The first major American direct fire conflict took place in November of 1965 in the Ia Drang Valley. 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. In her spare time, Rosemary enjoys spending time with her partner, her cats, and her horse, or sitting down to read a good book. He was 92 years old. He lives in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, and works in real estate sales and development. It was the first major battle of the Vietnam War, and Lawrence and . (U.S. Army). Lessons in leadership, in the importance of training, in courage, in sacrifice and in loss. Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets Of the 500 men, 150 were killed and only 84 were able to return to immediate duty. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. HOWARD, John, fifty-four, medical-services officer, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1983, after twenty-five years service. Pujals recently closed his law practice. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six-year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. There were no further attacks overnight. He lives in Falls, Pennsylvania. Shocked and wounded U.S. troops gather at a jungle clearing of South Vietnam's Ia Drang Valley in mid-November 1965, as they wait for an ambulance helicopter. From the lack of training and understanding of the situation to the haphazard way they conducted their movement and their halt. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. The survivors of Landing Zone X-Ray have always had an aura of fame about them. I marked off 65 names and that's when it really hit me what had happened and it just overwhelmed me. The following day, both battalions were informed of an incoming bomber run on LZ X-Ray, meaning they needed to go elsewhere. His last project on active duty was researching and writing a history of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. They were unaware that two battalions of fresh PAVN soldiers had been camped out along the Ia Drang River on the other side of the landing zone. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibbs Barber Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. Freeman won a battlefield commission in the Korean War. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. He retired in 1990. Difficult. He is a freelance commercial artist in Harrisburg and occasionally turns his hand to fine-art drawings of his war experiences. 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. 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. 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 owns a property-management firm in Tampa, Florida. 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. Meyer and his wife, Carol, live in Arlington, Virginia. Fred Gilreath of Surgoinsville holds a framed photo of his older brother Luther Gilreath who was killed 50 years ago on the second day of the Battle of Ia Drang, Nov. 15, 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. The plane hit several tombstones and flipped over. He retired from the Army as a staff sergeant in 1976, and now serves in the Alabama National Guard. BARTHOLOMEW, Roger J. EDWARDS, Robert, fifty-four, commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. This was the first and last battle between NVA forces and U.S forces of similar size. Photo Credit: Wikipedia; Henry Toro Herrick was red-haired, five foot ten, twenty-four years old, and the son of an astronomy professor at UCLA. 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. Since then he has taught industrial arts, electronics, and mathematics, has flown for the U.S. Forest Service, and for a time was a crop duster pilot. Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran, serving in the 1st Infantry Division and is a business owner in Priest River. 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. He and his wife, Theresa, live on a farm in northern Virginia with their sons Lee, fifteen, and Joshua, twelve. God rest you, George. The battle of LZ Albany began after the battle of LZ X-ray made famous in the Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers." He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Roswell, New Mexico, where they run an antiques shop. He is an executive with a major defense-contracting firm and lives in Centreville, Virginia. With only 700 effective soldiers left of the original 2,200, the 33d Regiment needed help. Please try again later. A young United Press International reporter, Joseph Galloway, became the only civilian decorated for gallantry during the war, awarded a Bronze Star with V device for valor for carrying a wounded soldier off the battlefield under intense fire. In November, troops would take on North Vietnamese regulars for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N.J., fire department. MCDONALD, George J., fifty-two, mortarman, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left the Army in 1966 and went home to Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he is a commercial fisherman. The Ia Drang Valley is a valley located near Pleiku in Central Highlands of Vietnam. By the third day of the battle, the Americans had gained the upper hand. Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. They didnt discover I was a doctor until the day I was dischargedwhen I had a long talk with them about treating their patients like pieces of meat. He was discharged in November 1966, and wound up in Boston in 1981. He now manages the quartermaster laundry at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. 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. 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. Shortly thereafter, US units began . 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. You need a Find a Grave account to continue. He remained with the medical platoon in Vietnam until July 1966. His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. His twelve-year-old granddaughter recently interviewed Ray about his experiences in Vietnam and wrote a school essay she titled: My Grandfather: An American Hero.. 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. I believe it is so I can share our story.". He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnamone with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. President Johnson Jeanie Hunter in Oskaloosa, Ia on November 24, 1984 and she survives bikinis. In the spring of 1992, Frank Henry was posthumously inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. After he flew the men back to base, he knew the soldiers on the ground were running short of ammunition, so he decided to fly back in. His last known address was Miami, Florida. Fifty years ago today, one of the Vietnam war's most ferocious battles broke out in the Ia Drang Valley. As the fighting around Landing Zone X-Ray subsided, McDades 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to move cross-country to Landing Zone Albany, where it was to be picked up by helicopter and moved to a new location. He won a National Magazine Award for his October 29, 1990, cover article on the Ia Drang battles. This operation responded to the NVA attack on an American . WALLENIUS, Jon, forty-nine, mortar observer, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, got out of the Army in August 1966. Terms of Use | The North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters. U.S. intelligence knew that North Vietnamese regulars probably a single regiment were in the area. The "Lost Platoon," led by Lt. Henry T. Herrick, became separated from the rest of Lt. Col. Harold G. "Hal" Moore's battalion at the start of the battle of Ia Drang on Nov. 14, 1965. Freeman reconstituted the unit and led it back up Pork Chop. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. Gen. Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. The central highlands had few roads and challenging terrain, making air mobility the only viable mode of transportation. In August 1977, at the age of forty-four, Colonel Frank Henry died when an aneurysm ruptured. Facebook Twitter Successful in their mission, the Americans travel back to their landing zone to be taken back to base. Major Bruce P. Crandall's UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission. Adams and his wife have a three-year-old daughter. But Charlie was back in the air, flying F-4 Phantoms, less than a year later. He and his wife have two teenage children. The battle was part of a campaign for control of the strategic central highlands, which divided South Vietnam north to south. All Rights Reserved. ROBINSON, Edward Charles, fifty-five, Huey pilot at LZ X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. A high school dropout, he went back to college, earned a B.A., and was working on an M.A. This article was originally published Nov. 11, 2015, as part of the Vietnam at 50 project. 5 memorials LTC Roger Jay Bartholomew 2 Nov 1932 - 27 Nov 1968 Westlawn-Hillcrest Memorial Park The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. He works at Fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training. I had been assuming that he would get us out of this. 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