He earned his masters degree in public administration in 1976 and retired in 1977 as a lieutenant colonel. He won a National Magazine Award for his October 29, 1990, cover article on the Ia Drang battles. She is an active member of Sons and Daughters in Touch, an organization sponsored by the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama. Before the Battle of la Drang was over, 305 Americans had been killed along with an estimated 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. This browser does not support getting your location. He and Russell Adams are still best friends. 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. 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. 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. 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. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. MICELI, Carmen, forty-eight, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray, completed a full tour in Vietnam and left the Army in September 1966. The men, women, and children of this story are Americas neighbors, living quiet lives in every corner of the nation they served. Her research focused on military, environmental, and Canadian history with a specific focus on the Second World War. 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. Although the fighting had ended, the Battle of Ia Drang didnt officially conclude until the next day, as it took two days to collect the bodies. "I realized it when Sgt. 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.. MILLS, Jon, fifty-four, Bruce Crandalls copilot in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980. He asked for a volunteer to go with him and Captain Ed Freeman agreed to pursue it with him, displaying extraordinary heroism. DEAL, Dennis, fifty, platoon leader, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, left the Army as a captain in 1968 and returned to his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Moore is the last to leave, refusing to do so until every man living and dead has left. The problem was it had to be applied by a country that was much more willing for it to be applied for the long haul. He earned a doctorate in education and is personnel director for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia in Athens. Diduryk is buried at the Fort Benning cemetery; his widow, Delores, lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Crandall kept his helicopter on the ground in the line of enemy fire, so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard. American officials declared the Battle of the la Drang Valley a victory. On March 2, 1969, thirty-two-year-old Buse Tully was killed in action. (U.S. Army), This strategy, as flawed as it was, had some potentiality of working, Wiest, the historian, said. "Survivor's guilt is something that most people who have seen combat, seen friends die, deal with almost daily," Lawrence said. He added a masters degree in Latin American studies to his M.A. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. 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. 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 now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. How could I forget? (Photo Credit: US Army / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain) The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. The assault at LZ X-Ray began before noon on 14 November. In November, troops would take on North Vietnamese regulars for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. He is brutally honest, even with his actions as a leader. Alex Kolyer for MPR News On this Veterans Day,. Feb 25, 2017. That all would change when the First Cavalry Air Mobile Division flew into the Ia Drang Valley in the central highlands of South Vietnam. 2023 Stars and Stripes. They have two grown children. "The next morning we were told the B-52s out of Guam were going to bomb the mountains and that we were to move to LZ Albany," Jim said. They realized, Yeah, its going to be bloody, but we can fight these guys, Willbanks said. LARSEN, Stanley R. (Swede), seventy-seven, commanding general, II Field Force Vietnam, retired a lieutenant general in 1972 and for seven years was president of a large company in San Francisco. 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. Savage and the 22-year-old medic, Sp5. 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. There were no further attacks overnight. The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. They never did. It wasnt until Albany was back in American hands that the engagement officially drew to a close. RIDDLE, Bill, fifty-two, artillery forward observer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, completed his Army service in the summer of 1966. He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. PAOLONE, Ernest E., Bob Edwardss radio operator, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, died of a massive heart attack on March 30, 1992, at the age of fifty. He and his wife live in Alexandria, Virginia. Poley, a bachelor, lives alone on his farm outside Ackley, Iowa, and in a 1990 letter explained himself far better than we could: Some might ask why havent I forgotten about Vietnam after all these years. Adams and his wife have a three-year-old daughter. 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. "I'm just as guilty. After LZ Albany, Thorpe requested a transfer from his company command to the division public-information office and finished his tour as an escort officer for visiting press and VIPs. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. Charlie Company took the brunt of the assault. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N.J., fire department. 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. At approximately noon,the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. A total of 305 soldiers died. In a 1967 article for the Saturday Evening Post, former ABC reporter Jack Smith, who was a private first class in Charlie Company during the battle, wrote about Cornett's last moments. Moderate. Tully retired a colonel in 1976. They were unaware that two battalions of fresh PAVN soldiers had been camped out along the Ia Drang River on the other side of the landing zone. He worked as a sales executive in the corrugated-box industry and went to school nights to earn his MBA. He was discharged a sergeant, completed his college education, and is now an on-air national news correspondent for ABC Televisions Weekend News. ALLEY, J. L. (Bud), Jr., fifty, communications officer, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, completed a full tour with his battalion and left Vietnam and the Army in August 1966. With only 700 effective soldiers left of the original 2,200, the 33d Regiment needed help. It is laced with hard facts, observations, anger, sadness and even some humor. After years of advising the South Vietnamese against the communist North, and months of chasing black-clad guerrillas, a large. Combat operations at Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 1965. During his two tours in Vietnam, Crandall flew lead ship on 756 separate missions. P.O. 3 /5. (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. We lived in tents. Yesteryears: For survivors, Battle of the Ia Drang Valley changed everything. 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. . "The emotions are so high, the noise is tremendous, the confusion is everywhere; they had overrun us by now. 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.. A Chicago native, Doc Carrara returned home, changed his specialty to pathology. Another 71 Americans had been killed in earlier, smaller skirmishes that led up to the Ia Drang battles. He died . Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. The majority of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, under the command of Lt. Col. Robert McDade, didnt enter the fight until X-Ray had already been relieved by Moore. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. You can always change this later in your Account settings. The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. Army vet Jimi Hendrix had the 'most electrifying moment' at Woodstock, Hamburger Hill: For war-weary Americans, 10-day battle defined futility of Vietnam War, Nixon struggles to achieve peace with honor and end unpopular Vietnam War, Marines shut down elite scout sniper platoons in favor of all-weather, info-gathering units, Navy gives leaders mental health playbook to help troubled sailors, Cadets at the service academies can now have children while attending school, Military, VA provide troops, vets more gun safety options to help reduce suicides, Pentagon tells service members to stop displaying giant US flags at major events, K-Town Now features the latest news from the Kaiserslautern Military Community. Some of the men who hadn't slept for close to 48 hours closed their eyes, others smoked or ate. A system error has occurred. U.S. airpower lifted the siege and drove back the North Vietnamese. 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. I fought for this country and now I own and farm 120 acres of my country. Freeman and his wife, Barbara, live in Boise, Idaho. PARKER, Neal G., a Naval Academy graduate who transferred to the U.S. Army and was a Huey pilot in Bravo Company 229th in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel after thirty years service. 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 American death toll was a shock to President Lyndon Johnson, who immediately dispatched Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to Saigon to find out what was going on. I still have my leg, and I can walk on it. The Huey was the best helicopter ever made. His dissertation is on the LZ Albany battle. That is the theme of Lawrence's book and of his talks. They died hot, hungry and exhausted. As one writer concluded, "The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war," and it "set the tone for the" many years of relentless fighting that would follow. Alpha Company arrived in Vietnam with 146 officers and men. They have four children and three grandchildren. FESMIRE, John A. McNamara told Johnson that the U.S. could continue with its limited engagement or massively escalate the war with hundreds of thousands more troops. North Vietnamese forces had higher casualty rates, due to the U.S. airstrike and artillery support. JAKES, Jimmie, Sr., forty-nine, a fire-team leader of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, was wounded in LZ X-Ray, but recovered and returned to complete his tour. After they were airlifted out of the combat zone, McDades men were joined by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. Through good fortune, the enemy's ignorance of their predicament, Specialist Lose's first-aid knowledge . 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. 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. 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. The two-hour Ia Drang Valley program kicked off the reunion's final day. (67 votes) Very easy. The Ia Drang Valley is a valley located near Pleiku in Central Highlands of Vietnam. