We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (34 page)

Captain Bruce Wallace and his A-les covered our withdrawal from X-Ray: "There came a time toward the end of X-Ray when it became clear to me that leaving an area was often as difficult and dangerous as arriving.

We put a screen of ordnance between the enemy and the LZ to interrupt his activities long enough to get a flight of choppers in, loaded, and back out again. I remember the sound of the guns through Charlie Hastings' microphone as he was boarding the chopper, and my own feeling of relief when they got airborne. I led that last flight of Skyraiders to cover the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry's exit from the Ia Drang Valley.

That mission ended my personal participation with the 7th Cavalry at X-Ray."

It was almost three p.m. and there were only a few of us left in the command post to load out: Matt Dillon, Charlie Hastings, Jerry Whiteside, their radiomen, Sergeant Major Plumley, Bob Ouellette, and myself. Plumley, Ouellette, and I were the last to leave the termite hill. We trotted over to the fourth Huey in the final lift. It was waiting, blades turning, pointing west. Plumley and Ouellette jumped on; then I hopped in on the left side and we took off in a sharp bank to the north. As I looked down at the battle-scarred earth and shattered trees below, I felt pride in what we had done, grief at our losses, and guilt that I was still alive.

IT AIN'T OVER TILL IT'S OVER Those who do not do battle for their country do not know with what ease they accept their citizenship in America.

--Dean Brelis, The Face of South Vietnam It was a short, fast ride to Landing Zone Falcon, just five and a half miles east of X-Ray. As we landed among the artillery pieces I saw, seventy-five yards away, a group of my troopers off the northwestern edge of the LZ. They were in the dry, beaten-down elephant grass, waiting for the Chinooks to fly them back to Camp Holloway. Sergeant Major Plumley and I headed in that direction and quickly recognized them as the seventy or so men of Captain John Herren's Bravo Company. We walked among them and I shook their hands and thanked them for all that they had done, looking into their glazed eyes. We were all so worn out, none more so than Bravo Company. John Herren and his men had been without sleep for eighty-one hours. We were all terribly saddened by the deaths of our comrades.

Dean Brelis, an NBC News correspondent, was in LZ Fal con that afternoon. He captured the scene in his 1967 book, The Face of South Vietnam.

Hal Moore was the last man to come out of the battle. It was the biggest battle he had ever fought. He was a lieutenant colonel, and he carried himself like a proud man. His sergeant major was at his side. It would need a Shakespeare to describe what happened then, but it was something that was love and manliness and pride. It was the moment of the brave.

Hal Moore turned and went from group to group of his men, and only a few bothered to get up because there was no exclusivity now, no rank, and Hal Moore did not want them to stand and salute. He was saluting them.

He talked with them. He thanked them. He was not solemn, and he did not bring to his greetings the salutations of a politician. There was no poverty of spirit in his handshake, and he shook every man's hand. It was a union of the men who had met and defeated the enemy, not forever, not in a victory that ended the war, but in a victory over their uncertainty. When their hour had come they had done their job, and it was this thought, too, that Hal Moore had in his mind. And he said that if they had won no one else's gratitude, they had his.

After forty minutes or so with Herren's company we walked over to the artillery positions, manned by A and C batteries of the 1st Battalion, 21st Artillery, and commanded, respectively, by Captain Don Davis and Captain Bob Barker. They called themselves the Big Voice of Garry Owen at this point, but in November of 1990, a quarter-century later, Joe Galloway found one of those same artillery batteries supporting the 1st Cavalry Division in the Saudi Arabian desert. A bright young captain from Virginia who knew his history and his man saluted the reporter and told Galloway proudly: "Sir, we call ourselves the Falcons and I expect that you know why better than almost anyone else. We are the artillery that supported you in your time of need in Landing Zone X-Ray." He insisted that Galloway inspect the battery before joining his men for Thanksgiving dinner.

I asked Barker and Davis to gather their gunners. The artillerymen, who had fired more than eighteen thousand rounds over fifty-three straight hours, were exhausted. Huge mountains of empty brass shell casings had grown beside their guns. The gunners who gathered in front of me were stripped to the waist, their skin dyed red from the dirt and sweat. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart. I told them exactly what their barrages of high-explosive shells had done for us in the heat of battle, and what they had done to the enemy. First Sergeant Warren Adams ran into an old friend who was top sergeant of one of the batteries. Says Adams, "He told me: ' melted out a few tubes trying to keep you guys warm up there.'"

