STOCKTON, John B., seventy, commander, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel in 1967. They never did. 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. 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 real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. Although he was a civilian, Galloway was awarded the Bronze Star medal for helping to rescue wounded soldiers during the battle. Together, they flew in supplies, water, and ammunition needed for the troops. That same month, the United States began bombing North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder. He retired a major in 1980, after twenty years service. I thought to myself. 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. We saved so many more people because of that helicopter.. 208-263-9534. Tully retired a colonel in 1976. "I'm just as guilty. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. 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. It would remain the U.S. militarys single bloodiest day in Vietnam through the entire war. 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. Hear Walters story. He is now a financial officer with the U.S. They were platoon leaders together in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' The former arrives in Vietnam in November 1965, and, soon after, is tasked with leading his 400 men in an effort to take out the enemy troops who attacked one of the bases in the Ia Drang Valley. They resupplied ammunition, water, and supplies, while evacuating the wounded. A wounded soldier of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, is attended to by fellow comrades during the fight for LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. He now manages the quartermaster laundry at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. In Washington, Ia Drang convinced Johnson that he was in for a long, bloody war. U.S. airpower lifted the siege and drove back the North Vietnamese. "Why did I deserve to live? In the spring of 1992, Frank Henry was posthumously inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. The Battle of Ia Drang Valley, fought November 14th-18th, 1965, was the first major engagement between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (abbreviated as PAVN). 5 cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. Theres a lot of pain but at least I lived. Jeanette says: When I was in the hospital in 1966, I was down in the doldrums, feeling sorry, and they tried to nudge me out of that. I had been assuming that he would get us out of this. He earned a doctorate in education and is personnel director for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia in Athens. It wasn't until about two weeks later, as he read Stars and Stripes, that it hit him what he had survived. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. Somebody grabbed him under his arms and dragged him toward the trees, but dropped him in the clearing where air support was dropping napalm. 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. The service members killed in the Battle of la Drang are remembered on Panel 3E of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In his spare time he camps, climbs, skis, and fishes for trout in the Rockies. 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. 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. They have four children and five grandchildren. 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. Crandall won the first Helicopter Heroism Award of the Aviation/Space Writers Association, for two daring nighttime landings under fire to rescue twelve badly wounded troopers from Captain Tony Nadals Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in Operation Masher-White Wing in January 1966. 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. Moore is the last to leave, refusing to do so until every man living and dead has left. 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. He retired a first sergeant in June 1973, with twenty years service. 'The torture stopped': 1969 brought temporary changes to infamous Hanoi Hilton, Patriotism or protest? He died. Search above to list available cemeteries. His son is a staff sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division and a veteran of both the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War. In his spare time Wal-lenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. The Ia Drang Valley is a valley located near Pleiku in Central Highlands of Vietnam. Moderate. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1stCavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. 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. 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. He is married and the father of two children. Privacy Policy Forces, was Time magazines Man of the Year. 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. In her spare time, Rosemary enjoys spending time with her partner, her cats, and her horse, or sitting down to read a good book. Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th . They had this Learning to be a Teacher program; I tried it and loved it. GILREATH, Larry M., platoon sergeant, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, did two more tours in Southeast Asia and retired a master sergeant in April 1972. The XO was going fast. Terms of Use | They are representative of the more than three million Americans who served the United States of America in its long and bitter war in Vietnam, representative of those who loved one of the more than 58,000 Americans who died in that war. 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. The battlefield area covered 1,500 square miles of what appeared to be flat rolling terrain dominated by the Chu Pong . Omaha, In 2016, he joined a panel of Ia Drang survivors at the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, Ga., to share their experiences with both young and seasoned officers and noncommissioned officers. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. Absent was an effective plan for winning over the civilian population caught in the crossfire, said James Willbanks, a Vietnam veteran who is the director of the Department of Military History at U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is partly paralyzed as a result of his terrible wound. 1/7 Cavalry lands at LZ X-Ray. He retired a command sergeant major and lives in Columbus, Georgia. He is senior Army adviser to the 79th Army Reserve Command in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. After three days of fighting, 240 Americans had been killed and another 300 wounded (more troops were brought in in support). Easy. Moore commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, was commanding general at Fort Ord, California, and then was the Armys deputy Chief of Staff for personnel. 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. He served another Indochina tour in 1975, planning and helping run the final American air evacuation of Vietnam from a base in Thailand. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia. 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. KEETON, James, fifty-nine, battalion aid station medic, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam with an adviser group. PLUMLEY, Basil, seventy-two, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalrys sergeant major, retired from the Army as a command sergeant major on December 31, 1974, after thirty-two years, six months, and four days on active duty, and a second tour in Vietnam with the U.S. Moore lectures at military academies and at several colleges and universities. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . After they were airlifted out of the combat zone, McDades men were joined by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. 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 survivors of Landing Zone X-Ray have always had an aura of fame about them. 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. 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. Although each survivor's story is unique, . Background. On March 2, 1969, thirty-two-year-old Buse Tully was killed in action. He and his wife, Julie, divide their time between homes in Auburn, Alabama, and Crested Butte, Colorado. "Survivor's guilt is something that most people who have seen combat, seen friends die, deal with almost daily," Lawrence said. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. Charlie Company took the brunt of the assault. Charlie Hastings moved back home to Tucson after retiring, and he lives there with his wife and children. The Huey was the best helicopter ever made. 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. 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. Carrara says, I dont dwell on Vietnam, but now and then I hear something or smell something and flash back to those days. He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. USA, Fort Benning, He spent seven months there while his shattered thigh and legs were repaired. Winkel retired a colonel in 1986, with over thirty-one years of Army service. Many did a second tour and others left the service and returned home to their families. BARTHOLOMEW, Roger J. 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. Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. Mrs. Mapson is a member of the Columbus chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association. 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. 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. Alpha Company arrived in Vietnam with 146 officers and men. He is working on a book on Alpha Companys year in Vietnam. A miserly, ungrateful Veterans Administration ruled that Shadden was only thirty percent disabled. 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. On November 18, 1965, the US forces were able to gather their dead. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. BY DAVID A. MAURER. 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. This article was originally published Nov. 11, 2015, as part of the Vietnam at 50 project. The battle was the culmination of Operation Silver Bayonet I, a combined American-South Vietnamese offensive to relieve the . Every night I rub a towel over all my scars and see them in the mirror. I was standing back there in the column and the column was stopped. OUELLETTE, Robert, fifty, battalion commanders radio operator in LZ X-Ray, left the Army in August 1966. When the last of his old friends in the 1st Cavalry and the U.S. Marines rotated home, Galloway also left, vowing never to return. Im so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. A total of 305 soldiers died. Survivors described savage, close-range combat, sometimes hand-to-hand, over several hours. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. Florence County, Your new password must contain one or more uppercase and lowercase letters, and one or more numbers or special characters. 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. (67 votes) Very easy. 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