RIDDLE, Bill, fifty-two, artillery forward observer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, completed his Army service in the summer of 1966. He is an executive with a major defense-contracting firm and lives in Centreville, Virginia. Georgia, Lawrence, even in his paralyzed state, was able to give some direction to his company. 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. Simpson County, 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. He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. Things were quiet, but in the morning, the North Vietnamese attacked. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. SMITH, Jack P., forty-seven, returned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry after his wounds healed, and completed his tour. KENNEDY, Glenn F., first sergeant, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was killed in action on May 6, 1966, during Operation Davy Crockett in the Bong Son plain. MAPSON, Betty Jivens, forty-two, daughter of Sergeant Jerry Jivens, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action at X-Ray on November 15, 1965, is married, the mother of two, and works as a secretary at the Medical Center Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. Although it was left out of We Were Soldiers, Albany was no less bloody than X-Ray. Feb 25, 2017. Thanks for your help! He left the Army in October 1966, and went home to his native Ohio, where he works as a carpenter. SELLECK, Pat, fifty-one, radio operator, recon platoon, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, was discharged from the Army on November 29, 1965, and returned to his old job at the telephone company. His personalized license plate proclaims: LZ X-Ray. copyright 2023 With a passion for historical learning and historical education, her writing interests include social history, and war history, especially researching obscure facts about the Second World War. 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. "When things started it just erupted," Lawrence said. Meyer and his wife, Carol, live in Arlington, Virginia. 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 was discharged a sergeant, completed his college education, and is now an on-air national news correspondent for ABC Televisions Weekend News. On January 31, 1966, The New York Times profiled Moore as The Man Who Can Find the Viet Cong. He pressed for another assignment to troop command in Vietnam, only to be told that he had already had his turn. The battle was part of a campaign for control of the strategic central highlands, which divided South Vietnam north to south. DIDURYK, Myron F., commander of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, completed his tour in Vietnam with Bravo Company in 1966, and later returned to Vietnam and the 1st Air Cavalry Division as a major. He and his wife, Pat, live in Avon Park, Florida. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama. Cash retired from active duty as a colonel in September of 1992 and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. Fesmire is a colonel assigned as the Army attache to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. Some of them had blood on their faces from scratches and from other guys' wounds. Carrara says, I dont dwell on Vietnam, but now and then I hear something or smell something and flash back to those days. U.S. airpower lifted the siege and drove back the North Vietnamese. It featured a question-and-answer session with some of the battle's key players, including retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. 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. Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. By Trevor Arendall, July 9 . Galloway served a total of fifteen years overseas with UPI, assigned to Tokyo, Saigon, Jakarta, New Delhi, Singapore, and Moscow. 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. The idea was to kill the enemy, not necessarily hold ground, and bleed the North Vietnamese until they tired of war. USA. Muscogee County, In the prologue, Galloway wrote: "This, then, is our testament and our tribute to 234 Americans who died beside us in Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany in the Valley of Death, 1965." The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. He is partly paralyzed as a result of his terrible wound. He now lives in Dublin, New Hampshire, and works for a firm that sells office supplies. He and his wife, Deurice, live in Columbus, Georgia, where he is president of the 1st Cavalry Division Association local chapter and an occasional quail hunter. In her spare time, Rosemary enjoys spending time with her partner, her cats, and her horse, or sitting down to read a good book. Omaha, Moore and his battalion were evacuated the next day, Nov. 17. BARKER, Robert L., fifty-five, artillery-battery commander in LZ Falcon, served a second tour in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1969-1970 and later served a third combat tour. ROZANSKI, Gordon P. (Rosie), fifty-four, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry S-4 in the Ia Drang, was wounded in both arms, both legs, and the stomach in the Bong Son campaign in early 1966. This allowed troops to be quickly brought in and out for battle. Winkel and his wife live in Springfield, Virginia. "The XO let out a low moan, and his head sank. The survivors of the Ia Drang on November 14, 1965 to Nov 1965 on Nov. 14 with men. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government. TOWLES, Robert, forty-seven, rifleman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent five months in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania, recovering from twenty-eight shrapnel wounds he received at LZ Albany. They have three children, daughters Abigail and Alison and a son, Thomas Alexander. ROBINSON, Edward Charles, fifty-five, Huey pilot at LZ X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . In November, troops would take on North Vietnamese regulars for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. His old company commander, John Herren, and all the survivors of the Lost Platoon believe that Charles Lose should have been awarded the Medal of Honor that they recommended for him. He and his wife, Arlene, have three sonsa banker in Sao Paulo, Brazil; a lawyer in Connecticut; and a divinity student in college. Battle of Ia Drang American troops in the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. Most of the planes touched down between midnight and six A.M., but George Nye was always there, rain or shine. Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. Army Specialist Four (SP4) Bill Beck was an assistant machine gunner assigned to the 1 st Battalion, 7 th Cavalry Regiment (1/7 Cav), 1 st Cavalry Division on November 14, 1965, when the unit airlifted into Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. The survivors of Landing Zone X-Ray have always had an aura of fame about them. Spc. Memoirs and histories written after the event capture it . The battle of LZ Albany began after the battle of LZ X-ray made famous in the Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers." He single-handedly raised five young children and earned a doctorate, retiring a lieutenant colonel after twenty years service. