Joe Galloway is presented a branding iron by Maj. Gen. Michael Bills, commanding general, 1st Cavalry Division, during a screening of We Were Soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, June 11, 2015. Now the North Vietnamese Army had arrived off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and had made itself felt. Howard SochurekThe LIFE Picture Collection. It created a sense of mutual respect that in many ways is challenged by the new embed ethos. The UH-1B Huey helicopters buzzed around the rugged area like so many bees, landing American troops among the North Vietnamese, forcing them to split up into ever-smaller groups like coveys of quail pressed hard by the hunters. The turning point of the five-year-old war, the offensive by elusive Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces failed in military terms but constituted a political victory in the arena of international public opinion. She managed to get accredited by the Associated Press, covered numerous battles, was seriously wounded by shrapnel that would remain in her body, parachuted into combat (small and thin, she was weighed down so as not to be blown away), was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese (which she used as an opportunity to produce a cover story for LIFE Magazine), and remained obsessed by the war until her death in 2006. In 1954 a French unit on patrol during the First Indochina War is ambushed by Viet Minh forces . He had just turned 30. I didnt think of Capa when I pressed the shutter, but I believe both images share an emotional impact because they involve children. Only jokes and funny stuff. Or is it the young woman and her two children being confronted by an American GI? Our goal was to win the war.. Without them, the battles of the Ia Drang could never have taken place. We arent allowed to forget; we arent supposed to forget. Two of those enemy regiments had already been busy since arriving in the Central Highlands. We dont focus so much on if, or how much, we were damaged by what we witnessed or participated in. I arrived from Miami on the press plane that accompanied the candidate. The Battle of Ia Drang In November 1965, then Lt. Col. Moore commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), on an air assault mission to secure the Ia. - DVD Copied by IASL Scanner Jeremy Baron. Employers shy away from hiring people who have been diagnosed with PTSD. The book was moving account of the November 1965 Battle of Ia Drang Valley in the Vietnam War and the heroic fight that 450 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, put up against a superior. I know better now. Photo by Staff Sgt. We were positioned at a little airport in Sioux City. Jimmy D. Nakayama's casualty report no crushed ankles! The real Harold G. Moore and Joseph Galloway traveled back to Vietnam after the war and met the real Nguyen Huu An as research for their book so they could understand the battle strategy of the North Vietnamese at Ia Drang. We would often embed ourselves with a platoon or squad, but it was more of a gentlemans agreement than any kind of official policy, based in the main on the idea that we, the photographers, were there to tell their story, and they, the soldiers, realized that unlike them, we didnt have to be there. First time we ever tried to help the greenhorns heading for combat for the first time was in 2003 as Knight Ridder was preparing to send 37 reporters to war. Carons career in photography was very short 1966 to 1970 but his exceptional talent, intelligence, commitment and ubiquity leave us with an unmatched visual legacy. The only civilian decorated for valor by the U.S. Army for actions in combat during the Vietnam War, Galloway received the Bronze Star medal with V Device for rescuing wounded soldiers while under fire in the Ia Drang Valley, in November 1965. We settled down in Tokyo, my next assignment. Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. As tens of thousands of anti-war protestors rioted in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, President Johnson and his family watched from the bedroom at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas. Ia Drang Valley Incident. The soldiers were very sympathetic to the civilians and one medic befriended them. On November 3, divisional headquarters ordered Lt. Col. John B. Stockton and his 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, battalion of scouts to focus attention on a particular trail alongside the Ia Drang River close to the Cambodian border. War sucks.. It was Larry Burrows who had to teach me how to load my first Leica M3; I got it as a perk having just had this image run as a vertical double truck in a 5-page spread in LIFE in the fall of 65. Soldiers and journalists alike are reluctant to seek treatment, and for the same reason: A fear that it is a confession of fear, and may damage your career. Col. Hal Moore, a 43-year-old West Point graduate out of Bardstown, Ky., was given orders to airlift his 450-man 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, into the valley on a search-and-destroy mission. During the time I spent