He now lives in Dublin, New Hampshire, and works for a firm that sells office supplies. New York, Crandalls back was broken; he spent five months in an Army hospital recovering. He retired a colonel in December 1981, after twenty-four years service. Your new password must contain one or more uppercase and lowercase letters, and one or more numbers or special characters. Winkel and his wife live in Springfield, Virginia. USA, West Point, 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. On November 14, 1965, Captain Ed Freeman made repeated flights into the Ia Drang Valley under intense fire to bring in supplies and evacuate the wounded. Why I wasn't killed, I couldn't say.". 4/C Jack P. Smith (Illustration by Noel Sickles, SEPS) Weekly Newsletter SUPPORT THE POST Now I felt terribly alone. This is the tale of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965. He and his wife live in Sag Harbor, New York, where they operate a summer season shop that deals in contemporary original art. The Ia Drang Valley is the place the U.S. really went to warfare. He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. He is a colonel and the provost marshal of the U.S. Army Forces Command (Forscom) in Atlanta, Georgia. LUND, Bill, fifty, who was Myron Diduryks artillery forward observer in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, left Vietnam in March 1966, upon completion of his two-year reserve officer obligation. He retired a first sergeant in June 1973, with twenty years service. 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. Bun-gum operated a 161-acre dairy farm until 1988, when he sold his cows and took a job in town. 5 cemeteries found within miles of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. 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. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N.J., fire department. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. Battle of Ia Drang American troops in the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. I thought to myself. Very difficult. Difficult. Among the survivors of the ambush was 1st Lt. Rick Rescorla, a platoon leader who died Sept. 11, 2001, rescuing people from the World Trade Centers south tower until it crashed around him. This operation responded to the NVA attack on an American . HASTINGS, Charlie W., fifty-three, forward air controller at LZ X-Ray, retired as a colonel from the U.S. Air Force on March 1, 1992, after thirty years service. Advisory Group, Pleiku. The central highlands had few roads and challenging terrain, making air mobility the only viable mode of transportation. Two men - Sgt. KELLING, George, fifty-four, who ran Charlie Med, the rear-area casualty receiving station during LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1978. This allowed troops to be quickly brought in and out for battle. He and his wife live in Alexandria, Virginia. Charlie Company took the brunt of the assault. He worked as a sales executive in the corrugated-box industry and went to school nights to earn his MBA. Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. Thus died one of the finest officers who fought in the Ia Drang. Mrs. Mapson is a member of the Columbus chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association. 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. HENRY, Frank, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ Albany, served a second tour in Vietnam as a battalion commander in the 1st Cavalry Division, later commanded a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, and was promoted to chief of staff of the 101st Airborne in the summer of 1977. I have one very vivid memory of the second morning in X-Ray. Forces, was Time magazines Man of the Year. Joseph Galloway was a civilian reporter at the Battle of Ia Drang. Facebook Twitter He lives in Falls, Pennsylvania. 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. The Air Mobile Division was a new concept. "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. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. The only question was which side could outlast the other. 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. Im so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. 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 left active duty in 1967, but continued in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 1990 as a colonel. South Carolina, It was a small football size clearing for the first helicopters to be used in combat. At the end of a year only fifteen of the original contingent were still there, Gwin included. Nonetheless, this allows a reprieve for Moore and his men to secure the area. However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. He retired a colonel in 1983. He and his wife, Pat, live in Avon Park, Florida. 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. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. At various times in recent years he has been reported to be either employed or a patient in VA hospitals in Mississippi and Alabama. Cash retired from active duty as a colonel in September of 1992 and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. 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. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. In the end, 79 Americans had been killed, and 121 men were wounded. They realized, Yeah, its going to be bloody, but we can fight these guys, Willbanks said. 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. 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. It was much bigger than what we had seen before against a much more tenacious enemy, Wiest said of the battle. James Lawrence, one of the men who fought at LZ Albany, later recounted his experiences. 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. 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.. 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. Unlike Viet Cong guerrillas, the northerners were prepared to stand and fight. 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." Simpson County, His helicopter came under intense enemy fire, but they continued to carry out the wounded, even though that wasnt their mission. Since I cant have that, I would like a job working as closely with the Army as possible. He is married and the father of four children. He is married and the father of two children. Of Mrs. Mapsons five brothers, three served in the Army, one made a career in the Air Force, and one is a lawyer. 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. One killed, 15 injured after clashes erupt at Afghan border again December 16, 2022. They never did. FORREST, George, fifty-four, who commanded Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cav in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980 after twenty-one years service. Temperatures reached 100 degrees, and by the afternoon there was a firestorm battle for survival. Postal Service in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Westmoreland, a veteran of World War II in Europe, declared Ia Drang a victory because the North Vietnamese were driven from the field after suffering major casualties. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. 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. 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. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. 