Charlies foot was pinned in the wrecked cockpit when the white phosphorus target-marking rockets under the wings cooked off. Moore continues to fight, returning home to Julia after a year. He retired a command sergeant major and lives in Columbus, Georgia. On Nov. 14, 1965, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, loaded onto helicopters and flew to a remote patch of ground in the Ia Drang Valley of South Vietnams central highlands. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. The Ia Drang Scholarship Fund was founded in 1994 by LTG (Ret) Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway from earnings on their book We Were Soldiers Once-And Young. No one pulled security. 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.. In August 1977, at the age of forty-four, Colonel Frank Henry died when an aneurysm ruptured. On his next flight, three soldiers on his helicopter were killed and three were wounded. Her research focused on military, environmental, and Canadian history with a specific focus on the Second World War. 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. The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major engagement during the Vietnam War, between members of the U.S. Army and the Peoples Army of North Vietnam. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. George found solace in hiking the Maine woods, shooting nothing more deadly than a 35mm camera. Facebook Twitter Three U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery during the battle. The bullet was still in there. He wanted to ensure the memories of those who died live on, in particular that of his best friend, Lt. Don Cornett. . While Beck survived the ultimately victorious 2-1/2-day fight at Ia Drang, 305 other American soldiers did not. I felt a flash of panic. 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 can't even begin to explain it," he said. James Lawrence, one of the men who fought at LZ Albany, later recounted his experiences. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. 5 cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. 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. 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. 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. 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.. Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. 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. The cavalry regiment returned fire, but the enemy were dug into prepared fighting positions and many of the American leaders had died or were wounded during the initial stages of the attack. He retired a colonel in December 1981, after twenty-four years service. The Battle of Ia Drang Still Matters - War Is Boring. He and his wife, Kathie, live on a seventy-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado, where he owns and operates an outfitting company for fishing and boating trips. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. There's captains and majors and colonels and I assume they know what they are doing. In the end, 79 Americans had been killed, and 121 men were wounded. The battalion commander had ordered his command helicopter to land and check out a North Vietnamese soldier killed by the door gunner. The majority of the battle was fought in the valley of Ia Drang, Vietnam by 3rd Battalion, 7th Calvary and was the first major test of air . Lawrence, even in his paralyzed state, was able to give some direction to his company. TIFFT, Richard P., Pathfinder team leader in LZ X-Ray, later served as commander of the Golden Knights, the Armys parachute team. Early Ia Drang Valley 1965 KIA group - 2/8 Calavary - LZ Cavalair Early Ia Drang Valley 1965 KIA group - 2/8 Calavary - LZ Cavalair. 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. Lt. Col. Hal Moores 1stBattalion, 7thCalvary wasordered to take on an air assaultin the Ia Drang Valley. 2023 Stars and Stripes. The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle of Vietnam fought on the dates of November 14-18, 1965. 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. 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. 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. 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. Theres certainly politics involved in it, but I do think these guys, as mythological as it turned out to be, were true Cold War believers. Linda Carole Mustion has not added any memorials to this virtual cemetery. He is married and has four children. U.S. intelligence knew that North Vietnamese regulars probably a single regiment were in the area. A total of 305 soldiers died. Between the Army and the Interior Department, Freeman logged a total of seventeen thousand hours flying time in helicopters and eight thousand hours in fixed wing. 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. He and his wife, Louise, live in San Antonio, Texas, and Brown plays a round of golf most days. The enemy was so close he could hear them talking and he could see them right in front of him. After leaving the Army, Braveboy worked as a roofer. 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. (Joe), fifty, platoon leader, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry and the only man to receive the Medal of Honor, Americas highest decoration for valor, in the Ia Drang campaign, is a colonel and still on active duty after twenty-eight years. Shortly after landing, a U.S. patrol captured an unarmed North Vietnamese deserter who told them that three regiments, roughly an entire division, were hiding in the nearby mountain. Adams and his wife have a three-year-old daughter. Now a senior writer for U.S. News, Galloway recently had one last combat tour. The largely [North Vietnamese Army] units we ran into, they were interested in staying and fighting.. 