SFC Clarence W. Blount of Pensacola, Florida, was chief of a firing section in Captain Davis's battery. Almost twenty years later he wrote me: "I remember you and Sergeant Major Plumley came to our gun position and you gave our entire unit a fine speech for the great artillery support that we provided during the battle at X-Ray. That speech made a lasting impression on me. I felt that my usefulness to my country, the Army and my unit was really at its peak at that time. I have been wanting to say that to someone for a long time."

Barker recalls: "There were numerous times during X Ray that my battery exceeded sustained rates of fire. Recoil mechanisms failed on two howitzers early the second day. An ordnance team quickly repaired them that morning. When Lieutenant Colonel Moore's battalion was pulled out of X-Ray he talked with all the artillerymen in Falcon. His words made the cannoneers feel they had played a very significant part in the battle."

Later, as the Chinooks began ferrying the troops to Camp Holloway, Plumley and I stayed behind a while longer, talking with the artillerymen, before boarding the Huey for the ride back. We were not present to see what reporter Dean Brelis witnessed at Holloway and recounted in his book:

By late afternoon they were all back at Pleiku. They walked off the big Chinooks and, without anyone giving a command, they straightened up.

They were not dirty, tired infantrymen anymore. Hal Moore's battalion voluntarily dressed their lines, as if they were coming back to life.

And the GIs who had not been in the Ia Drang glanced at them with something approaching awe because these were the guys who had been in it. No cheers, but they could not conceal their admiration. A few GIs were taking pictures as we went by--there was something dramatic in the scene all right, because Hal Moore's men had not yet thrown off what they had been through. There was no shouting, no telling off the ones who had been lucky enough to stay back, because that was the luck of the draw. But the signal had passed through these men that they were coming back to base camp and they just couldn't march in as if nothing had happened, because a great deal had. They marched jauntily and smartly, without making it a production. You would have, too, if you had been one of them. The GIs with the clean faces and uniforms watched them to see what they could tell about combat from these men. It was the kind of scene that Hollywood could never produce, because the men had the dirt and gore of combat completely drenched into them. You can only get that dirty and that proud if you have been in combat and survived it. You can't put it on.

In the cockpit of the Huey flying Plumley, Ouellette, and myself toward Pleiku was Serpent 6, Old Snake, Major Bruce Crandall. Beside Crandall was his copilot, Captain Jon Mills. Old Snake had taken us into this thing and now he was taking us out. When we landed and shut down at Camp Holloway, the sergeant major and I left to make sure that our troopers were being well taken care of. But before walking off I told Crandall that after all that had happened I sure could use a drink. Old Snake pointed out a small, gaudily painted Quonset-hut Officers Club nearby, and we agreed to meet there later.

Plumley and I found that the troops were doing all right. They had been given hot showers, clean fatigue uniforms, hot chow, cold beer, and some puptents for shelter. After the experience of the Ia Drang this was almost wallowing in luxury. Gunner Bill Beck: "We were issued new, clean clothing. How bloody my own clothing was! Shoulders, arms, front, back, legs. Christ, that's what I remember most about the Ia Drang--how god damned bloody it was." Mortar observer Jon Wallenius: "We were withdrawn back to Pleiku for some R and R. Seems to me we got back in time for a hot supper. We slept near the airstrip on the ground."

Specialist 4 Ray Tanner: "When I got back to our staging area at Pleiku we all started trying to find who was missing. I had a home boy in Charlie Company 1/7 so I went looking for him. At the same time he came to Delta Company to find me. Each of us was told that the other had been either killed or wounded. We bumped into each other moments later on the way back. It was a wonderful reunion. Never let it be said that fighting men are afraid to hug and cry. We did both. His name is Hardy Brown."

Sergeant Steve Hansen recalls: "Got damned drunk at Camp Holloway. Also remember the first meal we got: canned B-ration hamburger patties served hot out of Mar mite cans. Tasted like steak. One of the cooks apologized to every man because it was all they had. I remember feeling that I had been tested and found to be a man."