with him and his platoon they didnt come into direct contact with the enemy, but there was always a common undercurrent that ran through them, a palpable anxiety and fear about what could come their way in a split second. Gold Star Family members can also fall victim to PTSD as a result of second-hand trauma. Thats about six times the rate of PTSD of other professions. I almost did not make the photo the man with the flag and Nixon on top of the aircraft stairs. The answer from LBJs White House was that absolutely no hot pursuit across the borders would be authorized. Select from premium Joseph Galloway of the highest quality. When he finally did say something, it sent chills through the Americans listening to the translator: He say there two regiments on that mountain. It was windy. What they saw was a ratio of 12 North Vietnamese killed for each American. LBJ ordered McNamara to Saigon to find out what happened at Ia Drang, and what it meant. The clearing was silent for now. You can find a copy of that memo by Googling it, I believe. The composition of the photograph has been compared to the work of the old masters, but some see it more cinematically: as if you could run a film backwards and forwards to view more of the story. The battles of Ia Drang in November 1965, although costly to him in raw numbers of men, reinforced his confidence. Christopher Calvert, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. only a couple bottles of blue pills which you need, Joe Lee Galloway I had read Ernie Pyles columns and his collected work and I thought if a war comes Fort Irwin, Calif., March 19, 2016. Joe Galloway, a young reporter from United Press International, was with the American troops during the battle and found himself covering the fighting and also participating in it. This image perfectly shows the seductive and corrupting influence of consumerism on the innocent civilians of Vietnam. Although they could have easily crushed the defendersa 12-man American A-Team and 100 Montagnard mercenary tribesmenthe enemy dangled them as bait, hoping to lure a relief force of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) out of Pleiku and into an ambush laid by their brothers of the 33rd Regiment. He was 79. Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 1965. Giap would later say: We thought that the Americans must have a strategy. Buy Photo Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., 2005: Joe Galloway, right, Medal of Honor recipient Ed Freeman, center, and retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore lead a group of Ia Drang. To honor that commitment, "10%" of the purchase price of every Joe. Was 1/60 fast enough? Joe. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. hasta la vista foe another decade or so My Dad and all my uncles would not tell us kids war stories. And, in the decades since, the most striking of those images have retained their power. The Huey was on its way to becoming the most familiar icon of the war. Understand what has brought them to that point. War correspondents like Joseph Galloway suffer as well. ++"They ran to our foxholes. He served four tours in Vietnam and became one of the most influential war reporters in U.S. history. Danielsens men joined the line, and Stocktons helicopter crews got out of their birds and joined the battle with their M-60 machine guns and the pilots pistols. Both sides had lost interest in taking prisoners. 218K views 2 years ago Joseph Galloway was a civilian reporter at the Battle of Ia Drang. He didnt know that before Purdies persistence finally earned him a transfer to the infantry, he had taken courses at the Marine Corps Institute, confident that the transfer would come and he would be ready. In the next six hours, McDades battalion would lose 155 men killed and 120 wounded. Leroy went from France to Vietnam in 1966 at the age of 21, with a single camera, no assignments and $150 in her pocket; she would stay until 1968. In a message dated 1/15/2004 3:23:36 PM Pacific Standard Time, jgalloway writes: like i say russell, if you had anything worth taking i would sue, you for libel and slander and take it all. But veterans arent the only community who suffer from PTSD. Urge them to get some counselling; to spend some time talking with others afflicted by PTSD. Despite his wounds, Cole continued to attend the injured in Vietnams central highlands in January, 1966. On July 16, 2001 and February 26, 2007, respectively, helicopter pilots . The 1st Cavalrys big Chinook helicopters lifted batteries of 105mm howitzers, leap-frogging along within range of the dirt road that led to Plei Me. A photo of Rescorla as a grizzled lieutenant in Vietnam, moving forward with bayonet fixed during the horrific 1965 battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam, became one of the iconic images of the war. This is not a normal war photograph. Nor will the originally contemplated Phase II addition of 28 more U.S. battalions (112,000 men) be enough.Indeed, it is estimated that, with the contemplated Phase II addition of 28 U.S. battalions, we would be able only to hold our present geographical