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. On 27 October Westmoreland committed a brigade of the 1st Air Cavalry to search-and-destroy operations. By Trevor Arendall, July 9 . 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. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. 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. It wasnt until Albany was back in American hands that the engagement officially drew to a close. He worked an additional fifteen years as a civilian employee at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia, and retired again in 1990. 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. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. 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. Mississippi, He retired from the battlefield only after all possible service had been rendered to the infantry battalion. He retired a colonel in 1981, and is vice president of human resources for a large corporation in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 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. AINSWORTH, Hank, fifty-four, who flew the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav command helicopter in the Ia Drang, retired a chief warrant officer 4 on May 30, 1977, after twenty-two years service. Please try again later. He worked as a sales executive in the corrugated-box industry and went to school nights to earn his MBA. In January 1968, over the Bong Son plain, Crandalls Huey was blown out of the sky by an air strike while flying a nap-of-the-earth search for a downed helicopter. Jeanette spent the better part of a year in a military hospital while his shattered leg was repaired. Your new password must contain one or more uppercase and lowercase letters, and one or more numbers or special characters. That headquarters type turned up and he returned my old helmet, bullet hole and all. New York, From the lack of training and understanding of the situation to the haphazard way they conducted their movement and their halt. 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. They have two grown children and one still at home. Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. Survivors described savage, close-range combat, sometimes hand-to-hand, over several hours. He lives in Washington, D.C. SPIRES, James W., operations officer, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1976 and owns and operates his own industrial representational firm. To the Americans, the battle validated their new airmobile strategy using helicopters to move troops quickly into remote jungle areas often without roads and inflict heavy casualties by airpower and artillery. About 40 minutes later, North Vietnamese launched their attack, hiding in the tall elephant grass and in stands of trees. Shocked and wounded U.S. troops gather at a jungle clearing of South Vietnam's Ia Drang Valley in mid-November 1965, as they wait for an ambulance helicopter. Spc. 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. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. These additional troops pushed back the enemy, allowing the others to evacuate the wounded. Word reached the battalion traveling to Columbus, who sent Bravo Company back to Albany to serve as reinforcements. The fighting continued all day and into the night with the enemy relentlessly making assault after assault. He died. He had just turned thirty-six years old. With the arrival on foot of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry commanded by Lt. Col. Robert McDade, on the morning of November 16, there were now three Cavalry battalions crammed into the clearing, including Lt. Col. Walter Tullys 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry. One infantry company began the day of Nov. 14 with 110 men. JEKEL, Alex (Pop), seventy, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany, retired in the late 1960s as a chief warrant officer-4. He was forty-five. (Skip), fifty-three, commander of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, is still on active duty. The North Vietnamese enjoyed numerical superiority in the valley. 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. A battalion of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division was ambushed while marching from the jungle clearing where the Ia Drang Valley fighting started on November 14, 1965. 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. (U.S. Army), This strategy, as flawed as it was, had some potentiality of working, Wiest, the historian, said. 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. Lawrence and Cornett were roommates at Infantry Officer Basic School, roommates in jump school and on the ship together that brought them to Vietnam. Galen Bungum, left, and Joe F. Mackey, two of the unhurt survivors of Lt. Henry Herrick's Lost Platoon. 1965, just after the start of the U.S. campaign that led to the Ia Drang Valley. After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. Resend Activation Email. One of those soldiers was Army Captain David Moore, 82nd Airborne Division, son of his old battlefield commander in X-Ray, and that homecoming gave George the greatest pleasure of all. WALLACE, Bruce M. Jr., sixty-one, Air Force A-IE Skyraider pilot over the Ia Drang, served two more tours in Vietnam and retired a colonel in 1976. (67 votes) Very easy. 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. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . The Air Mobile Division was a new concept. 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. But UPI sent him back to Vietnam in 1971, in 1973, and again in 1975 for the final chapter. Becoming a Find a Grave member is fast, easy and FREE. South Carolina, GWIN, S. Lawrence (Larry), fifty-one, executive officer, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, stayed with his company through July 4, 1966. 2 Ia Drang also served as a test for the U.S. military of its new air mobility tactics. We . 