Assured that my men were being taken care of, I rejoined Bruce Crandall and Jon Mills and we headed off for that drink. I was still wearing my grimy, frayed old World War II-style herringbone twill fatigues that I had lived in for the last five days. In Pleiku: The Dawn of Helicopter Warfare in Vietnam, J.D. Coleman tells what happened next:

When they walked up to the bar the bartender told them he couldn't serve them because Moore was too dirty. Mills re members how Moore patiently explained that they had just come out of the field and would really appreciate a drink. The bartender replied: ''re in the First Cav.

This Club doesn't belong to you; you'll have to leave.' Mills says that was when Hal started to lose his patience. He said: ' get your club officer and we'll settle this. But right now, I'm here and I'm going to have a drink. And I would like to have it in the next couple of minutes.' The bartender beat a hasty retreat to summon the club officer but still refused the trio service. So Moore unslung his M-16 and laid it on the bar. Mills and Crandall solemnly following suit with their .38's. Moore then said: ''ve got exactly thirty seconds to get some drinks on this bar or I'm going to clean house.' The bartender got smart and served the drinks. By this time, the club officer had arrived. He had heard all about the fight in the valley and knew who Moore was. And, as it turned out, so did most of the customers in the club. From then on, the trio couldn't buy a drink. That was when they knew that the fight on LZ X-Ray was finally over.

Bruce Crandall pulled out a box of Bering cigars, the kind that come sealed in aluminum tubes. He passed them around. I fired one up, sipped a cold gin and tonic, and let my mind go blank. Lieutenant Rick Rescorla, the tough Englishman, remembers that night: "After a shower, but no fresh clothing, I joined the officers of the 1st of the 7that the Holloway Club. We savored the cold beer but did not go overboard.

There was no boisterous celebration of our victory; we had all lost close comrades. We gravitated in a tight circle around Colonel Moore. He could not have moved if he wanted to. The nearest men were jammed up against him like a Rugby scrum. Every few minutes the four or five men closest to him would be gently edged aside and the outer circle would become the inner one. The inner circle locked eyes with the commander.

Unspoken mutual respect was exchanged. Now and then someone would grunt "Garry Owen' or '' with the same tone as one would say '.' All twelve or so sweating officers had learned something special about themselves and each other while serving with Hal Moore in the 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang Valley."

We were all exhausted. That and the drinks and the emotion and the feeling of security did us all in after an hour or two and we drifted off to catch some sleep. I went to the battalion operations tent, which was quiet but operating normally. Staff Sergeant Robert Brown was the NCO on duty. I stretched out, boots and all, on the bare canvas of a folding GI cot and was instantly asleep. When I awoke at daybreak on November 17,1 noticed that sometime in the night Sergeant Brown had covered me with a brown wool GI blanket.

Back on Landing Zone X-Ray it had been a relatively quiet night for Bob Tully's 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry and Bob Mcdade's 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Quiet, but both units were on hundred-percent alert. Sporadic rifle fire, a few mortar rounds, and the continuing American H and I fire kept everyone awake. That, and the growing stench of hundreds of dead bodies ripening in the heat, prevented sleep, even if it had been permitted. Colonel Tim Brown had alerted both battalion commanders to prepare to pull out of X-Ray the next morning; B-52 strikes would be targeted on the near slopes of Chu Pong, and the American troops would have to be at least two miles away from the impact area. Departure time was set for nine a.m. Both battalions would march northeast, with Tully in the lead, headed straight for Landing Zone Columbus. Mcdade's battalion would follow Tully's initially, then turn west and northwest toward a small clearing code-named LZ Albany. Mcdade's battalion had lost Myron Diduryk's Bravo Company and one platoon of Alpha Company, now back at Holloway for much needed rest, but Tim Brown had attached Captain George Forrest's Alpha Company, 1 st Battalion, 5th Cavalry to Mcdade to make up the difference.

Lieutenant Colonel Bob Tully had commanded his battalion for eighteen months. He knew his officers and men personally: He had trained them himself. By the luck of the draw, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Mcdade, a three-war man, had commanded his battalion less than three weeks. For the previous eighteen months he had been the division G-l, or chief of personnel, and almost ten years had passed since he had been in command of troops. Although Mcdade had commanded a rifle platoon in the South Pacific in World War II and a rifle company in Korea--and wore two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts--he was feeling his way into this war and this command very carefully.