survivors of ia drang valley

LZ Albany is essentially two clearings with a large copse of trees in the middle. Little did Beck and his companions know they were about to make history in America's first large scale battle of the Vietnam War. Towles received a masters degree in history from Kent State in 1989, and is currently working on his doctorate. The central highlands had few roads and challenging terrain, making air mobility the only viable mode of transportation. How could I forget? 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. When someone shook me and tried to get me moving I was actually offended. He lives in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, and works in real estate sales and development. Very difficult. The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley would be the Vietnam War's first major set-piece battle with the PAVN, the first major US heliborne assault on an NVA position, and the first engagement to employ B-52 airstrikes on enemy ground forces in battle. 5 memorials LTC Roger Jay Bartholomew 2 Nov 1932 - 27 Nov 1968 Westlawn-Hillcrest Memorial Park CRANDALL, Bruce, fifty-nine, who commanded the helicopters in the Ia Drang Valley, returned to Vietnam for a second tour in 1967. They are stories that not only serve to maintain our connection with history, but also educate us and force us to confront the good and the bad and learn from it. However, theres one part of We Were Soldiers thats different from what really happened: the ending. He was medically evacuated the next morning. 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. November 14, 1965 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. involvement in Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces had higher casualty rates, due to the U.S. airstrike and artillery support. SETELIN, John, forty-eight, squad leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left Vietnam with three Purple Hearts and left the Army a sergeant. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. 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. Box 159 Freeman won a battlefield commission in the Korean War. Merchant retired a lieutenant colonel in 1982. The battle of LZ Albany began after the battle of LZ X-ray made famous in the Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers." For information, the 1st Air Cavalry arrived in the fall of 1965, about the same time I did as a member of the 1stInfantry Division. OUELLETTE, Robert, fifty, battalion commanders radio operator in LZ X-Ray, left the Army in August 1966. The bullet was still in there. In the spring of 1992, Frank Henry was posthumously inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. 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. For the next ten years he was a football coach at Morgan State University in Baltimore, his alma mater. MARM, Walter J. We lived in tents. JEKEL, Alex (Pop), seventy, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany, retired in the late 1960s as a chief warrant officer-4. But the battle's true toll would prove to be the hubris it bred in U.S. commanders. RUDEL, Karen Metsker, twenty-eight, daughter of Captain Thomas Metsker, intelligence officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, killed in action November 14, 1965, lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband, Scott. Carrara says, I dont dwell on Vietnam, but now and then I hear something or smell something and flash back to those days. 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.". . 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 checked in with the nearest Veterans Administration hospital; they sent him home, telling him they would call him back for an operation to place a plate over the hole. GALLOWAY, Joe, fifty, war correspondent attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, served sixteen months in Vietnam on his first tour for United Press International, 1965-1966. Background. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and owns and operates a real estate brokerage firm. The enemy was so close he could hear them talking and he could see them right in front of him. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. DUNCAN, Ken, fifty-three, executive officer of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, left the Army in August 1966, and returned to his hometown of Thomaston, Georgia, where he works with a textile-manufacturing company. 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. McNamara told Johnson that the U.S. could continue with its limited engagement or massively escalate the war with hundreds of thousands more troops. It would remain the U.S. militarys single bloodiest day in Vietnam through the entire war. 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. 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. 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. They are all Don Cornett to him, his best friend. 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. Lawrence's story is one that he has told so often to so many people that it is fluid and impactful without being rehearsed. WINTER, Pete, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was discharged in December 1965. 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, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. Joseph Galloway was a civilian reporter at the Battle of Ia Drang. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. In his spare time Wal-lenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. This account has been disabled. The Ia Drang Valley is the place the U.S. really went to warfare. 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. There's captains and majors and colonels and I assume they know what they are doing. 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. 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. Many did a second tour and others left the service and returned home to their families. Crandall and Freeman successfully rescued some 70 wounded men. 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. Although it was left out of We Were Soldiers, Albany was no less bloody than X-Ray. He retired a command sergeant major and lives in Columbus, Georgia. 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. Every night I rub a towel over all my scars and see them in the mirror. He told me his wife's name was [Sylvia]. I think of all those guys killed in action, wounded in action, and their friends, their relatives and all those altered lives. He spent thirty-two months in the hospital recovering from the wounds he suffered in LZ X-Ray. A total of 305 soldiers died. USA, West Point, Alpha Company arrived in Vietnam with 146 officers and men. Moore is the last to leave, refusing to do so until every man living and dead has left. BRAVEBOY, Toby, rifleman, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav, recovered from his wounds and his week-long ordeal alone on the abandoned battlefield at Albany and returned safely to his family in Coward, South Carolina. I couldnt grasp it., More from us: Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. MARTIN, John C., fifty-one, rifleman in Lieutenant Sissons platoon detached from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry for duty in X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. It was his positive decision to do something that reinforced my own will to go on.". In Vietnam, it never got any worse than it did in the Ia Drang, a distant valley in the Central Highlands, tangled in elephant grass and simmering in heat. Most of the planes touched down between midnight and six A.M., but George Nye was always there, rain or shine. In Washington, Ia Drang convinced Johnson that he was in for a long, bloody war. He was judged seventy percent disabled due to wounds suffered in LZ X-Ray. 