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. The training kicks in and can save you.". As the command ship touched down, other NVA soldiers opened up; Myron Diduryk was struck in the stomach in the doorway of the chopper. "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. 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. The Battle of Ia Drang was fought November 14-18, 1965, during the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and was the first major engagement between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). 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. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Roswell, New Mexico, where they run an antiques shop. Georgia, That headquarters type turned up and he returned my old helmet, bullet hole and all. The North Vietnamese enjoyed numerical superiority in the valley. His dissertation is on the LZ Albany battle. The XO was going fast. The North Vietnamese attempt one final attack, but are soon overrun and ordered to evacuate the headquarters they took only a few days prior. 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. 5 cemeteries found in will be saved to your photo volunteer list. The two-part battle took place between November 14 and November 18, 1965 west of Plei Me, in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. Of the 500 men, 150 were killed and only 84 were able to return to immediate duty. The bulk of the fighting was centered around two vital helicopter landing zones: LZ X-Ray and Albany. On November 27, 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew was killed in action. 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. SHADDEN, James Haskell, fifty, mortarman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived half a dozen operations and one year in Army hospitals recovering from the wounds received at LZ Albany. 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. 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. A Chicago native, Doc Carrara returned home, changed his specialty to pathology. 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. They have two sons, one an oil-industry consultant, the other an Air Force sergeant who served in the Persian Gulf War. Tully retired a colonel in 1976. He retired a colonel in 1983. The Ia Drang Valley is a map featured in Battlefield Vietnam. 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. He did not know at the time that his friend, Don Cornett, had died. Shortly thereafter, US units began . 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 lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government. WALLENIUS, Jon, forty-nine, mortar observer, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, got out of the Army in August 1966. The Air Mobile Division was a new concept. They successfully hit many of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops, while also shooting some of the Americans with friendly fire. TULLY, Walter Busill (Buse) Jr., commander, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam on a second tour as a major in the Americal Division. in history. He remained with the medical platoon in Vietnam until July 1966. After they were airlifted out of the combat zone, McDades men were joined by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. Pronunciation of Ia Drang with 6 audio pronunciations. 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. This is the tale of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. It was a small football size clearing for the first helicopters to be used in combat. At a surprise fiftieth-birthday party for Ernie, he was presented a plaque engraved with sergeants stripes and inscribed with a message from Colonel (ret.) Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. Weve updated the security on the site. Major Bruce P. Crandall's UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia. The battle was part of a campaign for control of the strategic central highlands, which divided South Vietnam north to south. At approximately noon,the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked. Lefebvre earned graduate degrees in secondary school administration and public administration. Winkel and his wife live in Springfield, Virginia. "My gut told me, this is wrong, this isn't right, something's wrong here. Im so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977 and returned to Georgia, where he is an executive for a trucking firm. The men were still in an administrative maneuver, so when the word to halt came they plopped down where they were. Then he somehow managed to crawl away, saying that he was going to organize the troops. The plane hit several tombstones and flipped over. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. 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. 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. UH-1 aircraft of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion carry wounded 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry soldiers away during the fight for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' 208-263-9534. Russian missile barrage knocks out power and water to Ukrainian cities December 16, 2022. Memoirs and histories written after the event capture it . 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. 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. USA. 311 memorials The column was strung out about 550 yards in the open with dense vegetation to their right. 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. Lawrence's story is one that he has told so often to so many people that it is fluid and impactful without being rehearsed. Advisory Group, Pleiku. from around the world. He is partly paralyzed as a result of his terrible wound. The bullet was still in there. He teaches physical and earth sciences at Venice High School, Los Angeles, California. Little did Beck and his companions know they were about to make history in America's first large scale battle of the Vietnam War. Mississippi, He left the Army in 1971 with the rank of captain, returned home to Puerto Rico, and earned a law degree. 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. Galen Bungum, 72, was a soldier in the Vietnam War and fought in the first major battle of the war, the battle of Ia Drang, on November 14, 1965. He and his wife, Pat, live in Avon Park, Florida. MAPSON, Betty Jivens, forty-two, daughter of Sergeant Jerry Jivens, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action at X-Ray on November 15, 1965, is married, the mother of two, and works as a secretary at the Medical Center Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. He earned his masters degree in public administration in 1976 and retired in 1977 as a lieutenant colonel. We have set your language to He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. 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. In March 1991 he found a new purpose in life: meeting the chartered airliners touching down at Bangor International Airport, the first American landfall, bringing American soldiers home from the Persian Gulf. The bulk of the fighting was centered around two vital helicopter landing zones: LZ X-Ray and Albany. He spent seven months there while his shattered thigh and legs were repaired. It was the first major combat action between U.S. ground forces and the North Vietnamese Army. 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. Army Specialist Four (SP4) Bill Beck was an assistant machine gunner assigned to the 1 st Battalion, 7 th Cavalry Regiment (1/7 Cav), 1 st Cavalry Division on November 14, 1965, when the unit airlifted into Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. BARKER, Robert L., fifty-five, artillery-battery commander in LZ Falcon, served a second tour in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1969-1970 and later served a third combat tour. . (Black Bart), Charlie Battery aerial rocket artillery commander in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam for a second tour in 1968. His lieutenants bars were pinned on by General James Van Fleet and, at Freemans request, his first assignment was as commander of Bravo Company. Rosemary Giles is a history content writer with Hive Media. Jeanette spent the better part of a year in a military hospital while his shattered leg was repaired. 