KNOWLES, Richard, seventy-five, assistant division commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, served a second consecutive tour in Vietnam, commanded the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, and then was commanding general of Task Force Oregon (precursor to the American Division). 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 was medically evacuated the next morning. 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. I thought to myself. Moore commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, was commanding general at Fort Ord, California, and then was the Armys deputy Chief of Staff for personnel. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become dependent upon them. The idea was to kill the enemy, not necessarily hold ground, and bleed the North Vietnamese until they tired of war. By the end of the first day, the 1st BN, 7th Cavalry was reduced to approximately 340 men. A native of Mendenhall, Mississippi, Kennedy was thirty-one years old at the time of his death. WHITESIDE, Jerry E., fifty-five, fire-support coordinator in LZ X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. He went home to Anderson County, South Carolina, where he is a deputy sheriff. 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. In the spring of 1992, Frank Henry was posthumously inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. Between the Army and the Interior Department, Freeman logged a total of seventeen thousand hours flying time in helicopters and eight thousand hours in fixed wing. In November, troops would take on North Vietnamese regulars for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley. Easy. Pronunciation of Ia Drang with 6 audio pronunciations. KLUGE, Fred J., fifty-nine, platoon sergeant, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in Albany, retired in 1973, as a first sergeant, after a total of twenty-two years service. Shortly thereafter, US units began . Why I wasn't killed, I couldn't say.". On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Ia Drang Valley. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. Parish now runs the Bristow, Oklahoma, toll gate on the Turner Turnpike. This is the tale of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965. He spent more than 14 hours in the air andcompleted a total of 22 flights, most under intense enemy fire. "I realized it when Sgt. Facebook Twitter 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.. Mindful of the effects of propaganda, each side declared victory. Adams and his wife have a three-year-old daughter. He is a freelance commercial artist in Harrisburg and occasionally turns his hand to fine-art drawings of his war experiences. At the end of a year only fifteen of the original contingent were still there, Gwin included. He plays volleyball two nights a week to keep trim and has devoted much of his spare time over the past two years to a detailed study of the part played in the Ia Drang battles by his fellow aviators of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, our beloved Huey slick drivers. If you yield to it, it will absolutely paralyze you. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. He told me his wife's name was [Sylvia]. The survivors of the Ia Drang on November 14, 1965 to Nov 1965 on Nov. 14 with men. Don Cornett had a wife and a son, a mother and a father and two sisters. He lives in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, and works in real estate sales and development. This was the first and last battle between NVA forces and U.S forces of similar size. He was killed in an automobile accident less than ten years later. Sources 1st Cavalry Division Association: 1st Cavalry Division Medal of Honor Recipients. Three U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery during the battle. He now manages the quartermaster laundry at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. Feb 25, 2017. Major Bruce Crandall made over 20 flights into intense enemy fire during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in November 1965, evacuating 70 wounded and delivering ammunition. Lefebvre earned graduate degrees in secondary school administration and public administration. Ia Drang set the blueprint for the Vietnam War with the Americans relying on air mobility, artillery fire and close air support, while the PAVN neutralized that firepower by quickly engaging American forces at very close range. They are all Don Cornett to him, his best friend. WINKEL, Paul Patton, Jr., sixty, Orange 1 flight leader, Bravo Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in the Ia Drang, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. After the Ia Drang campaign, Hastings was badly burned when the O-1E Bird Dog spotter plane he was piloting was shot down over the Mang Yang Pass and crash-landed in the old French Group Mobile 100 cemetery beside Route 19 on Christmas Eve 1965. The . One of the survivors recalls how it was - the blood, the agony, and the fear. (U.S. Army). TOWLES, Robert, forty-seven, rifleman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent five months in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania, recovering from twenty-eight shrapnel wounds he received at LZ Albany. He is married and has a daughter in college and a son in the U.S. Marines. But the battle's true toll would prove to be the hubris it bred in U.S. commanders. MAPSON, Betty Jivens, forty-two, daughter of Sergeant Jerry Jivens, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action at X-Ray on November 15, 1965, is married, the mother of two, and works as a secretary at the Medical Center Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. He earned his masters degree in public administration in 1976 and retired in 1977 as a lieutenant colonel. One of the most significant battles of the Vietnam War, the 14-16 November 1965 battle in the Ia Drang Valley in South Vietnam's central highlands between the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the 33rd and 66th Regiments of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) marked a watershed change in the military strategies of both sides. The fighting continued for three hours. DUNCAN, Ken, fifty-three, executive officer of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, left the Army in August 1966, and returned to his hometown of Thomaston, Georgia, where he works with a textile-manufacturing company. 