He lives in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, and works in real estate sales and development. PUJALS, Enrique, fifty, platoon leader, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, woke up on an X-ray table first, then on a C-141 ambulance plane, and finally in Ward One at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. Being the firstbig units there, we had to make our own camp, no showers for months, World War II C rations to eat, no toilets, just a hole dug in the ground, etc. 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. He works at Fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training. North Vietnamese forces had higher casualty rates, due to the U.S. airstrike and artillery support. Due to a statute of limitations being lifted, Freeman was awarded the Medal of Honor on July 16, 2001. He is president of his own management-consulting firm and lives in Oklahoma City. THORPE, Henry, fifty-eight, commander, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, left the Army as a captain in September 1967, after eight years service, and went home to his native North Carolina. 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. Its not so much what we went through as it is knowing what the other guys went through. The bullet was still in there. Fifty years ago today, one of the Vietnam war's most ferocious battles broke out in the Ia Drang Valley. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack, and most of the men were quickly hit. WINTER, Pete, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was discharged in December 1965. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. Knowles retired from the Army in 1974 as a lieutenant general. Charlie Company held their position, exemplifying extraordinary heroism and courage. After several routine lifts into the area, https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/857/ELIAS-ALVAREZ-BUZO/, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK63b6Cn53unPuhknan6Y4fJwl-F5v14o, https://www.vvmf.org/The-Wall-That-Heals/, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK63b6Cn53unMMj-yZYEch0RuYy1YN1zl, https://vvmf.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/he-spent-14-hours-in-the-air-rescuing-wounded-in-the-ia-drang-valley/, https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1965/ia-drang-valley-where-the-us-truly-went-to-war-1.376662, https://www.facebook.com/VietnamVeteransMemorialFund/videos/2239219906358006/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyBazkpUFQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1rzDNcFmE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKtWX9TDFYc, https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/vietnam-war/the-battle-of-la-drang/2071462322001, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIAEcZ29aG4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDYNI7V0co, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-U0FBiYUU, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/battle-la-drang-valley, https://whut.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/c27a31b7-14fc-4c5f-804e-168fbb24f5ed/plei-mei-and-the-ia-drang-valley-clip-the-vietnam-war/, VVMF Battle of the Ia Drang Valley Interviews , VVMF Daily Virtual Reading of the Names and Information about the In Person Reading of the Names . Don Cornett had a wife and a son, a mother and a father and two sisters. That same month, the United States began bombing North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder. 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. He lives on a farm near Rainier, Washington, and has been writing down his memories of Vietnam duty for his children and grandchildren. It was the first major battle of the Vietnam War, and Lawrence and . AINSWORTH, Hank, fifty-four, who flew the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav command helicopter in the Ia Drang, retired a chief warrant officer 4 on May 30, 1977, after twenty-two years service. JEKEL, Alex (Pop), seventy, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany, retired in the late 1960s as a chief warrant officer-4. Thus died one of the finest officers who fought in the Ia Drang. The North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas absorbed even higher casualties from better-equipped American troops on the ground as well as helicopter gunships and B-52s raining bombs, bullets and napalm. Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. 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. I thought to myself. 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. More than anything else in the world I would like to be back in the Green Machine, he says. A total of 305 soldiers died. DILLON, Gregory (Matt), fifty-nine, operations officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, served a second tour in Vietnam as a battalion commander in the 9th Infantry Division and was a brigade commander at Fort Carson, Colorado. Survivors described savage, close-range combat, sometimes hand-to-hand, over several hours. Parish now runs the Bristow, Oklahoma, toll gate on the Turner Turnpike. One of the survivors recalls how it was - the blood, the agony, and the fear. In 1974 he transferred from the infantry to the military police. But Charlie was back in the air, flying F-4 Phantoms, less than a year later. SHUCART, William, M.D., surgeon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, had nearly completed his tour in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, when he suffered a broken back in the crash of a Chinook helicopter. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. 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. (U.S. Army). 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. 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. There's captains and majors and colonels and I assume they know what they are doing. He studied to be a tool-and-die machinist and worked at that job for several years until the strain of long hours standing on his bad leg severely affected his hip and back. It was the most successful ambush against U.S. forces during the course of the entire war. They and their buddies fought off hundreds of North Vietnamese with the help of artillery. 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. Hear three personal perspectives from men who survived. 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. He is now a financial officer with the U.S. This operation responded to the NVA attack on an American . You need a Find a Grave account to continue. 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.. It was his first real combat; first, he got a round to the side of his neck. I couldnt grasp it., More from us: Val Kilmer Accidentally Landed Matthew Modine the Starring Role in Full Metal Jacket. Their mission was to find and kill the enemy. Search above to list available cemeteries. The Battle of the la Drang Valley would come to be remembered as one of the most iconic battles of the Vietnam War, and later would set the scene for the film We Were Soldiers based on the novel We Were Soldiers OnceAnd Young. Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment fought at the former for three days, beginning on November 14. STINNETT, Robert L., fifty-eight, Bravo Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. There is a problem with your email/password. Although each survivor's story is unique, they all carry the same lessons. 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." Terms of Use | One killed, 15 injured after clashes erupt at Afghan border again December 16, 2022. If you yield to it, it will absolutely paralyze you. Gen. Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. The fighting continued all day and into the night. 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 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. 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. 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. PARISH, Willard, fifty-one, mortarman in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who won the Silver Star for his work as a machine gunner in LZ X-Ray, was among the draftees who rotated home in December 1965 for discharge. It wasnt until Albany was back in American hands that the engagement officially drew to a close. ADAMS, Warren, sixty-two, first sergeant, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, retired in 1968 as the best-educated command sergeant major in the Army. In addition, they were exhausted from the fight at X-Ray, so it was easy for hundreds of NVA troops to sneak up and launch an attack. OUELLETTE, Robert, fifty, battalion commanders radio operator in LZ X-Ray, left the Army in August 1966. 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. 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. No one wanted to look weak in the face of communist aggression.. Although it was left out of We Were Soldiers, Albany was no less bloody than X-Ray. (U.S. Army). (U.S. Army). They have three children, daughters Abigail and Alison and a son, Thomas Alexander. His helicopter came under intense enemy fire, but they continued to carry out the wounded, even though that wasnt their mission. 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. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. Together, we can make sure our heroes will get the reverence they deserve and the stories and sacrifices of our heroes will never be forgotten. Read More 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. As the command ship touched down, other NVA soldiers opened up; Myron Diduryk was struck in the stomach in the doorway of the chopper. A fresh unit, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to march from LZ X-Ray to LZ Albany a few miles away. LOSE, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, has dropped out of sight. She is an active member of Sons and Daughters in Touch, an organization sponsored by the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In his spare time he camps, climbs, skis, and fishes for trout in the Rockies. As a student, she worked in a variety of research positions, including as an archivist. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Harold Moore led the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, against numerically superior elements of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) led by General Chu Huy Man (Builder et al., 1999). Please reset your password. Jim also talks about the failure of leadership. A native of Mendenhall, Mississippi, Kennedy was thirty-one years old at the time of his death. He and his wife live in Phoenix, Arizona. 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. 5 memorials LTC Roger Jay Bartholomew 2 Nov 1932 - 27 Nov 1968 Westlawn-Hillcrest Memorial Park Lessons in leadership, in the importance of training, in courage, in sacrifice and in loss. 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