Moore Harold G. - We were soldiers once -and young : Ia Drang, the battle that changed the war in Vietnam

We Were Soldiers

Once and Young

Ia Drangthe Battle That

Changed the War in Vietnam

Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway

Contents

GOING TO WAR

Tony Nadal, left, and Matt Dillon on the first battalion-size operation l/7th Cav conducted in Vietnam, in Happy Valley near An Khe during October 1965.

The 11th Air Assault (Test) Divisions commanding general, Harry Kinnard, left, and 3rd Brigade commander Col. Tim Brown in May 1965.

Hard good-byes: Ray Lefebvre with his wife, Ann, and children the day he left for Vietnam.

John Herren and Bob Edwards aboard the USNS Maurice Rose transiting the Panama Canal late in August 1965.

Air Force pilot Charlie Hastings had a grunts eye view of war.

Ia Drang campaign began with the seige of Plei Me camp (inset); Montagnard troops kept families with them.

Doc Carrara treats a sick Montagnard child in an isolated village five miles east of Plei Me camp on November 10.

X-RAY

Clouds of smoke boiling off the X-Ray battlefield made the aviators jobs all the more difficult and dangerous.

Battalion command group just before X-Ray: Standing left to right, Basil Plumley, Matt Dillon, Hal Moore, and Tom Metsker. Kneeling left to right, unidentified trooper and radio operator Bob Ouellette.

Battalion surgeon Robert Carrara led a sadly under-strength crew of medical aid men who worked miracles in the hell that was LZ X-Ray. They saved the lives of many of the 121 men wounded in action there.

Lt. Col. Bob Tully, right, shown here with General Dick Knowles, commanded the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cav in the Ia Drang.

Henry Toro Herrick: He led a charge that baffled everyone.

Neil Kroger died holding the line in Charlie Company.

Bob Taft was first casualty in fight for dry creekbed.

Lt. Col. Nguyen Huu An commanded enemy forces in the Ia Drang Valley from a bunker on the slopes of Chu Pong massif. An and his superiors claim a victory in spite of heavy losses, and say they learned how to fight the newly arrived American forces and their helicopters. A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign.

Galen Bungum, left, and Joe F. Mackey, two of the unhurt survivors of Lt. Henry Herricks Lost Platoon. They and their buddies fought off hundreds of North Vietnamese with the help of artillery.

Sergeants Carl Palmer, Paul Hurdle, and Ernie Savage (left to right) of Herricks platoon. Hurdle died fighting a rear-guard action that bought time for his buddies. Palmer commanded only briefly after Herricks death, then he also was slain. Command then passed to Savage, who held the decimated, isolated platoon together for 26 desperate hours under siege. The platoons losses: 9KIA, 13 WIA.

Alpha 1/7 machine gunners enjoying warm beer at An Khe: left to right, Edward Dougherty, Russell Adams, Theron Ladner, Rodriguez Rivera, Bill Beck. They held the line with two M-60s.

Top: Rick Rescorla, left, and Myron Diduryk.

Clinton Poley, center, in the battalion aid station.

Bottom: Doc Carrara works on Arthur Viera.

Medic Charles Lose bandaged wounds with toilet paper and T-shirts and kept 13 men alive by sheer will.