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1stCavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. The conflict is divided into two engagements: the Battle at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray and. P.O. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Harold Moore led the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, against numerically superior elements of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) led by General Chu Huy Man (Builder et al., 1999). Johns retired a brigadier general and is now dean of faculty at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Johns, whose two youngest children are in college, does volunteer work and writes for her own pleasure in her spare time. "I realized it when Sgt. The Ia Drang Valley is a map featured in Battlefield Vietnam. Crandall kept his helicopter on the ground in the line of enemy fire, so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard. 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. 208-263-9534. Outnumbered when they arrive, the men are forced to fight for their lives while eliminating the 4,000-strong North Vietnamese force. He retired a colonel in 1982, with twenty-three years service. He is now a financial officer with the U.S. Although he was a civilian, Galloway was awarded the Bronze Star medal for helping to rescue wounded soldiers during the battle. JOHNS, Barbara Geoghegan, fifty, widow of Lieutenant John Lance (Jack) Geoghegan of the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action in X-Ray, married Lieutenant Colonel John Johns in 1969. Jemison works part-time as a security guard in Columbus, Georgia, and he says: Each night I go back to Vietnam to fight that same battle, over and over.. Assigned to intelligence duty in Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Adams earned a bachelors degree from the University of Austria in Vienna, a masters degree in history at the University in Innsbruck, and a doctorate of psychology from Munich Universityall under an assumed name. We have set your language to With only 700 effective soldiers left of the original 2,200, the 33d Regiment needed help. They had this Learning to be a Teacher program; I tried it and loved it. He studied to be a tool-and-die machinist and worked at that job for several years until the strain of long hours standing on his bad leg severely affected his hip and back. He earned a doctorate in education and is personnel director for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia in Athens. I still have my leg, and I can walk on it. Nebraska, To replenish his battered forces, the North Vietnamese commander ordered the 2,000 soldiers of his reserve regiment, the 66th, forward from its staging area in Cambodia into the Ia Drang valley. But Charlie was back in the air, flying F-4 Phantoms, less than a year later. Im not supposed to chop wood or do anything that might cause a lick on that side of my head, but it healed up pretty well so I dont worry much about it, he says. Still on active duty, he is a major general, and is deputy to the Army inspector-general. 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. Major Bruce Crandalls UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission in Ia Drang. They are stories that not only serve to maintain our connection with history, but also educate us and force us to confront the good and the bad and learn from it. MCDADE, Robert, seventy, who commanded the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel in 1975. The North Vietnamese regulars, young men who had been drafted into the military much as the young American men had been, had paid a much higher price to test the newcomers to an old fight: an estimated 3,561 of them had been killed, and thousands more wounded, in the 34-day Ia Drang campaign. NADAL, Ramon A. Mississippi, Sources 1st Cavalry Division Association: 1st Cavalry Division Medal of Honor Recipients. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. Both later were awarded the Medal of Honor, our nations highest award for heroism in combat. These men survived the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam from Oct 23, 1965 to Nov 1965. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. Jim also talks about the failure of leadership. After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. The only question was which side could outlast the other. He retired from the Army as a master sergeant and, in 1988, became the pastor of a church in Fort Mitchell, Alabama. Orange County, 5 cemeteries found within miles of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. It is laced with hard facts, observations, anger, sadness and even some humor. About 80 U.S. soldiers were killed, 124 wounded, in the first two days of the fight. 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. 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. Search above to list available cemeteries. By the next morning, only eight were left standing . 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. A Chicago native, Doc Carrara returned home, changed his specialty to pathology. After retiring from the Army, Freeman became the northwest area director of aircraft services for the U.S. Department of the Interior. The outcome convinced the North Vietnamese that they could reduce the threat of U.S. firepower by engaging the Americans at close quarters where U.S. airstrikes would prove risky and then melt away into the jungle or across the border into sanctuaries in Cambodia. Controlling the central highlands would enable the North Vietnamese to cut the south in two and separate South Vietnams northern cities of Hue and Da Nang from the capital, Saigon, to the south. Westmorelands recommendation for more troops carried the day even as Johnson and his advisers privately questioned prospects for success. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. 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. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. MORENO, Frank, copilot in Ed Too Tall Freemans Huey in X-Ray, retired a chief warrant officer-4 after more than twenty years service. From the lack of training and understanding of the situation to the haphazard way they conducted their movement and their halt. Somebody grabbed him under his arms and dragged him toward the trees, but dropped him in the clearing where air support was dropping napalm. A Broken Arrow was declared over the radio by the Battalion Forward Air Controller, which meant that an American unit was in imminent danger of being overrun. Easy. It was the most successful ambush against U.S. forces during the course of the entire war. Our town is only ten thousand people and we lost eleven young men from here killed in Vietnam, says Purp. Resend Activation Email, Please check the I'm not a robot checkbox, If you want to be a Photo Volunteer you must enter a ZIP Code or select your location on the map. Of the 500 men present as part of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 155 lost their lives, and just 84 were immediately able to return to active duty. He still grows soybeans and corn on the farm in his spare time. His twelve-year-old granddaughter recently interviewed Ray about his experiences in Vietnam and wrote a school essay she titled: My Grandfather: An American Hero.. Despite their efforts, the North Vietnamese retake the position soon after. 