I was really lucky. Draft # 112 but a repetitive urinary tract infection kept me out of the hell. A lot of my buddies went and came back fucked up, or didnt come back at all. I post this in their honor and Ill bet at least one of the members here was there. This is for you too.
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Yesteryears: For survivors, Battle of the Ia Drang Valley changed everything
I’m thankful that I was at home when I learned that retired Lt. Gen. Harold “Hal” Moore had died.
He passed on Feb. 10, a few days before his 95th birthday. I hadn’t known him personally, but just the mention of his name has always opened sad and tragic memories for me.
Moore had been the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. In November 1965, at a place called Landing Zone X-Ray, he and his men proved they were every bit as brave and tough as any group of men the nation has ever sent to war.
A few days later, that truth was proven again at nearby LZ Albany, and LZ Columbus. The horrific point-blank fighting went down in history as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.
Years later, Moore and his best friend, Joseph L. Galloway, who was with him as a civilian reporter during the battle, wrote the definitive account of the entire engagement, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.”
I was a 19-year-old kid when I flew into that place — and something much different when I came out.
Through the grace of God, I wasn’t among the 305 Americans — nine from Virginia — who died there. To this day, just the mention of that place with the giant termite mounds and scrubby trees brings me close to tears.
Although we were outnumbered 10 to 1 at times, we soundly defeated the North Vietnamese Army regulars who attacked us in human waves with whistles and bugles blaring. But this isn’t a story of bone-bruising combat, but rather an account of the shadow of sadness we carried out of that place.
Those of us who still had our youth to lose left it in that keening vale of screams and curses. Also left in the matted, blood-splattered elephant grass — and lost in the blank, staring eyes of our dead — were our absurd pre-battle notions of war.
When we returned to our base camp at An Khe, the sprawling compound felt like a church. No one spoke much above a whisper as inventories of the dead guys’ things were taken.
My memory always places me just outside one of the dust-red, general-purpose tents that served as our homes. The sides of the tent are rolled up, and I’m watching officers using bolt cutters to sever locks from foot lockers and duffel bags.
All the canvas cots are empty, and the broken locks bounce as they land on the taut material. There is a bolt of colorful silk material, too, that one of the guys had planned to mail to his mother.
Days pass without a joke, because even smiling seems unthinkable. Some of us wonder how and why phantom odors of death come and go even weeks later.
Our dark mood had nothing to do with morale. We were proud of our division — and how we had fought during our baptism of fire.
We were dealing with grief, collectively and as individuals. To help bring us out of our morass, they held a drag race of sorts between a Huey and a Chinook helicopter.
Bets were taken as to which one would win. The pilots knew it would be no contest, but many of us were betting on our beloved Huey.
We cheered like maniacs as the two airships roared by, maybe 30 feet above the ground. The Chinook, with a top speed of 196 mph, won easily. The Huey maxed out at 127 mph, and it was wound tight as it flew by.
I think that was when we started smiling again. But what most helped to bring us back to a state of mind resembling normalcy was the Bob Hope Christmas show.
Depending on who was counting, between 5,000 and 8,000 of us got to see the show. Everybody else was on the perimeter standing guard for us.
In his book “The Last Christmas Show,” Hope writes about looking down from the helicopter that was flying him into our camp and seeing our troops in a firefight just outside our barbwire perimeter. That was nothing new for us, but it was one of the reasons he wrote that our camp presented the “biggest security problem” during his 1965 tour.
Before the show started, clear instructions were given as to who should run where if we started to get shelled. Nothing happened during the show, and we were able to enjoy it from start to finish.
The one joke that I remember Hope telling was actually an off-the-cuff remark he made when he saw our gigantic CH-54 Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter rise into the air nearby.
“That’s the biggest damn mosquito I’ve ever seen,” Hope adlibbed.
After the show, I walked alone back to my unit’s area. Almost as soon as the cheering and laughter had ended, I started to feel sad again.
David A. Maurer is a features writer for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7244 or [email protected].
----------------------------------------
Yesteryears: For survivors, Battle of the Ia Drang Valley changed everything
I’m thankful that I was at home when I learned that retired Lt. Gen. Harold “Hal” Moore had died.
He passed on Feb. 10, a few days before his 95th birthday. I hadn’t known him personally, but just the mention of his name has always opened sad and tragic memories for me.
Moore had been the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. In November 1965, at a place called Landing Zone X-Ray, he and his men proved they were every bit as brave and tough as any group of men the nation has ever sent to war.
A few days later, that truth was proven again at nearby LZ Albany, and LZ Columbus. The horrific point-blank fighting went down in history as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.
Years later, Moore and his best friend, Joseph L. Galloway, who was with him as a civilian reporter during the battle, wrote the definitive account of the entire engagement, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.”
I was a 19-year-old kid when I flew into that place — and something much different when I came out.
Through the grace of God, I wasn’t among the 305 Americans — nine from Virginia — who died there. To this day, just the mention of that place with the giant termite mounds and scrubby trees brings me close to tears.
Although we were outnumbered 10 to 1 at times, we soundly defeated the North Vietnamese Army regulars who attacked us in human waves with whistles and bugles blaring. But this isn’t a story of bone-bruising combat, but rather an account of the shadow of sadness we carried out of that place.
Those of us who still had our youth to lose left it in that keening vale of screams and curses. Also left in the matted, blood-splattered elephant grass — and lost in the blank, staring eyes of our dead — were our absurd pre-battle notions of war.
When we returned to our base camp at An Khe, the sprawling compound felt like a church. No one spoke much above a whisper as inventories of the dead guys’ things were taken.
My memory always places me just outside one of the dust-red, general-purpose tents that served as our homes. The sides of the tent are rolled up, and I’m watching officers using bolt cutters to sever locks from foot lockers and duffel bags.
All the canvas cots are empty, and the broken locks bounce as they land on the taut material. There is a bolt of colorful silk material, too, that one of the guys had planned to mail to his mother.
Days pass without a joke, because even smiling seems unthinkable. Some of us wonder how and why phantom odors of death come and go even weeks later.
Our dark mood had nothing to do with morale. We were proud of our division — and how we had fought during our baptism of fire.
We were dealing with grief, collectively and as individuals. To help bring us out of our morass, they held a drag race of sorts between a Huey and a Chinook helicopter.
Bets were taken as to which one would win. The pilots knew it would be no contest, but many of us were betting on our beloved Huey.
We cheered like maniacs as the two airships roared by, maybe 30 feet above the ground. The Chinook, with a top speed of 196 mph, won easily. The Huey maxed out at 127 mph, and it was wound tight as it flew by.
I think that was when we started smiling again. But what most helped to bring us back to a state of mind resembling normalcy was the Bob Hope Christmas show.
Depending on who was counting, between 5,000 and 8,000 of us got to see the show. Everybody else was on the perimeter standing guard for us.
In his book “The Last Christmas Show,” Hope writes about looking down from the helicopter that was flying him into our camp and seeing our troops in a firefight just outside our barbwire perimeter. That was nothing new for us, but it was one of the reasons he wrote that our camp presented the “biggest security problem” during his 1965 tour.
Before the show started, clear instructions were given as to who should run where if we started to get shelled. Nothing happened during the show, and we were able to enjoy it from start to finish.
The one joke that I remember Hope telling was actually an off-the-cuff remark he made when he saw our gigantic CH-54 Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter rise into the air nearby.
“That’s the biggest damn mosquito I’ve ever seen,” Hope adlibbed.
After the show, I walked alone back to my unit’s area. Almost as soon as the cheering and laughter had ended, I started to feel sad again.
David A. Maurer is a features writer for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7244 or [email protected].
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