly minted airmobile tactics. 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. Although he was a civilian, Galloway was awarded the Bronze Star medal for helping to rescue wounded soldiers during the battle. The two-hour Ia Drang Valley program kicked off the reunion's final day. USA, West Point, He and his wife have two college-age children. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and owns and operates a real estate brokerage firm. Too Tall Ed retired from that job on January 3, 1991. A total of 305 soldiers died. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack, and most of the men were quickly hit. He retired a first sergeant in June 1973, with twenty years service. 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