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. He is married and has four children. Nebraska, He retired a colonel in 1982, with twenty-three years service. The column was strung out about 550 yards in the open with dense vegetation to their right. Thus died one of the finest officers who fought in the Ia Drang. As the fighting around Landing Zone X-Ray subsided, McDades 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to move cross-country to Landing Zone Albany, where it was to be picked up by helicopter and moved to a new location. 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. 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. I thought to myself. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. He retired from the Army as a staff sergeant in 1976, and now serves in the Alabama National Guard. 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. Although each survivor's story is unique, . SCOTT, James A., sixty-nine, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalrys sergeant major, served a second Vietnam tour in 1970-71 as command sergeant major, USARV Scott retired as a command sergeant major on May 1, 1973, after thirty years, ten months, and twenty days of service, wearing the Combat Infantrymans Badge with one star; six Bronze Stars; three Purple Hearts; a European Campaign ribbon with four battle stars and one invasion arrow; a Korean Service ribbon with two battle stars; a Vietnam Service ribbon with four battle stars; and the Presidential Unit Citation badge. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. He is president of the Army Relief Fund and a trustee of the Association of Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy. The battle was the culmination of Operation Silver Bayonet I, a combined American-South Vietnamese offensive to relieve the . I ripped off his shirt and there it was: a groove to the right of his spine. Two men - Sgt. He is senior Army adviser to the 79th Army Reserve Command in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. . It was the first major battle between PAVN and US Army units and one of the war's bloodiest encounters. The machine gunner was mowing them down. It was his positive decision to do something that reinforced my own will to go on.". A native of Mendenhall, Mississippi, Kennedy was thirty-one years old at the time of his death. RACKSTRAW, Jim, forty-nine, recon-platoon leader, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as a rifle-company commander in the 25th Infantry Division. 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. He retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York. MCDONALD, George J., fifty-two, mortarman, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left the Army in 1966 and went home to Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he is a commercial fisherman. 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 was presented with the Medal of Honor on December 19, 1966, and three years later volunteered for a second tour of duty in Vietnam. I didn't do as I should have.". 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. Moore lectures at military academies and at several colleges and universities. If you yield to it, it will absolutely paralyze you. Carrara says, I dont dwell on Vietnam, but now and then I hear something or smell something and flash back to those days. He plays volleyball two nights a week to keep trim and has devoted much of his spare time over the past two years to a detailed study of the part played in the Ia Drang battles by his fellow aviators of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, our beloved Huey slick drivers. He completed 22 flights: Rescuing Wounded in Ia Drang Valley from 2015: https://vvmf.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/he-spent-14-hours-in-the-air-rescuing-wounded-in-the-ia-drang-valley/, Stars and Stripes Article: https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1965/ia-drang-valley-where-the-us-truly-went-to-war-1.376662, Larry Gwin | VVMF: https://youtu.be/_PDBgEu4cx4, Jon Wallenius | VVMF: https://youtu.be/Qb9a1L4rc2g, Bruce Crandall | VVMF: https://youtu.be/SSNTph4QQ2g, Joe Galloway | VVMF: https://youtu.be/N6XXcDATAgE, Faces Never Forgotten with Joe Galloway: https://www.facebook.com/VietnamVeteransMemorialFund/videos/2239219906358006/, National Geographic Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyBazkpUFQ, 1965 CBS Special News Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1rzDNcFmE, AARP Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKtWX9TDFYc, Military.com In Depth Look: https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/vietnam-war/the-battle-of-la-drang/2071462322001, Medal of Honor Recipient Bruce Crandall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIAEcZ29aG4, Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDYNI7V0co, Medal of Honor Recipient Walter Marm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-U0FBiYUU, Docs Teach (National Archives): https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/battle-la-drang-valley, PBS Clip (Plei Me and la Drang): https://whut.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/c27a31b7-14fc-4c5f-804e-168fbb24f5ed/plei-mei-and-the-ia-drang-valley-clip-the-vietnam-war/, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 copyright 2023 Early Ia Drang Valley 1965 KIA group - 2/8 Calavary - LZ Cavalair Early Ia Drang Valley 1965 KIA group - 2/8 Calavary - LZ Cavalair. 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