1st Lt. Donald Cornett at his base camp in Vietnam, shortly before the battle of Landing Zone Albany where he was killed in action, Nov. 17, 1965. He co-authored the book We Were Soldiers Once And Young with Hal Moore. Some of them had blood on their faces from scratches and from other guys' wounds. For the next ten years he was a football coach at Morgan State University in Baltimore, his alma mater. 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. That all would change when the First Cavalry Air Mobile Division flew into the Ia Drang Valley in the central highlands of South Vietnam. It wasn't until about two weeks later, as he read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him what he had survived. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. MERCHANT, Dick, fifty-four, assistant operations officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam in 1968 as Lieutenant Colonel Matt Dillons battalion executive officer. And it all began early one fall day. 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.. He told me that if he didn't make it, I was to write her and tell her that he loved her. God rest you, George. "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. . He told me his wife's name was [Sylvia]. 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 retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York. 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. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. I couldnt grasp it., More from us: Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. He now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. He spent seven months there while his shattered thigh and legs were repaired. The North Vietnamese enjoyed numerical superiority in the valley. By the end of the first day, the 1st BN, 7th Cavalry was reduced to approximately 340 men. When I was down, men were running past me, swishing the elephant grass and speaking Vietnamese and executing the wounded. Carrara says, I dont dwell on Vietnam, but now and then I hear something or smell something and flash back to those days. 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. Privacy Policy 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. 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. Shortly after the battalion set out, the North Vietnamese sprang a massive ambush. Freeman reconstituted the unit and led it back up Pork Chop. You need a Find a Grave account to continue. Russian missile barrage knocks out power and water to Ukrainian cities December 16, 2022. The North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. After a North Vietnamese strike against the Special Forces camp at Plei Me, American forces deployed in an effort to destroy the attackers. 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 lives in Golden, Colorado, where he owns a firm that deals worldwide in antiques. Spc. Vince Cantu never went back to his music. The battalion commander had ordered his command helicopter to land and check out a North Vietnamese soldier killed by the door gunner. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. They have two sons, one an oil-industry consultant, the other an Air Force sergeant who served in the Persian Gulf War. 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. All Rights Reserved. After a second career as a consultant to defense industries on the West Coast, he retired again and lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Libby. He was 92 years old. You've got to be in command and as I was on the way up, with my helmet strapped on, a North Vietnamese soldier in a tree put two bullet holes right through my helmet.". 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 . Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. He and his wife have two teenage children. Bob Edwards saying that these were the stripes Paolone earned at LZ X-Ray but never got. He still grows soybeans and corn on the farm in his spare time. He was evacuated, via Clark Field, to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. The fighting continued all day and into the night with the enemy relentlessly making assault after assault. In his spare time Wal-lenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. 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. In the last operation, his shattered left knee joint was removed and the leg bones fused, leaving his left leg frozen straight and two inches shorter than his right leg. VIERA, Arthur, Jr., forty-eight, an M-79 grenadier with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived the terrible wounds he suffered in X-Ray. It was the first major battle of the Vietnam War, and Lawrence and . He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. I couldn't grasp it.". This was the first major engagement between the United States Army and the North Vietnamese Army. Lawrence and Cornett were roommates at Infantry Officer Basic School, roommates in jump school and on the ship together that brought them to Vietnam. Three U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery during the battle. He was forty-five. He and his wife, Arlene, have three sonsa banker in Sao Paulo, Brazil; a lawyer in Connecticut; and a divinity student in college. Jeanette spent the better part of a year in a military hospital while his shattered leg was repaired. Somebody grabbed him under his arms and dragged him toward the trees, but dropped him in the clearing where air support was dropping napalm. 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. After leaving the Army, Braveboy worked as a roofer. Lessons in leadership, in the importance of training, in courage, in sacrifice and in loss. After retiring from the Army, Freeman became the northwest area director of aircraft services for the U.S. Department of the Interior. NADAL, Ramon A. 2,000 survivors of ia drang valley Vietnamese with the help of artillery Steelton, I never even owned BB! 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. He is a master gunsmith and runs his own business repairing and selling weapons. On his chest he wore the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and five Purple Hearts. The Pleiku Campaign took place from 20 October to 26 . For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment fought at the former for three days, beginning on November 14. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. On 27 October Westmoreland committed a brigade of the 1st Air Cavalry to search-and-destroy operations. Moderate. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and owns and operates a real estate brokerage firm. KNOWLES, Richard, seventy-five, assistant division commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, served a second consecutive tour in Vietnam, commanded the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, and then was commanding general of Task Force Oregon (precursor to the American Division). Shadden lives on a seven-acre farm outside Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and works part-time at odd jobs. Her research focused on military, environmental, and Canadian history with a specific focus on the Second World War. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. George found solace in hiking the Maine woods, shooting nothing more deadly than a 35mm camera. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. ( Illustration by Noel Sickles, SEPS ) Weekly Newsletter SUPPORT the POST now I felt alone! Be used in combat Vietnam veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled the. 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