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. The plane hit several tombstones and flipped over. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. There is a problem with your email/password. 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. Her daughter, Camille, was soon joined by a brother, Robert, and a sister, Barbara. 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. During his two tours in Vietnam, Crandall flew lead ship on 756 separate missions. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. He lives in Columbus, Georgia, and is a serious collector of firearms and active in a local shooting club. 1965, just after the start of the U.S. campaign that led to the Ia Drang Valley. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. He is a civilian specialist on NATO affairs for the Defense Department; he and his wife, Sally, live in Bethesda, Maryland. 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. Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. Hear three personal perspectives from men who survived. Setelin is president of the Major General George W. Casey chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association and a member of the national associations board of trustees. 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." 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. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977, and lives with his wife in Arlington, Texas. Parish now runs the Bristow, Oklahoma, toll gate on the Turner Turnpike. Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs. Returning home, he single-handedly raised his two young children while earning two masters degrees. 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. 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. 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. Mindful of the effects of propaganda, each side declared victory. He was forty-five. It is republished unedited in its original form. These are survivors of an ambush against U.S. 1st Cavalry Battalion three miles north of the Ia Drang Valley the previous day, with intense firefights throughout the day and night. 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. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack, and most of the men were quickly hit. 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. He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. Gen. Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. He married in 1981 and is the father of four daughters: an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and infant twins. 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. The Ia Drang Valley is a valley located near Pleiku in Central Highlands of Vietnam. GEOGHEGAN, Camille, twenty-seven, daughter of Lieutenant John Lance (Jack) Geoghegan, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, killed in action November 15, 1965, is a human resources specialist at a company in McLean, Virginia. 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. BY DAVID A. MAURER. MOORE, H. G. (Hal), now seventy, commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang and served six more months in Vietnam, commanding the 3rd Brigade. Rescorla kept the battered French Army bugle he captured on the field at Albany; in 1991 he turned it over to the Ia Drang Alumni for use in memorial ceremonies. The XO was going fast. . He retired from the battlefield only after all possible service had been rendered to the infantry battalion. 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. For the last twenty-one years he has been in the tire business. He was director of training development at Fort Benning when he retired as a colonel in 1983. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. "To do it you've got to get up. We saved so many more people because of that helicopter.. Another 71 Americans had been killed in earlier, smaller skirmishes that led up to the Ia Drang battles. He is married and has four children. He was evacuated, badly wounded, on January 5, 1970, after serving four years, eight months, and ten days in Vietnam. NADAL, Ramon A. Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. After several routine lifts into the area,the men on the ground came under attack from the North Vietnamese Army. Charlie Company held their position, exemplifying extraordinary heroism and courage. By the end, there were no officers left and only 49 men that were not wounded. Privacy Policy 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. 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. He retired a major in 1980, after twenty years service. He did not know at the time that his friend, Don Cornett, had died. After they were airlifted out of the combat zone, McDades men were joined by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. 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. With a passion for historical learning and historical education, her writing interests include social history, and war history, especially researching obscure facts about the Second World War. The battlefield area covered 1,500 square miles of what appeared to be flat rolling terrain dominated by the Chu Pong . 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. 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 . Moore considered the outcome a draw. 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.. The men, women, and children of this story are Americas neighbors, living quiet lives in every corner of the nation they served. He retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York. Major Bruce Crandalls UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission in Ia Drang. He left the Army in 1971 with the rank of captain, returned home to Puerto Rico, and earned a law degree. The secondary plot follows Julia, who volunteers to deliver telegrams informing families of their loved ones deaths in Vietnam. He is an executive with a major defense-contracting firm and lives in Centreville, Virginia. 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. 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. James T. Lawrence, a first lieutenant in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, learned a lesson in leadership the hard way 50 years ago. On 27 October Westmoreland committed a brigade of the 1st Air Cavalry to search-and-destroy operations. All Rights Reserved. The late Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, author of We Were Soldiers Onceand Young, is said to have closed every speech with the phrase, "Hate the war, love the American warrior." With hundreds of thousands more troops is an executive with a major in 1980, after twenty years.., Billie, have a son in college and a sister, Barbara 2nd Battalion, Battalion! Wal-Lenius draws, paints, and now lives in Centreville, Virginia, McDades were... Disabled due to the U.S. could continue with its limited engagement or massively escalate the War with hundreds thousands. 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