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. The fighting continued all day and into the night. 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. This was the first and last battle between NVA forces and U.S forces of similar size. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. One of the survivors recalls how it was - the blood, the agony, and the fear. He retired a major in 1980, after twenty years service. After he flew the men back to base, he knew the soldiers on the ground were running short of ammunition, so he decided to fly back in. The group is devoted to bringing together the families and friends of men killed in Vietnam. Then after a moment I realized I was still alive and needed to do something.". Hal Moore ensured that all of the men came home, and they therefore did . This article was originally published Nov. 11, 2015, as part of the Vietnam at 50 project. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. It was the longest day I ever experienced in any aircraft, Crandall recalled. I think of all those guys killed in action, wounded in action, and their friends, their relatives and all those altered lives. He retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York. It was his positive decision to do something that reinforced my own will to go on.". Don Cornett had a wife and a son, a mother and a father and two sisters. Second Lieutenant Walter Joe Marm, Jr., led an attack against a heavily fortified enemy force on November 14, 1965, personally knocking out several positions in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. Her daughter, Camille, was soon joined by a brother, Robert, and a sister, Barbara. There were no further attacks overnight. MEYER, Edward C. (Shy), sixty-three, 3rd Brigade executive officer in the Ia Drang, retired as Army Chief of Staff, a four-star general, in 1983 after thirty-two years service. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. Jemison works part-time as a security guard in Columbus, Georgia, and he says: Each night I go back to Vietnam to fight that same battle, over and over.. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. It was Nov. 15, 1965, in the valley of the Ia Drang in the wild mountains of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. He says he did a lot of praying during the Persian Gulf War, when his son, his brother, and his old friend Galloway were all on the battlefield. Shortly after the battalion set out, the North Vietnamese sprang a massive ambush. Feb 25, 2017. While Beck survived the ultimately victorious 2-1/2-day fight at Ia Drang, 305 other American soldiers did not. For him, war is something that will always be a necessity as long as there is evil in the world, but it is something that is not to be glorified or desired. Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment fought at the former for three days, beginning on November 14. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. 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. They had this Learning to be a Teacher program; I tried it and loved it. He co-authored the book We Were Soldiers Once And Young with Hal Moore. BEAN, Roger, fifty-two, Huey pilot who was wounded in LZ X-Ray, was wounded again in early 1966 in the Bong Son campaign. 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. 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. To me that seems proper, and just, and so right.. However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment went toward LZ Columbus, while the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment traveled to LZ Albany, capturing two NVA soldiers on the way. "The emotions are so high, the noise is tremendous, the confusion is everywhere; they had overrun us by now. Battle of Ia Drang, first major clash between U.S. soldiers and North Vietnamese troops during the Vietnam War. Many did a second tour and others left the service and returned home to their families. It was a battle between one US division and three NVA regiments. Ernie had gone back to his native Chicago and drove a truck for the city. His friend, James Lawrence, speaks with organizations and Soldiers about the lessons learned from the Army engineer recognized for exemplary work in obsolescence management, Norway adds top-tier military experience to State Partnership Program, Army's Environmental Restoration Program revitalizes contaminated lands, Army Lt. Col. Adams: A pioneer worthy of commemoration, US and UAE soldiers train together at Joint Readiness Training Center, Unified network operations underpins Army's digital transformation, SMA plans to reward Soldiers who meet rising standards. 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. 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." When I go to the wall, I see Don Cornett's name 58,000 times.'. It would remain the U.S. militarys single bloodiest day in Vietnam through the entire war. Galen Bungum, left, and Joe F. Mackey, two of the unhurt survivors of Lt. Henry Herrick's Lost Platoon. He and his wife live in Alexandria, Virginia. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. Today he is vice president for group security at a major stock-brokerage house in New York City. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. Next, he was shot in the chest; as he moved around, he was shot again in the leg. 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. The only question was which side could outlast the other. Battle of Ia Drang American troops in the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. When he got back to Refugio, Texas, he called on Joe Galloways parents but mercifully concealed the true circumstances of their meeting on the battlefield in X-Ray. He and his wife, Theresa, live on a farm in northern Virginia with their sons Lee, fifteen, and Joshua, twelve. 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. Initially, Lawrence's thoughts and feelings after he was safe were just moments captured in his mind. The idea was to kill the enemy, not necessarily hold ground, and bleed the North Vietnamese until they tired of war. Nebraska, Today, Doc Shucart of Landing Zone Albany is the chief of neurosurgery at Tufts University Medical School. Unknown to them at the time, they were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign. They resupplied ammunition, water, and supplies, while evacuating the wounded. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. Elements of the Armys 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) entered the first major land battle of the war at landing zones X-Ray and Albany, which would turn out to be proving grounds for a whole new kind of warfare. The assault at LZ X-Ray began before noon on 14 November. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. On March 2, 1969, thirty-two-year-old Buse Tully was killed in action. 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. BROWN, Thomas W. (Tim), seventy-three, the 3rd Brigade commander in the Ia Drang, retired a brigadier general in 1973, after thirty-plus years of service and a second tour in Vietnam, with two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars from his three wars. I thought to myself. 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. The two-hour Ia Drang Valley program kicked off the reunion's final day. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980 with twenty years service, and is now a plastics-plant manager. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . 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. Read More 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. USA, Scranton, Charlie Company held their position, exemplifying extraordinary heroism and courage. He works at Fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training. 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 idea was that whole battalions could be dropped and complete their mission on the ground, calling in artillery barrages, helicopter support, and bombing sorties (including . YOUNG, James, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in LZ Albany, made it home to the family farm outside Keysville, Missouri, on Christmas Eve, 1965, with an Army discharge in his pocket and a quarter-size hole in the side of his skull. We . 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