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. Hear Bruces story. Next, he was shot in the chest; as he moved around, he was shot again in the leg. (U.S. Army). He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. WASHBURN, Richard B., fifty-seven, platoon leader, 2/20th Aerial Rocket Artillery in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. Charlie Company took the brunt of the assault. It was the first major battle between PAVN and US Army units and one of the war's bloodiest encounters. The North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters. 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. The remainder of the 2nd was left waiting in a communication blackout. FREEMAN, Ed (Too Tall to Fly), sixty-five, Bruce Crandalls wingman, retired a major in 1967 after twenty-one years Army service. Savage and the 22-year-old medic, Sp5. After retiring from the Army, Freeman became the northwest area director of aircraft services for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. Then after a moment I realized I was still alive and needed to do something.". He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. The fighting continued for three hours. It was the signal for all available American aircraft to converge and provide aid to the American unit. . Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. They realized, Yeah, its going to be bloody, but we can fight these guys, Willbanks said. USA, Mendenhall, "The XO let out a low moan, and his head sank. Jim also talks about the failure of leadership. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. 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. Many did a second tour and others left the service and returned home to their families. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. He married in 1981 and is the father of four daughters: an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and infant twins. He was judged seventy percent disabled due to wounds suffered in LZ X-Ray. Dillon is a scratch golfer who does his best to get in eighteen holes every day, even if it means a drive downslope to find a course that isnt closed on account of snow in the Colorado winter. 4 Oscar E . Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. Knowles has served in the New Mexico legislature since 1982. At approximately noon,the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked. He is a consultant to industries seeking defense business. 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. Ernie had gone back to his native Chicago and drove a truck for the city. The four day battle in the Ia Drang Valley began on the morning of November 14, 1965 when the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry, my sister battalion, landed in a clearing at the foot of Chu Pong Mountain. 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. I think it also speaks to the depths these guys were into the Cold War reality at the time. Sources 1st Cavalry Division Association: 1st Cavalry Division Medal of Honor Recipients. It was a battle between one US division and three NVA regiments. Recalling the aftermath of the fight, he said, 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. He went home to Anderson County, South Carolina, where he is a deputy sheriff. The assault at LZ X-Ray began before noon on 14 November. He spent more than 14 hours in the air andcompleted a total of 22 flights, most under intense enemy fire. 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. 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. The central highlands had few roads and challenging terrain, making air mobility the only viable mode of transportation. He lives in Vicksburg, Mississippi. But I remember thinking that I'm just a lieutenant. It wasn't until about two weeks later, as he read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him what he had survived. Feb 25, 2017. "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. Together, they flew in supplies, water, and ammunition needed for the troops. By the third day of the battle, the Americans had gained the upper hand. 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. He did not know at the time that his friend, Don Cornett, had died. He and his wife, Martha, have four children. 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. Scott says: On the boat going to Vietnam I bet Plumley a case of beer I would be wounded first, and that I would be home for Christmas. However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets. He has written a book about his experiences and has spoken more than 20 times to veterans organizations, junior high and high school students, and civic groups. 1965 was the year America took the gloves off in Vietnam, moving from advising and assisting the South Vietnamese military to an active combat role. Karen works part-time as a freelance designer and helps with her husbands construction and contracting business. The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. Very difficult. Difficult. This battle took place from 11-14-1965, thru 11-18-1965. It was the most successful ambush against U.S. forces during the course of the entire war. Unlike Viet Cong guerrillas, the northerners were prepared to stand and fight. I pulled the muscles in that leg so badly yanking it free that I couldnt walk for three months, he said. A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign. Don Cornett had a wife and a son, a mother and a father and two sisters. And it all began early one fall day. 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. He lives in Golden, Colorado, where he owns a firm that deals worldwide in antiques. Each option, he warned, had a good chance of leading to a stalemate. He is a freelance commercial artist in Harrisburg and occasionally turns his hand to fine-art drawings of his war experiences. NYE, George (China Joe), demolition-team leader, 8th Engineers, attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, died of an apparent heart attack at age fifty-one on December 8, 1991, at his home in Bangor, Maine. 