Dillon is a scratch golfer who does his best to get in eighteen holes every day, even if it means a drive downslope to find a course that isnt closed on account of snow in the Colorado winter. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and owns and operates a real estate brokerage firm. The following day, both battalions were informed of an incoming bomber run on LZ X-Ray, meaning they needed to go elsewhere. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. USA, West Point, Of Mrs. Mapsons five brothers, three served in the Army, one made a career in the Air Force, and one is a lawyer. Galen Bungum, left, and Joe F. Mackey, two of the unhurt survivors of Lt. Henry Herrick's Lost Platoon. In January 1991, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf summoned the reporter to his headquarters in Saudi Arabia and said: Im sending you to the commander out here who is most like General Hal Moore, and the division which has the most challenging and dangerous mission in my battle plan. Galloway rode with then-Major General Barry McCaffrey and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) on a hair-raising tank charge through the western Iraq desert to the Euphrates River valley. TIFFT, Richard P., Pathfinder team leader in LZ X-Ray, later served as commander of the Golden Knights, the Armys parachute team. 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. 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. Douglas County, 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. They have five grown children: sons Steve, Dave, and Greg; and daughters Cecile and Julie. Now I felt terribly alone. Privacy Policy 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. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. He is a freelance commercial artist in Harrisburg and occasionally turns his hand to fine-art drawings of his war experiences. WHITESIDE, Jerry E., fifty-five, fire-support coordinator in LZ X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. There is a problem with your email/password. Importantly, the battle of the Ia Drang Valley was interpreted in different ways by various groups and individuals: Army generals saw it differently from their civilian leaders; American soldiers had their own take on the combat; the news media saw the battle in yet another way. JEMISON, Robert, Jr., sixty-one, platoon sergeant, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, retired as a sergeant first class in 1976, after twenty-four years service. He now manages the quartermaster laundry at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. He would recover after some physical therapy and return to duty in 1966 to finish his tour. This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. 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. Diduryk is buried at the Fort Benning cemetery; his widow, Delores, lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Combat operations at Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 1965. Difficult. It is republished unedited in its original form. He shares this message with the groups he speaks to, but being able to impart some wisdom and knowledge from his experiences to Soldiers is special to him, because for him it is an opportunity to maybe bring a Soldier home safely. 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. Mississippi, A North Vietnamese map, captured in 1966, accurately depicts enemy maneuvers and attacks during the Ia Drang campaign. Hear Walters story. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. "I thought I was dying and laid there waiting for death to come. "When things started it just erupted," Lawrence said. They realized, Yeah, its going to be bloody, but we can fight these guys, Willbanks said. They had this Learning to be a Teacher program; I tried it and loved it. Most of the planes touched down between midnight and six A.M., but George Nye was always there, rain or shine. That same month, the United States began bombing North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder. 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. Then he somehow managed to crawl away, saying that he was going to organize the troops. James Lawrence, one of the men who fought at LZ Albany, later recounted his experiences. After about a three mile march, the front of the column reached the landing zone and the 2/7 Cav commander, Lt. Col. Robert McDade, called his company commanders forward to discuss how to best array their forces in preparation for extraction. 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. (Tony), fifty-six, commander of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, later earned a masters degree in psychology and taught at West Point and at the Army War College. He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. He works at Fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training. His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. He is married and has two children. 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. POLEY, Clinton, forty-eight, assistant machine gunner, 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, was discharged from Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, early in 1966, and went home to Iowa and the family farm. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977, and lives with his wife in Arlington, Texas. 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). The men were still in an administrative maneuver, so when the word to halt came they plopped down where they were. Some of the men who hadn't slept for close to 48 hours closed their eyes, others smoked or ate. Winkel retired a colonel in 1986, with over thirty-one years of Army service. In the prologue, Galloway wrote: "This, then, is our testament and our tribute to 234 Americans who died beside us in Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany in the Valley of Death, 1965." By the third day of the battle, the Americans had gained the upper hand. Florence County, As a student, she worked in a variety of research positions, including as an archivist. 