survivors of ia drang valley

For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. Nonetheless, this allows a reprieve for Moore and his men to secure the area. This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Ia Drang Valley. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. He and his wife have two college-age children. USA. No one wanted to look weak in the face of communist aggression.. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. George Nye was a sparkplug of Operation Welcome Home, which brought veterans groups, brass bands, and Bangor townsfolk to the airport by the hundreds to hug and shake hands with the Desert Storm veterans. 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. Lt. Don Cornett along with 154 Troopers from 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment were killed in the Ia Drang Valley, Nov. 17, 1965, at a small clearing known as Landing Zone Albany. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980 with twenty years service, and is now a plastics-plant manager. They died dirty. Read More Sandpoint, ID 83864 He was chief of security at a hospital in Columbus, Georgia, until his death on April 18, 1992. 208-263-9534. NYE, George (China Joe), demolition-team leader, 8th Engineers, attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, died of an apparent heart attack at age fifty-one on December 8, 1991, at his home in Bangor, Maine. KINNARD, Harry W. O., seventy-seven, former commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, retired from the Army as a lieutenant general in 1969. 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. MOORE, H. G. (Hal), now seventy, commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang and served six more months in Vietnam, commanding the 3rd Brigade. The instructor of that class, Colonel John F. Jeszensky (ret. Background. He is assistant principal of a public high school in the Bronx. 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. Survivors described savage, close-range combat, sometimes hand-to-hand, over several hours. He and his wife, Theresa, live on a farm in northern Virginia with their sons Lee, fifteen, and Joshua, twelve. 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. To use this feature, use a newer browser. Merchant retired a lieutenant colonel in 1982. He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. They saved some 70 soldiers. Spec. The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley would be the Vietnam War's first major set-piece battle with the PAVN, the first major US heliborne assault on an NVA position, and the first engagement to employ B-52 airstrikes on enemy ground forces in battle. I ripped off his shirt and there it was: a groove to the right of his spine. They are representative of the more than three million Americans who served the United States of America in its long and bitter war in Vietnam, representative of those who loved one of the more than 58,000 Americans who died in that war. KEETON, James, fifty-nine, battalion aid station medic, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam with an adviser group. copyright 2023 He had . 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. The remainder of the 2nd was left waiting in a communication blackout. Rescorla kept the battered French Army bugle he captured on the field at Albany; in 1991 he turned it over to the Ia Drang Alumni for use in memorial ceremonies. Memoirs and histories written after the event capture it . 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. The four day battle in the Ia Drang Valley began on the morning of November 14, 1965 when the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry, my sister battalion, landed in a clearing at the foot of Chu Pong Mountain. "The emotions are so high, the noise is tremendous, the confusion is everywhere; they had overrun us by now. Im not supposed to chop wood or do anything that might cause a lick on that side of my head, but it healed up pretty well so I dont worry much about it, he says. BEAN, Roger, fifty-two, Huey pilot who was wounded in LZ X-Ray, was wounded again in early 1966 in the Bong Son campaign. We were caught inside of what was essentially an L-shaped ambush.". Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. For the next ten years he was a football coach at Morgan State University in Baltimore, his alma mater. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. He is married and has two children. After a second career as a consultant to defense industries on the West Coast, he retired again and lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Libby. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. 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. He and his wife live in St. Charles, a suburb of Chicago. I believe it is so I can share our story.". Don Cornett had a wife and a son, a mother and a father and two sisters. 311 memorials (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. There's captains and majors and colonels and I assume they know what they are doing. He is a civilian specialist on NATO affairs for the Defense Department; he and his wife, Sally, live in Bethesda, Maryland. However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets. Some of them had blood on their faces from scratches and from other guys' wounds. His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. For Lawrence, telling the story of LZ Albany is not only a way to keep the memory of those who died alive, but also a way to educate others. The Tragedy of LZ Albany: Teaching the lessons of a battle lost. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. 1st Lt. Donald Cornett at his base camp in Vietnam, shortly before the battle of Landing Zone Albany where he was killed in action, Nov. 17, 1965. SCOTT, James A., sixty-nine, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalrys sergeant major, served a second Vietnam tour in 1970-71 as command sergeant major, USARV Scott retired as a command sergeant major on May 1, 1973, after thirty years, ten months, and twenty days of service, wearing the Combat Infantrymans Badge with one star; six Bronze Stars; three Purple Hearts; a European Campaign ribbon with four battle stars and one invasion arrow; a Korean Service ribbon with two battle stars; a Vietnam Service ribbon with four battle stars; and the Presidential Unit Citation badge. Setelin is president of the Major General George W. Casey chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association and a member of the national associations board of trustees. Moore and his battalion were evacuated the next day, Nov. 17. One infantry company began the day of Nov. 14 with 110 men. Jeanette spent the better part of a year in a military hospital while his shattered leg was repaired. 