It was much bigger than what we had seen before against a much more tenacious enemy, Wiest said of the battle. 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. 'The torture stopped': 1969 brought temporary changes to infamous Hanoi Hilton, Patriotism or protest? BECK, Bill, forty-nine, assistant machine gunner, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, left the Army in 1966 and went home to his native Steelton, Pennsylvania. Then he somehow managed to crawl away, saying that he was going to organize the troops. Alpha Company arrived in Vietnam with 146 officers and men. Terms of Use | Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. 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. 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. Although each survivor's story is unique, they all carry the same lessons. Tully retired a colonel in 1976. He left the Army in October 1966, and went home to his native Ohio, where he works as a carpenter. She is an active member of Sons and Daughters in Touch, an organization sponsored by the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 5 memorials LTC Roger Jay Bartholomew 2 Nov 1932 - 27 Nov 1968 Westlawn-Hillcrest Memorial Park 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. These are survivors of an ambush against U.S. 1st Cavalry Battalion three miles north of the Ia Drang Valley the previous day, with intense firefights throughout the day and night. The bullets missed his head by fractions of an inch, but the impact knocked him backward and he couldn't move from the waist down. Edwards is the acting borough manager of Dublin, Pennsylvania; he and his wife, Nancy, live in nearby New Hope. (U.S. Army). Omaha, 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 works for a consulting firm in McLean, Virginia. Today he lives in Riverside, Rhode Island, is in the photo business, and is active in veterans affairs. 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. He assumed that like the French, the Americans would tire of seeing their young men coming home in body bags. His injured right hip deteriorated, and on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1986, he found himself back on an operating tablethe same place he had been on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1965. 5 cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. He was forty-five. MORENO, Frank, copilot in Ed Too Tall Freemans Huey in X-Ray, retired a chief warrant officer-4 after more than twenty years service. U.S. airpower lifted the siege and drove back the North Vietnamese. He is married and the father of two daughters. He had . They have two sons, one an oil-industry consultant, the other an Air Force sergeant who served in the Persian Gulf War. Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. The following day, both battalions were informed of an incoming bomber run on LZ X-Ray, meaning they needed to go elsewhere. TIFFT, Richard P., Pathfinder team leader in LZ X-Ray, later served as commander of the Golden Knights, the Armys parachute team. 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. "My gut told me, this is wrong, this isn't right, something's wrong here. In his spare time Wal-lenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. 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 is now a financial officer with the U.S. Jeanette spent the better part of a year in a military hospital while his shattered leg was repaired. 1/7 Cavalry lands at LZ X-Ray. based on information from your browser. You can always change this later in your Account settings. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs. 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. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. After leaving the Army, Braveboy worked as a roofer. These additional troops pushed back the enemy, allowing the others to evacuate the wounded. Joseph Galloway was a civilian reporter at the Battle of Ia Drang. And it all began early one fall day. In Washington, Ia Drang convinced Johnson that he was in for a long, bloody war. I fought for this country and now I own and farm 120 acres of my country. The British-born Rescorla earned a masters degree and a law degree at universities in Oklahoma and went into corporate-security work. 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. The former arrives in Vietnam in November 1965, and, soon after, is tasked with leading his 400 men in an effort to take out the enemy troops who attacked one of the bases in the Ia Drang Valley. He holds two masters degrees, is employed in the defense industry, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia. He left the Army in 1971 with the rank of captain, returned home to Puerto Rico, and earned a law degree. "I always end my talk with telling my audience 'When people go to the wall [Vietnam Veterans Memorial], they see 58,000 names. Becoming a Find a Grave member is fast, easy and FREE. Some of the men who hadn't slept for close to 48 hours closed their eyes, others smoked or ate. Very difficult. He retired a colonel in 1983. 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. 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. WHITESIDE, Jerry E., fifty-five, fire-support coordinator in LZ X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. About 80 U.S. soldiers were killed, 124 wounded, in the first two days of the fight. He is assistant principal of a public high school in the Bronx. Crandall and Freeman successfully rescued some 70 wounded men. CARRARA, Robert J., fifty-four, battalion surgeon of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in LZ X-Ray, served eleven months in Vietnam and was discharged in July 1966. He died. He retired from the Army as a master sergeant and, in 1988, became the pastor of a church in Fort Mitchell, Alabama. SMITH, Jack P., forty-seven, returned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry after his wounds healed, and completed his tour. Shortly thereafter, US units began . 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. Box 159 We saved so many more people because of that helicopter.. "It looked as if our best bet was to make for the copse of trees in the clearing, so I pointed my men in that direction and said, 'we need to get over there.'". Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th . JEANETTE, Robert J., fifty, Ghost 4-6, weapons-platoon leader, Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, lives in Monsey, New York, a suburb of New York City. 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. U.S. intelligence knew that North Vietnamese regulars probably a single regiment were in the area. Too Tall Ed retired from that job on January 3, 1991. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. 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. 