Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. SMITH, Jack P., forty-seven, returned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry after his wounds healed, and completed his tour. 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. This resulted in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, a forested area just east of the Chu Pong massif, from 23 October to 20 November. Unlike Viet Cong guerrillas, the northerners were prepared to stand and fight. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children. LAVENDER, David A. It featured a question-and-answer session with some of the battle's key players, including retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore. Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets The idea was to kill the enemy, not necessarily hold ground, and bleed the North Vietnamese until they tired of war. DIDURYK, Myron F., commander of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, completed his tour in Vietnam with Bravo Company in 1966, and later returned to Vietnam and the 1st Air Cavalry Division as a major. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. He was judged seventy percent disabled due to wounds suffered in LZ X-Ray. MARTIN, John C., fifty-one, rifleman in Lieutenant Sissons platoon detached from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry for duty in X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. 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. The instructor of that class, Colonel John F. Jeszensky (ret. U.S. intelligence knew that North Vietnamese regulars probably a single regiment were in the area. They have two grown children. The XO had been hit in the small of the back. 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. USA, Fort Benning, The vision of VVMF is to ensure a society in which all who have served and sacrificed in our nation's Armed Forces are properly honored and receive the recognition they justly deserve. The only question was which side could outlast the other. PAOLONE, Ernest E., Bob Edwardss radio operator, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, died of a massive heart attack on March 30, 1992, at the age of fifty. This was the first major engagement between the United States Army and the North Vietnamese Army. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama. It occurred in the Ia Drang valley, near Vietnam's border with Cambodia, on November 14-18, 1965. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. It was the longest day I ever experienced in any aircraft, Crandall recalled. He and his wife, Martha, have four children. That same month, the United States began bombing North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder. He was evacuated, badly wounded, on January 5, 1970, after serving four years, eight months, and ten days in Vietnam. 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. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home. "I can't even begin to explain it," he said. Linda Carole Mustion has not added any memorials to this virtual cemetery. "They (the PAVN) were everywhere on our right flank, even in the trees. Our town is only ten thousand people and we lost eleven young men from here killed in Vietnam, says Purp. 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. "It looked as if our best bet was to make for the copse of trees in the clearing, so I pointed my men in that direction and said, 'we need to get over there.'". Mississippi, His widow, Emma Lee, lives in Austin, Texas. From the lack of training and understanding of the situation to the haphazard way they conducted their movement and their halt. in history. This allowed troops to be quickly brought in and out for battle. The North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters. He left the Army in 1971 with the rank of captain, returned home to Puerto Rico, and earned a law degree. (Photo Credit: US Army / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain) The real life Battle of Ia Drang took place between November 14-19, 1965. He had . Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. 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. By the end of the first day, the 1st BN, 7th Cavalry was reduced to approximately 340 men. The battlefield area covered 1,500 square miles of what appeared to be flat rolling terrain dominated by the Chu Pong . Then he somehow managed to crawl away, saying that he was going to organize the troops. In four days and nights of fighting. A miserly, ungrateful Veterans Administration ruled that Shadden was only thirty percent disabled. 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. 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. God rest you, George. Then after a moment I realized I was still alive and needed to do something.". He is married and the father of two children. 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. 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. On November 27, 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew was killed in action. from around the world. He checked in with the nearest Veterans Administration hospital; they sent him home, telling him they would call him back for an operation to place a plate over the hole. I think of all those guys killed in action, wounded in action, and their friends, their relatives and all those altered lives. 4 Oscar E . At the end of a year only fifteen of the original contingent were still there, Gwin included. Both were present at the Battle of Ia Drang, the first large-scale engagement of the Vietnam War. 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. SELLECK, Pat, fifty-one, radio operator, recon platoon, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, was discharged from the Army on November 29, 1965, and returned to his old job at the telephone company. He and his wife and their four Saint Bernard dogs live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 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. After three days of fighting, 240 Americans had been killed and another 300 wounded (more troops were brought in in support). They have two grown children and one still at home. Since August 1990, he has been the dean of students and basketball coach at St. Mary Rynken Catholic High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, his hometown. LOMBARDO, Riccardo, sixty-one, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany and Pop Jekels good buddy, was retired on one hundred percent disability after a serious back injury in 1967, when he was thirty-six. Vince Cantu never went back to his music. 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. His dissertation is on the LZ Albany battle. 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. Today, Doc Shucart of Landing Zone Albany is the chief of neurosurgery at Tufts University Medical School. He spent eighteen months in Army hospitals, and was retired, disabled, in June 1975. Winkel and his wife live in Springfield, Virginia. 