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. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. He retired in 1990. Initially, Lawrence's thoughts and feelings after he was safe were just moments captured in his mind. We Were Soldiers is based on the novel, We Were Soldiers Once and Young: Ia Drang The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam, by renowned war correspondent Joe Galloway and Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. The fighting continued all day and into the night with the enemy relentlessly making assault after assault. It took multiple hours for the men to load their weapons and fallen soldiers into helicopters, but by 3 P.M., all of the survivors or fallen American soldiers who were to leave the Ia Drang Valley, left. Facebook Twitter They are all Don Cornett to him, his best friend. His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. After several routine lifts into the area,the men on the ground came under attack from the North Vietnamese Army. 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. The Battle of the la Drang Valley would come to be remembered as one of the most iconic battles of the Vietnam War, and later would set the scene for the film We Were Soldiers based on the novel We Were Soldiers OnceAnd Young. The column was strung out about 550 yards in the open with dense vegetation to their right. A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign. Now a senior writer for U.S. News, Galloway recently had one last combat tour. 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. New York, Fifty years ago today, one of the Vietnam war's most ferocious battles broke out in the Ia Drang Valley. I ripped off his shirt and there it was: a groove to the right of his spine. Lawrence and Cornett were roommates at Infantry Officer Basic School, roommates in jump school and on the ship together that brought them to Vietnam. On November 27, 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew was killed in action. 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. He earned his masters degree in public administration in 1976 and retired in 1977 as a lieutenant colonel. 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. Winkel retired a colonel in 1986, with over thirty-one years of Army service. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. Weve updated the security on the site. Throughout the day, he changed helicopters after some were so badly damaged to stay in the air. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. Of Mrs. Mapsons five brothers, three served in the Army, one made a career in the Air Force, and one is a lawyer. After he flew the men back to base, he knew the soldiers on the ground were running short of ammunition, so he decided to fly back in. 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. But I remember thinking that I'm just a lieutenant. Basil Plumley is a grandfather now, kind and soft-spoken, but do not be deceived: He is the lion in winter. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. He returned to active duty in July 1966, and served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser in Long Binh district. I pulled the muscles in that leg so badly yanking it free that I couldnt walk for three months, he said. Now I felt terribly alone. The mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War. "I can't even begin to explain it," he said. That headquarters type turned up and he returned my old helmet, bullet hole and all. McNamara told Johnson that the U.S. could continue with its limited engagement or massively escalate the war with hundreds of thousands more troops. 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. He was evacuated, badly wounded, on January 5, 1970, after serving four years, eight months, and ten days in Vietnam. The Tragedy of LZ Albany: Teaching the lessons of a battle lost. How could I forget? Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore and his men continued on, receiving support from artillery units and air strikes, helping the American troops hold themselves against the enemy. Within an hour, they came under attack for the first time by North Vietnamese regulars, launching a four-day battle that killed hundreds of Americans and perhaps more than 1,000 Vietnamese and changed the course of the Vietnam War. The Battle of Ia Drang was fought November 14-18, 1965, during the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and was the first major engagement between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Bun-gum operated a 161-acre dairy farm until 1988, when he sold his cows and took a job in town. 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. I think this battle pushes Johnson further into Westmorelands corner. Before the Battle of la Drang was over, 305 Americans had been killed along with an estimated 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs. At a surprise fiftieth-birthday party for Ernie, he was presented a plaque engraved with sergeants stripes and inscribed with a message from Colonel (ret.) You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. They died hot, hungry and exhausted. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. (Photo Credit: US Army / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain) The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. 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. KOMICH, Leland C., fifty-two, Huey pilot with Bravo Company 229th in X-Ray and Albany, retired a chief warrant officer-4 with more than twenty years service. SAVAGE, Ernie, forty-eight, the fourth man to inherit command of Lieutenant Henry Herricks 2nd Platoon, the Lost Platoon of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray, retired a sergeant first class in 1982 after twenty years active duty. The location of the battle, far into the jungle from any roads, meant troops had to be airlifted in. James Lawrence, a 77 year-old Vietnam veteran from Alabama, tells people about his best friend and the battle he died in whenever he gets the chance. It was the longest day I ever experienced in any aircraft, Crandall recalled. She received both her bachelor of arts degree in history, and her master of arts degree in history from Western University. The bulk of the fighting lasted about 6 hours and in that time 2/7 Cav lost 155 killed and 124 wounded. His last known address was Miami, Florida. Spec. We were crawling around under intense machine-gun fire when Sergeant Major Plumley walked up, pulled his .45-caliber pistol, chambered a round, and said: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves.You never forget a thing like that.. The fighting continued for three hours. In the first major engagement of the war between regular U.S. and North Vietnamese forces, elements of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) fight a pitched battle with Communist main . He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. 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. 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