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. Unknown to them at the time, they were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. They have four children and three grandchildren. JAKES, Jimmie, Sr., forty-nine, a fire-team leader of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, was wounded in LZ X-Ray, but recovered and returned to complete his tour. 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. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. Lacking confidence in the South Vietnamese, Gen. William C. Westmoreland ordered the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, which had been in country about a month, to pursue the enemy, using newly minted airmobile tactics. On November 27, 1965, Diduryk wrote a detailed account of Bravo Companys actions at X-Ray for the ROTC students at his alma mater, St. Peters College in Jersey City, New Jersey. CARRARA, Robert J., fifty-four, battalion surgeon of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in LZ X-Ray, served eleven months in Vietnam and was discharged in July 1966. 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. 'Can't you see I'm dying?' Battalions would use helicopters to be transferred in and out as artillery support came in from above. We . By the third day of the battle, the Americans had gained the upper hand. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack, and most of the men were quickly hit. 1/7 Cavalry lands at LZ X-Ray. Baker, who was less than a foot away from me, was screaming that I was in charge and that I had to do something," he said. His last known address was Miami, Florida. The Ia Drang Scholarship Fund was founded in 1994 by LTG (Ret) Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway from earnings on their book We Were Soldiers Once-And Young. Assigned as the operations officer of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, Diduryk was killed in action on April 24, 1970, in a Huey helicopter at an abandoned fire base near the Cambodian border. The group is devoted to bringing together the families and friends of men killed in Vietnam. When the last of his old friends in the 1st Cavalry and the U.S. Marines rotated home, Galloway also left, vowing never to return. PAYNE, D. P. (Pat), fifty, recon-platoon leader, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, served two tours in Vietnam and left the Army as a captain in June 1969. The battlefield area covered 1,500 square miles of what appeared to be flat rolling terrain dominated by the Chu Pong . He joined IBM as a salesman in Austin, Texas, and spent twenty years with them, rising to the post of Midwestern regional manager. There were no further attacks overnight. They were platoon leaders together in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. The cavalry regiment returned fire, but the enemy were dug into prepared fighting positions and many of the American leaders had died or were wounded during the initial stages of the attack. They successfully hit many of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops, while also shooting some of the Americans with friendly fire. Rosemary Giles is a history content writer with Hive Media. By whatever measure, the chaotic, bloody Battle of the Ia Drang Valley set the tone for the rest of war. In the same way, the story of his experiences at LZ Albany is a story that could be told by the nearly 400 Troopers of 2/7 Cav who fought and died at LZ Albany, or the 1/7 Cav Troopers at LZ X-ray or the more than 2.6 million US personnel who served in Vietnam. . He now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. He didn't know that he was the one in charge at that time. They have two sons, one an oil-industry consultant, the other an Air Force sergeant who served in the Persian Gulf War. He remained with the medical platoon in Vietnam until July 1966. Jemison works part-time as a security guard in Columbus, Georgia, and he says: Each night I go back to Vietnam to fight that same battle, over and over.. P.O. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. Battle of Ia Drang American troops in the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. He and his wife, Arlene, have three sonsa banker in Sao Paulo, Brazil; a lawyer in Connecticut; and a divinity student in college. This praise is largely due to the heavy emphasis director Randall Wallace put on ensuring what he created was as accurate to the real events of the Battle of Ia Drang as possible. "Why did I deserve to live? The assault at LZ X-Ray began before noon on 14 November. Charlies foot was pinned in the wrecked cockpit when the white phosphorus target-marking rockets under the wings cooked off. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. The bulk of the fighting was centered around two vital helicopter landing zones: LZ X-Ray and Albany. He completed 22 flights: Rescuing Wounded in Ia Drang Valley from 2015: https://vvmf.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/he-spent-14-hours-in-the-air-rescuing-wounded-in-the-ia-drang-valley/, Stars and Stripes Article: https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1965/ia-drang-valley-where-the-us-truly-went-to-war-1.376662, Larry Gwin | VVMF: https://youtu.be/_PDBgEu4cx4, Jon Wallenius | VVMF: https://youtu.be/Qb9a1L4rc2g, Bruce Crandall | VVMF: https://youtu.be/SSNTph4QQ2g, Joe Galloway | VVMF: https://youtu.be/N6XXcDATAgE, Faces Never Forgotten with Joe Galloway: https://www.facebook.com/VietnamVeteransMemorialFund/videos/2239219906358006/, National Geographic Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyBazkpUFQ, 1965 CBS Special News Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1rzDNcFmE, AARP Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKtWX9TDFYc, Military.com In Depth Look: https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/vietnam-war/the-battle-of-la-drang/2071462322001, Medal of Honor Recipient Bruce Crandall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIAEcZ29aG4, Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDYNI7V0co, Medal of Honor Recipient Walter Marm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-U0FBiYUU, Docs Teach (National Archives): https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/battle-la-drang-valley, PBS Clip (Plei Me and la Drang): https://whut.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/c27a31b7-14fc-4c5f-804e-168fbb24f5ed/plei-mei-and-the-ia-drang-valley-clip-the-vietnam-war/, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. 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