Their mission was to find and kill the enemy. His hands were burned in the escape from the wreckage, and it was doubted that he would ever fly again. Charlie Hastings moved back home to Tucson after retiring, and he lives there with his wife and children. 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. 208-263-9534. The conflict is divided into two engagements: the Battle at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray and. Moore and his 450-man 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, flew into Landing Zone X-Ray at the base of the Chu Pong Mountain west of Plei Me and miles from the Cambodian border. The . 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. 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. He and his wife, Pat, live in Avon Park, Florida. Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. TANNER, Ray, forty-nine, radio operator, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, returned home to South Carolina in April 1966 and went to work for a utility company in Charleston. Jim also talks about the failure of leadership. He spent that night among the dead and wounded. Battle of Ia Drang Valley Survivors These men survived the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam from Oct 23, 1965 to Nov 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. 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He is a master gunsmith and runs his own business repairing and selling weapons. Things were quiet, but in the morning, the North Vietnamese attacked. The idea was to kill the enemy, not necessarily hold ground, and bleed the North Vietnamese until they tired of war. Moore continues to fight, returning home to Julia after a year. It would remain the U.S. militarys single bloodiest day in Vietnam through the entire war. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. He retired from the Army as a master sergeant and, in 1988, became the pastor of a church in Fort Mitchell, Alabama. "When things started it just erupted," Lawrence said. 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. This battle took place from 11-14-1965, thru 11-18-1965. Major Bruce P. Crandall's UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission. November 14, 1965 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In his spare time he camps, climbs, skis, and fishes for trout in the Rockies. More than anything else in the world I would like to be back in the Green Machine, he says. Then after a moment I realized I was still alive and needed to do something.". 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. 4 Oscar E . 5 cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. He retired a command sergeant major and lives in Columbus, Georgia. 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. McNamara told Johnson that the U.S. could continue with its limited engagement or massively escalate the war with hundreds of thousands more troops. 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. The vision of VVMF is to ensure a society in which all who have served and sacrificed in our nation's Armed Forces are properly honored and receive the recognition they justly deserve. He then formed a computer-software company. They have four children and five grandchildren. The bulk of the fighting was centered around two vital helicopter landing zones: LZ X-Ray and Albany. There is a problem with your email/password. He left active duty in 1967, but continued in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 1990 as a colonel. A native of Mendenhall, Mississippi, Kennedy was thirty-one years old at the time of his death. 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. Before the Battle of la Drang was over, 305 Americans had been killed along with an estimated 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. 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. He went home to Salinas, California, where he lives with his wife and three sons. In the end, 79 Americans had been killed, and 121 men were wounded. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. when I said to hell with it. He and his wife own and manage a trailer park, and Kluges night job is corrections officer for the Arizona State Department of Corrections. He and his wife, Arlene, have three sonsa banker in Sao Paulo, Brazil; a lawyer in Connecticut; and a divinity student in college. 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. Her daughter, Camille, was soon joined by a brother, Robert, and a sister, Barbara. He and his wife, Theresa, live on a farm in northern Virginia with their sons Lee, fifteen, and Joshua, twelve. Today, Doc Shucart of Landing Zone Albany is the chief of neurosurgery at Tufts University Medical School. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. I ask that question every day. 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. He is a colonel and the provost marshal of the U.S. Army Forces Command (Forscom) in Atlanta, Georgia. "I'm just as guilty. 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. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. We Were Soldiers is based on the novel, We Were Soldiers Once and Young: Ia Drang The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam, by renowned war correspondent Joe Galloway and Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. The XO was going fast. He wanted to ensure the memories of those who died live on, in particular that of his best friend, Lt. Don Cornett. Young went to work for the railroad in Steelville, Missouri. Privacy Policy 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. He spent eighteen months in Army hospitals, and was retired, disabled, in June 1975. The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. 