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. 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. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980 with twenty years service, and is now a plastics-plant manager. I have one very vivid memory of the second morning in X-Ray. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. 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. . Some of the men who hadn't slept for close to 48 hours closed their eyes, others smoked or ate. Alpha Company arrived in Vietnam with 146 officers and men. His friends completed the tree for him and dedicated it to Sergeant China Joe Nye. In the first major engagement of the war between regular U.S. and North Vietnamese forces, elements of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) fight a pitched battle with Communist main . To use this feature, use a newer browser. He is married and has two children. There were no further attacks overnight. "Survivor's guilt is something that most people who have seen combat, seen friends die, deal with almost daily," Lawrence said. Bob Edwards saying that these were the stripes Paolone earned at LZ X-Ray but never got. After several routine lifts into the area,the men on the ground came under attack from the North Vietnamese Army. PARISH, Willard, fifty-one, mortarman in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who won the Silver Star for his work as a machine gunner in LZ X-Ray, was among the draftees who rotated home in December 1965 for discharge. His awards include the Combat Infantrymans Badge with two stars; two Silver Stars; two Bronze Stars; four Purple Hearts; a Master Parachutist Badge with five combat-jump stars; a European Theater Service ribbon with eight campaign stars and four invasion arrows; a Korean Service ribbon with three campaign stars and one invasion arrow; a Vietnam Service ribbon with one silver and three bronze campaign stars; and the Presidential Unit Citation badge. More than anything else in the world I would like to be back in the Green Machine, he says. HASTINGS, Charlie W., fifty-three, forward air controller at LZ X-Ray, retired as a colonel from the U.S. Air Force on March 1, 1992, after thirty years service. Recalling the aftermath of the fight, he said, 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. 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. He and his wife, Ann, live in Lilburn, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. He was presented with the Medal of Honor on December 19, 1966, and three years later volunteered for a second tour of duty in Vietnam. Merchant retired a lieutenant colonel in 1982. The Pleiku Campaign took place from 20 October to 26 . He and his wife live in Anniston, Alabama, where Martin is employed at the Army Depot. Although it was left out of We Were Soldiers, Albany was no less bloody than X-Ray. He works at Fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training. Each side realized it was fighting a war of attrition. GEOGHEGAN, Camille, twenty-seven, daughter of Lieutenant John Lance (Jack) Geoghegan, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cav, killed in action November 15, 1965, is a human resources specialist at a company in McLean, Virginia. Both were present at the Battle of Ia Drang, the first large-scale engagement of the Vietnam War. The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. He still grows soybeans and corn on the farm in his spare time. In a 1967 article for the Saturday Evening Post, former ABC reporter Jack Smith, who was a private first class in Charlie Company during the battle, wrote about Cornett's last moments. 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. (U.S. Army). He is a master gunsmith and runs his own business repairing and selling weapons. His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. Ernie had gone back to his native Chicago and drove a truck for the city. 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. Before the Battle of la Drang was over, 305 Americans had been killed along with an estimated 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. He didn't know that he was the one in charge at that time. PLUMLEY, Basil, seventy-two, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalrys sergeant major, retired from the Army as a command sergeant major on December 31, 1974, after thirty-two years, six months, and four days on active duty, and a second tour in Vietnam with the U.S. Next, he was shot in the chest; as he moved around, he was shot again in the leg. God rest you, George. Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets Galloway served a total of fifteen years overseas with UPI, assigned to Tokyo, Saigon, Jakarta, New Delhi, Singapore, and Moscow. 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. Book Sources: The Battle of Ia Drang Valley We were soldiers once -and young : Ia Drang, the battle that changed the war in Vietnam by Ha Moore; Joseph Galloway Call Number: Boca Raton General Collection DS557.8.I18 M66 1992 ISBN: 0679411585 Publication Date: 1992-10-20 Everyman in Vietnam by Michael Adas; Joseph J. Gilch This operation responded to the NVA attack on an American . Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. 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