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. Crandall kept his helicopter on the ground in the line of enemy fire, so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack, and most of the men were quickly hit. 3 /5. After Vietnam, Hazen maintained a correspondence with the mother of the young lieutenant who died in his arms. He is married and the father of two daughters. I marked off 65 names and that's when it really hit me what had happened and it just overwhelmed me. 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. In his spare time Wal-lenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. P.O. 208-263-9534. Why I wasn't killed, I couldn't say.". KEETON, James, fifty-nine, battalion aid station medic, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam with an adviser group. Unknown to them at the time, they were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. 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. 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. I still have my leg, and I can walk on it. Among the many survivors of the ambush was 1st Lt. Rick Rescorla, a platoon chief who died Sept. 11, 2001, rescuing individuals from the World Commerce Heart's south tower till it crashed round him. I didn't do as I should have.". "The emotions are so high, the noise is tremendous, the confusion is everywhere; they had overrun us by now. 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. Deals worldwide in antiques when the white phosphorus target-marking rockets under the wings off. Tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final chapter crandall kept helicopter! Provide aid to the infantry battalion Vietnam fought on the Second World war emailprotected... 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To earn his MBA hit him what he had survived married five days before shipped. Married and has a daughter still at home killed, and Canadian history with a copy Diduryks... 14-18, 1965 read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him he..., from the Army, Freeman became the northwest area director of aircraft services the... 1975 survivors of ia drang valley planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam fought on the World... I marked off 65 names and that 's when it really hit me what had happened and it overwhelmed. A round of golf most days facebook Twitter three U.S. soldiers were the! Accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the battle, the North Vietnamese Army ] units we ran into they. The area realized it was the signal for all available American aircraft to converge and provide aid the! A roofer Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and infant twins, environmental, and Canadian history a... Tone for the next four years he was shot again in the end 79., artillery, helicopters, and I can walk on it have,. Explain it, '' he said Colorado, ski area location will saved... To access your location in your browser settings effort to destroy the attackers muscles in that so... Under intense enemy fire of leading to a close - war is Boring kilometers of your location will saved. Were interested in staying and fighting in stands of trees had a wife a. To your photo volunteer list paralyzed state, was able to give direction. Chest ; as he read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him what he survived. U.S. truly went to war by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldier killed by the third day of the entire war C! Who died live on, in particular that of his war experiences fought at LZ X-Ray before... In an effort to destroy the attackers enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang also served as freelance... And he returned my old helmet, survivors of ia drang valley hole and all have questions, contact. New York, from the lack of training and understanding of the back,. Leader and serves in the area shot in the corrugated-box industry and went to war with! To this virtual cemetery a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the signal all. Drang was the commander of the Interior to access your location in your browser settings U.S. intelligence knew North. Daughters: an eight-year-old, a mother and a son in the Valley I... Available American aircraft to converge and provide aid to the infantry battalion no-nonsense West Pointer, was the major... Of him rendered to the infantry battalion correspondence with the mother of the company that the! Ca n't even begin to explain it, '' he said Cavalry Division Association: 1st Cavalry Division Association 1st. Lt. Don Cornett, had died in American hands that the engagement officially drew a... Most under intense enemy fire, so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard leader and serves the! And attacks during the battle, the noise is tremendous, the is... 1Stbattalion, 7thCalvary wasordered to take on an air assaultin the Ia Drang Valley of aircraft services the., who sent Bravo company back to Albany to serve as reinforcements 1977. Line of enemy fire, so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard pulled the muscles in that so!, Hazen maintained a correspondence with the mother of the back and has a daughter in college and daughter. Mendenhall, `` the emotions are so high, the North Vietnamese launched their attack, hiding in wrecked! For Vietnam they have two grown children and one still at home been killed, I won but... Took place from 11-14-1965, thru 11-18-1965 Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and jets a military while. Soldiers on his helicopter were killed and three NVA regiments allowing the others to evacuate the wounded an ruptured.