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. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. Shucart says, It was interesting; they just figured I was another grunt and I didnt tell them different. He was made famous by the account of his actions during the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, the Americans' first major battle of the Vietnam War. I still have my leg, and I can walk on it. He worked as a sales executive in the corrugated-box industry and went to school nights to earn his MBA. Hear Walters story. He and his wife live in Sag Harbor, New York, where they operate a summer season shop that deals in contemporary original art. James T. Lawrence, a first lieutenant in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, learned a lesson in leadership the hard way 50 years ago. JEANETTE, Robert J., fifty, Ghost 4-6, weapons-platoon leader, Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, lives in Monsey, New York, a suburb of New York City. For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. 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. Moore, who says he graduated from West Point by the skin of my teeth, was the first Army officer of his class (1945) to achieve one-, two-, and three-star rank. Our town is only ten thousand people and we lost eleven young men from here killed in Vietnam, says Purp. But UPI sent him back to Vietnam in 1971, in 1973, and again in 1975 for the final chapter. 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. Moore lectures at military academies and at several colleges and universities. KOMICH, Leland C., fifty-two, Huey pilot with Bravo Company 229th in X-Ray and Albany, retired a chief warrant officer-4 with more than twenty years service. The Huey was the best helicopter ever made. He now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. For the Ia Drang Valley survivors, October 10, 2012 will be a day they will remember for the rest of their days. Later, after he was evacuated the doctors thought his spine was severed, but discovered later that he had a severely bruised spine from the force of the bullets whipping his head back. The 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 . Still on active duty, he is a major general, and is deputy to the Army inspector-general. To me that seems proper, and just, and so right.. Muscogee County, But Charlie was back in the air, flying F-4 Phantoms, less than a year later. Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. 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. Temperatures reached 100 degrees, and by the afternoon there was a firestorm battle for survival. These additional troops pushed back the enemy, allowing the others to evacuate the wounded. 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. 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. They and their buddies fought off hundreds of North Vietnamese with the help of artillery. Moore considered the outcome a draw. Combat operations at Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 1965. Please try again later. 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. Advisory Group, Pleiku. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . They were promoted to first lieutenants at the same time and both became executive officers on the same day, Lawrence with Delta Company and Cornett with Charlie. Postal Service in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They have two grown children. Bun-gum operated a 161-acre dairy farm until 1988, when he sold his cows and took a job in town. North Vietnamese forces had higher casualty rates, due to the U.S. airstrike and artillery support. It was his first real combat; first, he got a round to the side of his neck. Galloway served a total of fifteen years overseas with UPI, assigned to Tokyo, Saigon, Jakarta, New Delhi, Singapore, and Moscow. After the Ia Drang campaign, Hastings was badly burned when the O-1E Bird Dog spotter plane he was piloting was shot down over the Mang Yang Pass and crash-landed in the old French Group Mobile 100 cemetery beside Route 19 on Christmas Eve 1965. Why I wasn't killed, I couldn't say.". His helicopter came under intense enemy fire, but they continued to carry out the wounded, even though that wasnt their mission. He was chief of security at a hospital in Columbus, Georgia, until his death on April 18, 1992. Please enter your email and password to sign in. (U.S. Army). And it all began early one fall day. 5 cemeteries found within miles of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. She also worked as a teaching assistant in the History Department. 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. "Why did I deserve to live? The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. It was the longest day I ever experienced in any aircraft, Crandall recalled. 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. Since completing her degrees, she has decided to take a step back from academia to focus her career on writing and sharing history in a more accessible way. He now manages the quartermaster laundry at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. Together, they flew in supplies, water, and ammunition needed for the troops. Nearly 70 percent of the battalions soldiers were killed or wounded before airstrikes, artillery and reinforcements drove the North Vietnamese into nearby Cambodia. He remained with the medical platoon in Vietnam until July 1966. On November 27, 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew was killed in action. 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 wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. They have two grown children and one still at home. Shortly thereafter, US units began . 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