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. After several routine lifts into the area,the men on the ground came under attack from the North Vietnamese Army. However, theres one part of We Were Soldiers thats different from what really happened: the ending. When someone shook me and tried to get me moving I was actually offended. 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. 208-263-9534. 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. Its not so much what we went through as it is knowing what the other guys went through. BEAN, Roger, fifty-two, Huey pilot who was wounded in LZ X-Ray, was wounded again in early 1966 in the Bong Son campaign. 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. 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 battalion commander had ordered his command helicopter to land and check out a North Vietnamese soldier killed by the door gunner. 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. The two-hour Ia Drang Valley program kicked off the reunion's final day. 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 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. When I go to the wall, I see Don Cornett's name 58,000 times.'. Spc. Moore considered the outcome a draw. He won a National Magazine Award for his October 29, 1990, cover article on the Ia Drang battles. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government. 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. The single, bloodiest day in the Vietnam War. The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle of Vietnam fought on the dates of November 14-18, 1965. Hear three personal perspectives from men who survived. Their mission was to find and kill the enemy. Unknown to them at the time, they were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. The conflict is divided into two engagements: the Battle at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray and. He left active duty in 1967, but continued in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 1990 as a colonel. 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.. Young went to work for the railroad in Steelville, Missouri. Some of the survivors broke into tears of relief. LOMBARDO, Riccardo, sixty-one, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany and Pop Jekels good buddy, was retired on one hundred percent disability after a serious back injury in 1967, when he was thirty-six. Nearly 70 percent of the battalions soldiers were killed or wounded before airstrikes, artillery and reinforcements drove the North Vietnamese into nearby Cambodia. OUELLETTE, Robert, fifty, battalion commanders radio operator in LZ X-Ray, left the Army in August 1966. 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. He spent thirty-two months in the hospital recovering from the wounds he suffered in LZ X-Ray. He and his wife have two college-age children. All Rights Reserved. After several routine lifts into the area, https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/857/ELIAS-ALVAREZ-BUZO/, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK63b6Cn53unPuhknan6Y4fJwl-F5v14o, https://www.vvmf.org/The-Wall-That-Heals/, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK63b6Cn53unMMj-yZYEch0RuYy1YN1zl, https://vvmf.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/he-spent-14-hours-in-the-air-rescuing-wounded-in-the-ia-drang-valley/, https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1965/ia-drang-valley-where-the-us-truly-went-to-war-1.376662, https://www.facebook.com/VietnamVeteransMemorialFund/videos/2239219906358006/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyBazkpUFQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1rzDNcFmE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKtWX9TDFYc, https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/vietnam-war/the-battle-of-la-drang/2071462322001, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIAEcZ29aG4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDYNI7V0co, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-U0FBiYUU, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/battle-la-drang-valley, https://whut.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/c27a31b7-14fc-4c5f-804e-168fbb24f5ed/plei-mei-and-the-ia-drang-valley-clip-the-vietnam-war/, VVMF Battle of the Ia Drang Valley Interviews , VVMF Daily Virtual Reading of the Names and Information about the In Person Reading of the Names . By whatever measure, the chaotic, bloody Battle of the Ia Drang Valley set the tone for the rest of war. I attended every one of those funerals., LEFEBVRE, L. R. (Ray), fifty-nine, commander of Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent eighteen months at Martin Army Hospital, Fort Benning, recovering from the wounds he suffered at X-Ray. Diduryk is buried at the Fort Benning cemetery; his widow, Delores, lives in Jacksonville, Florida. 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. The XO was going fast. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. "The fear factor, when you know someone is within yards of you and is trying to kill you desperately, the fear factor can shut you down. Forces, was Time magazines Man of the Year. Shortly after the battalion set out, the North Vietnamese sprang a massive ambush. After the Ia Drang campaign, Hastings was badly burned when the O-1E Bird Dog spotter plane he was piloting was shot down over the Mang Yang Pass and crash-landed in the old French Group Mobile 100 cemetery beside Route 19 on Christmas Eve 1965. He worked an additional fifteen years as a civilian employee at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia, and retired again in 1990. Since August 1990, he has been the dean of students and basketball coach at St. Mary Rynken Catholic High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, his hometown. Lawrence's story is one that he has told so often to so many people that it is fluid and impactful without being rehearsed. Weve updated the security on the site. 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. Postal Service in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Galen Bungum, left, and Joe F. Mackey, two of the unhurt survivors of Lt. Henry Herrick's Lost Platoon. Finally, after 10 months, had some makeshift buildings. A bitter conclusion to the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley came soon afterward, when Gen. Westmoreland told the 2nd Battalion survivors that they had achieved "a great victory over the Communists from the North." Linda Carole Mustion has not added any memorials to this virtual cemetery. 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. It was the longest day I ever experienced in any aircraft, Crandall recalled. 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