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. Although survivors had been trickling in during the morning they thought the 2/7th had been annihilated in the fighting at Albany. The idea was that whole battalions could be dropped and complete their mission on the ground, calling in artillery barrages, helicopter support, and bombing sorties (including . Nearly 70 percent of the battalions soldiers were killed or wounded before airstrikes, artillery and reinforcements drove the North Vietnamese into nearby Cambodia. The largely [North Vietnamese Army] units we ran into, they were interested in staying and fighting.. His injured right hip deteriorated, and on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1986, he found himself back on an operating tablethe same place he had been on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1965. Since retiring he serves on the boards of half a dozen major corporations and also works as a consultant to defense industries. He wanted to ensure the memories of those who died live on, in particular that of his best friend, Lt. Don Cornett. (Skip), fifty-three, commander of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav in the Ia Drang, is still on active duty. Crandall continued to fly into and out of the landing zone throughout the day and into the evening. 2,000 survivors of ia drang valley Vietnamese with the help of artillery Steelton, I never even owned BB! BEAN, Roger, fifty-two, Huey pilot who was wounded in LZ X-Ray, was wounded again in early 1966 in the Bong Son campaign. Within an hour, they came under attack for the first time by North Vietnamese regulars, launching a four-day battle that killed hundreds of Americans and perhaps more than 1,000 Vietnamese and changed the course of the Vietnam War. Young went to work for the railroad in Steelville, Missouri. I couldn't grasp it.". They are all Don Cornett to him, his best friend. Deleting this Virtual Cemetery cannot be undone. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N.J., fire department. He spent more than 14 hours in the air andcompleted a total of 22 flights, most under intense enemy fire. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. I have it here with me today. He lives with his wife and family in Steelville. Gwin left the Army at the end of his ROTC commitment and went home to his native Boston, where he teaches and writes. Moore lectures at military academies and at several colleges and universities. 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. Im so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. TULLY, Robert (Bob), sixty-eight, commander, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, served a second tour in Vietnam in 1968 as a brigade commander in the Americal Division. Moore and his 450-man 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, flew into Landing Zone X-Ray at the base of the Chu Pong Mountain west of Plei Me and miles from the Cambodian border. They died thinking that their loved ones would never know how they died. The communist threat to the central highlands subsided. When someone shook me and tried to get me moving I was actually offended. Temperatures reached 100 degrees, and by the afternoon there was a firestorm battle for survival. SETELIN, John, forty-eight, squad leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left Vietnam with three Purple Hearts and left the Army a sergeant. 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. He died. 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. We Were Soldiers (2002) is considered by many to be one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. SHUCART, William, M.D., surgeon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, had nearly completed his tour in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, when he suffered a broken back in the crash of a Chinook helicopter. The enemy was so close he could hear them talking and he could see them right in front of him. The bulk of the fighting was centered around two vital helicopter landing zones: LZ X-Ray and Albany. About 80 U.S. soldiers were killed, 124 wounded, in the first two days of the fight. He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. These additional troops pushed back the enemy, allowing the others to evacuate the wounded. Her daughter, Camille, was soon joined by a brother, Robert, and a sister, Barbara. There's captains and majors and colonels and I assume they know what they are doing. November 14, 1965 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Alley is general manager of a box factory in Dayton, Tennessee. Today he is vice president for group security at a major stock-brokerage house in New York City. The battle was the culmination of Operation Silver Bayonet I, a combined American-South Vietnamese offensive to relieve the . ROLAND, William, forty-nine, rifle-squad leader, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. We saved so many more people because of that helicopter.. He spent seven months there while his shattered thigh and legs were repaired. 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. Major Bruce Crandalls UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission in Ia Drang. MILLS, Jon, fifty-four, Bruce Crandalls copilot in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980. Sandpoint, ID 83864 MICELI, Carmen, forty-eight, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray, completed a full tour in Vietnam and left the Army in September 1966. 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. They have a son, who is in college, and a daughter, still in high school. USA. 1965, just after the start of the U.S. campaign that led to the Ia Drang Valley. 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. On Nov. 14, 1965, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, loaded onto helicopters and flew to a remote patch of ground in the Ia Drang Valley of South Vietnams central highlands. He co-authored the book We Were Soldiers Once And Young with Hal Moore. The . The Ia Drang Valley is where the U.S. truly went to war. Mrs. Mapson is a member of the Columbus chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association. He is a captain and the commander of Engine Company Number One. 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. Too Tall Ed retired from that job on January 3, 1991. He didn't know that he was the one in charge at that time. "The next morning we were told the B-52s out of Guam were going to bomb the mountains and that we were to move to LZ Albany," Jim said. 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 single, bloodiest day in the Vietnam War. The location of the battle, far into the jungle from any roads, meant troops had to be airlifted in. The battle was part of a campaign for control of the strategic central highlands, which divided South Vietnam north to south. He would recover after some physical therapy and return to duty in 1966 to finish his tour. By Trevor Arendall, July 9 . Freeman won a battlefield commission in the Korean War. It was his positive decision to do something that reinforced my own will to go on.". 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. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government. Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment went toward LZ Columbus, while the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment traveled to LZ Albany, capturing two NVA soldiers on the way. Being the firstbig units there, we had to make our own camp, no showers for months, World War II C rations to eat, no toilets, just a hole dug in the ground, etc. The day before he died, George picked up a Christmas tree, which he planned to decorate with yellow ribbons and small American flags for the airport terminal; soldiers from the Gulf were still arriving and he didnt want them to think they had been forgotten. 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. He died less than 100 yards from where his best friend lay wounded. 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. Ensure the memories of those who died live on, in June 1975 help of Steelton... 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