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. He is now an attorney in San Diego, California. He was in a great deal of pain, so a rifleman named Wilson and I removed his gear as best we could, and I bandaged his wound. LZ Albany is essentially two clearings with a large copse of trees in the middle. (U.S. Army). Although he was a civilian, Galloway was awarded the Bronze Star medal for helping to rescue wounded soldiers during the battle. Through good fortune, the enemy's ignorance of their predicament, Specialist Lose's first-aid knowledge . 1965, just after the start of the U.S. campaign that led to the Ia Drang Valley. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: Ia Drang Valley Incident. 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. In March 1991 he found a new purpose in life: meeting the chartered airliners touching down at Bangor International Airport, the first American landfall, bringing American soldiers home from the Persian Gulf. It had been a small undeclared war mainly fought by South Vietnamese troops with a few U.S. advisers in the mix, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in helicopters, said Andrew Wiest, a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and the founding director of its Dale Center for the Study of War and Society. We lived in tents. The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle of Vietnam fought on the dates of November 14-18, 1965. These men survived the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam from Oct 23, 1965 to Nov 1965. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama. Im so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. Becoming a Find a Grave member is fast, easy and FREE. One infantry company began the day of Nov. 14 with 110 men. In 1982, he joined U.S. News & World Report magazine. Read More He served in both Brazil and El Salvador, was a history instructor at West Point, and served in the Center of Military History for a number of years. The fighting continued all day and into the night. Today he is a city bus driver in Houston, Texas. He knew he had to get out of the clearing, so he started pulling himself along the ground using only his arms, when someone grabbed him and dragged him the rest of the way into the trees. God rest you, George. Word reached the battalion traveling to Columbus, who sent Bravo Company back to Albany to serve as reinforcements. JOHNS, Barbara Geoghegan, fifty, widow of Lieutenant John Lance (Jack) Geoghegan of the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action in X-Ray, married Lieutenant Colonel John Johns in 1969. 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. By whatever measure, the chaotic, bloody Battle of the Ia Drang Valley set the tone for the rest of war. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government. He asked for a volunteer to go with him and Captain Ed Freeman agreed to pursue it with him, displaying extraordinary heroism. RIDDLE, Bill, fifty-two, artillery forward observer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, completed his Army service in the summer of 1966. FREEMAN, Ed (Too Tall to Fly), sixty-five, Bruce Crandalls wingman, retired a major in 1967 after twenty-one years Army service. Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, a no-nonsense West Pointer, was the commander of the . Contrary to popular belief, the Battle of Ia Drang started and ended after the famous landings at LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. He is a master gunsmith and runs his own business repairing and selling weapons. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. He was discharged a sergeant, completed his college education, and is now an on-air national news correspondent for ABC Televisions Weekend News. For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. Two men - Sgt. At various times in recent years he has been reported to be either employed or a patient in VA hospitals in Mississippi and Alabama. He is a consultant to industries seeking defense business. Moore continues to fight, returning home to Julia after a year. It took multiple hours for the men to load their weapons and fallen soldiers into helicopters, but by 3 P.M., all of the survivors or fallen American soldiers who were to leave the Ia Drang Valley, left. For him, war is something that will always be a necessity as long as there is evil in the world, but it is something that is not to be glorified or desired. He died. He and his wife, Kathie, live on a seventy-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado, where he owns and operates an outfitting company for fishing and boating trips. Its not so much what we went through as it is knowing what the other guys went through. He owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. 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. But Westmoreland believed the battle validated the airmobile tactic of quick strikes to catch the enemy off guard, kill as many as possible and withdraw back to base. It was the signal for all available American aircraft to converge and provide aid to the American unit. I had been assuming that he would get us out of this. The instructor of that class, Colonel John F. Jeszensky (ret. We . "The main point that I try to get across when I speak to Soldiers, and this is what saved me, is the training," he said. Lt. Don Cornett, along with 154 troopers from 2/7 Cav, were killed in the Ia Drang Valley at a small clearing known as Landing Zone Albany. The fighting continued for three hours. Muscogee County, At 4:00 AM this morning, Command Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley of the U.S. Army's 1 st Battalion, 7 th Cavalry Regiment, died. He still grows soybeans and corn on the farm in his spare time. Lacking confidence in the South Vietnamese, Gen. William C. 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