Cash retired from active duty as a colonel in September of 1992 and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. They successfully hit many of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops, while also shooting some of the Americans with friendly fire. They died thinking that their loved ones would never know how they died. 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. To the Americans, the battle validated their new airmobile strategy using helicopters to move troops quickly into remote jungle areas often without roads and inflict heavy casualties by airpower and artillery. She and her husband live in Annandale, Virginia. 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. BUNGUM, Galen, forty-nine, rifleman in Lieutenant Henry Herricks Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, left the Army in April 1966 and went home to Hayfield, Minnesota. The Air Mobile Division was a new concept. 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. Major Bruce P. Crandall's UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission. Returning home, he single-handedly raised his two young children while earning two masters degrees. 4 Oscar E . On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Ia Drang Valley. . He was the father of four children, aged twelve through twenty. 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. He has written a book about his experiences and has spoken more than 20 times to veterans organizations, junior high and high school students, and civic groups. In the fall of 1965 the Vietnam War was an event most Americans saw as a series of smaller battles leaving little to remember. BY DAVID A. MAURER. Bun-gum operated a 161-acre dairy farm until 1988, when he sold his cows and took a job in town. His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. Three U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery during the battle. He works for a consulting firm in McLean, Virginia. The bullet was still in there. It is republished unedited in its original form. A total of 305 soldiers died. In January 1968, over the Bong Son plain, Crandalls Huey was blown out of the sky by an air strike while flying a nap-of-the-earth search for a downed helicopter. 5 cemeteries found in will be saved to your photo volunteer list. LUND, Bill, fifty, who was Myron Diduryks artillery forward observer in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, left Vietnam in March 1966, upon completion of his two-year reserve officer obligation. Some of them had blood on their faces from scratches and from other guys' wounds. About 80 U.S. soldiers were killed, 124 wounded, in the first two days of the fight. He retired a colonel in 1981, and is vice president of human resources for a large corporation in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 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. (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. Search above to list available cemeteries. USA, Scranton, Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs. Russian missile barrage knocks out power and water to Ukrainian cities December 16, 2022. Your new password must contain one or more uppercase and lowercase letters, and one or more numbers or special characters. Resend Activation Email. He and his wife live in Lake Forest, Illinois. They were interrogated by McDade, who, along with most of the commanding officers and radio operators, were called into a meeting to discuss the intel. 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 The men, women, and children of this story are Americas neighbors, living quiet lives in every corner of the nation they served. 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. The 430 troops of the 1st Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. They resupplied ammunition, water, and supplies, while evacuating the wounded. Cash served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser to the Royal Thai Army forces. ), provided the authors with a copy of Diduryks journal and maps for this book. Shortly thereafter, US units began . We were crawling around under intense machine-gun fire when Sergeant Major Plumley walked up, pulled his .45-caliber pistol, chambered a round, and said: Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves.You never forget a thing like that.. ADAMS, Russell, fifty-one, machine gunner, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, helps run the family dairy farm on five hundred acres outside Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. LAVENDER, David A. In the end, 79 Americans had been killed, and 121 men were wounded. Outnumbered when they arrive, the men are forced to fight for their lives while eliminating the 4,000-strong North Vietnamese force. Hal Moore and the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment fought at the former for three days, beginning on November 14. The following day, both battalions were informed of an incoming bomber run on LZ X-Ray, meaning they needed to go elsewhere. One killed, 15 injured after clashes erupt at Afghan border again December 16, 2022. 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. 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, Enrique, fifty, platoon leader, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, woke up on an X-ray table first, then on a C-141 ambulance plane, and finally in Ward One at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. 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. Sandpoint, ID 83864 Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. Please enter your email and password to sign in. Meyer and his wife, Carol, live in Arlington, Virginia. He and his wife live in St. Charles, a suburb of Chicago. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. The mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War. TANNER, Ray, forty-nine, radio operator, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, returned home to South Carolina in April 1966 and went to work for a utility company in Charleston. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. "The XO let out a low moan, and his head sank. Lessons in leadership, in the importance of training, in courage, in sacrifice and in loss. Hear Bruces story. He married in 1981 and is the father of four daughters: an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and infant twins. For information, the 1st Air Cavalry arrived in the fall of 1965, about the same time I did as a member of the 1stInfantry Division. Moore, who says he graduated from West Point by the skin of my teeth, was the first Army officer of his class (1945) to achieve one-, two-, and three-star rank. YOUNG, James, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in LZ Albany, made it home to the family farm outside Keysville, Missouri, on Christmas Eve, 1965, with an Army discharge in his pocket and a quarter-size hole in the side of his skull. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1985; on November 26, 1987, he was killed in the crash of a private plane in Bakersfield, California. NADAL, Ramon A. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Harold Moore led the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, against numerically superior elements of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) led by General Chu Huy Man (Builder et al., 1999). "Why did I deserve to live? 1965, just after the start of the U.S. campaign that led to the Ia Drang Valley. The Battle of the la Drang Valley would come to be remembered as one of the most iconic battles of the Vietnam War, and later would set the scene for the film We Were Soldiers based on the novel We Were Soldiers OnceAnd Young. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. 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. "Back then Stars and Stripes would carry the casualty reports and I had a red pen and started checking off the names of guys I knew who were listed as KIA. 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. It was a battle between one US division and three NVA regiments. 'The torture stopped': 1969 brought temporary changes to infamous Hanoi Hilton, Patriotism or protest? The Huey was the best helicopter ever made. He lives in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He is a freelance commercial artist in Harrisburg and occasionally turns his hand to fine-art drawings of his war experiences. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Savage and the 22-year-old medic, Sp5. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. LZ Albany is essentially two clearings with a large copse of trees in the middle. 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. Photo extracted from U.S. Army motion picture footage from November 1965. James Lawrence, a 77 year-old Vietnam veteran from Alabama, tells people about his best friend and the battle he died in whenever he gets the chance. I marked off 65 names and thats when it really hit me what had happened and it just overwhelmed me. Surprisingly, Adams, Beck's buddy who was shot in the head, was among the. Rozanski returned to the Ia Drang five times on various intelligence missions and described the place as a cemetery. He was retired, disabled, as a major in the mid-1970s. It was the first major battle of the Vietnam War, and Lawrence and . He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and owns and operates a real estate brokerage firm. They died hot, hungry and exhausted. For a number of years he was a country-and-western band leader and disc jockey. 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. Please enter your email address and we will send you an email with a reset password code. As one writer concluded, "The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war," and it "set the tone for the" many years of relentless fighting that would follow. 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). 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. Of the 500 men, 150 were killed and only 84 were able to return to immediate duty. It featured a question-and-answer session with some of the battle's key players, including retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. Scott says: On the boat going to Vietnam I bet Plumley a case of beer I would be wounded first, and that I would be home for Christmas. 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. On January 31, 1966, The New York Times profiled Moore as The Man Who Can Find the Viet Cong. He pressed for another assignment to troop command in Vietnam, only to be told that he had already had his turn. Freeman and his wife, Barbara, live in Boise, Idaho. When I go to the wall, I see Don Cornett's name 58,000 times.'. 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. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Roswell, New Mexico, where they run an antiques shop. A Chicago native, Doc Carrara returned home, changed his specialty to pathology. Their mission was to find and kill the enemy. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. SHADDEN, James Haskell, fifty, mortarman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived half a dozen operations and one year in Army hospitals recovering from the wounds received at LZ Albany. The conflict is divided into two engagements: the Battle at Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray and. 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. The Battle of Ia Drang was fought November 14-18, 1965, during the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and was the first major engagement between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). USA. He says he did a lot of praying during the Persian Gulf War, when his son, his brother, and his old friend Galloway were all on the battlefield. "I'm just as guilty. 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. He returned for a second Vietnam tour as an adviser in IV Corps in August 1968; in the 1970s he earned bachelors and masters degrees. Hear three personal perspectives from men who survived. The living, wounded and dead of the first and second battalions of the US 7th Cavalry were flown back to their bases, given fresh food and clothes, and reformed for another day of fighting. In the last operation, his shattered left knee joint was removed and the leg bones fused, leaving his left leg frozen straight and two inches shorter than his right leg. After the Ia Drang, Nye finished his tour with the 8th Engineers and the 1st Cav and volunteered for three more tours in combat with the 5th Special Forces Group. 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. Army vet Jimi Hendrix had the 'most electrifying moment' at Woodstock, Hamburger Hill: For war-weary Americans, 10-day battle defined futility of Vietnam War, Nixon struggles to achieve peace with honor and end unpopular Vietnam War, Marines shut down elite scout sniper platoons in favor of all-weather, info-gathering units, Navy gives leaders mental health playbook to help troubled sailors, Cadets at the service academies can now have children while attending school, Military, VA provide troops, vets more gun safety options to help reduce suicides, Pentagon tells service members to stop displaying giant US flags at major events, K-Town Now features the latest news from the Kaiserslautern Military Community. Freeman won a battlefield commission in the Korean War. You've got to be in command and as I was on the way up, with my helmet strapped on, a North Vietnamese soldier in a tree put two bullet holes right through my helmet.". 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