positions. you dont. Burdy will be released by Mercer University Press in September 2015. After the beginning of the Iraq War my own employer Knight Ridder hired psychologists who interviewed returning war correspondents, and checked up on them periodically to make sure they were OK. What do you think the general public fails to understand about PTSD? Later I realized that I had shot a photo, in the heat of battle, of my childhood friend from the little town of Refugio, Texas. It was for only the Air Force and the coordination with AIRBORNE TROOPS and their equipment, In 1957 Hal G. Moore did not know they were writing the manual FM 57-35 Army Transport Aviation, CITATION FOR AWARD OF ARMY COMMENDATION RIBBON WITH METAL PENDANT. Though just 24, Joe Galloway was no greenhorn when he hitched a chopper ride to the remote South Vietnamese countryside in November 1965 to check on reports of a hot battle. I really cant speak for the general public and what they know or dont know about PTSD. In Washington, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent an urgent message to Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who was in Europe, ordering him to come home via Saigon and find out what had happened at Ia Drang, and what it meant. Galloway brandishes a Swedish K submachinegun at Danang in August 1965. day battle. Keywords : George Forrest Vietnam Ia Drang Valley LZ Albany ambush Ghost 4-6 Fred Kluge medic Daniel Torres .45 pistol M-60 machine gun Medal Of Honor (MOH) survivor's guilt Hal Moore Shorty Rogers Joe Galloway Do you think Gold Star family members can suffer from PTSD even though they have never been in a combat zone? As long as even one of us remembers them our friends are not dead. The rest brought in ammunition, grenades, water and medical supplies, and took out the American wounded in scores of sorties. How those photographs made history is underscored throughout the new documentary series The Vietnam War, from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Major Bruce P. Crandall's UH-1D helicopter climbs skyward after. U.S. killed-in-action can be expected to reach 1,000 a month, and the odds are even that we will be faced in early 1967 with a no-decision at an even higher level. you dont. The joyousness of the reunion and the coming together of the family as a visual is outstanding because it was the end of the war. 10 kilowatt generator off it pad on an airbase. For us, the war looked like it was about to be over. Purdie was being restrained from turning back to aid his CO. A few frames later, Larry Burrows took another photograph: Purdie is still being held back, but in front of him is another wounded man and Purdies arms are outstretched. Knowlen sent out three platoon-sized ambush patrols. And a UH-1 "Huey" helicopter is flying in toward the area. On November 14, 1965, the 1st Battalion (Bn), 7th Cavalry Regiment (Regt), 1st Air Cavalry (Cav) Division (Div) was sent on a search and destroy . Dao called in a helicopter to evacuate us, but suddenly, the ARVN troops who had been seated alongside the road broke and ran for the incoming helos. Joining us would be the Day One crew, including anchor Forrest Sawyer and producer Terry Wrong. the Ia Drang Valley. They have seen a loved one sacrificed in a war, and theirs is a pain that never heals, never goes away. All he could see was smoke rising through the jungle canopy. 4.4 of 5 stars. Amazon.com: Joseph L. Galloway: books, biography, latest update Joseph L. Galloway Home About All Books Joseph L. Galloway Follow to get new release updates and improved recommendations Manage your follows Back to top Get to Know Us Careers Amazon Newsletter About Amazon Accessibility Sustainability Press Center Investor Relations Amazon Devices Joe Lee Galloway went to Vietnam 4 times,I have PTSD., Karen Spears Zacharias If we have a loved one suffering from PTSD what kind of things should we know/do to help them?, Joe Lee Galloway Urge them to get some counselling; to spend some time talking with others afflicted by PTSD.. I used to believe that time would let those memories fade and allow me a measure of peace. Galloway had. Please update your browser at http://update.microsoft.com, Howard SochurekThe LIFE Picture Collection. I snapped this photo at [the Battle of la Drang], LZ X-Ray, on Nov. 15, 1965. War Zone C Ambush of the 173rd Airborne, 1965. If he had obeyed Knowles, more than 100 of his men would not have survived that night in the Ia Drang. We Were Soldiers Once.And Young: Ia Drang The Battle That Changed the War in V. Sponsored. Beginning Nov. 14, 1965, Moore led his battalion in a fierce battle around Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley. Another 71 Americans had been killed in earlier, smaller skirmishes that led up to the Ia Drang battles. ======================= A Columbus native and former Ledger-Enquirer staff writer, she is author of After the Flag has been Folded.. guilty of assault and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. I just thought the first guy I saw was what my uncles referred to as shell shocked. Exhibiting museums have found in it Christian iconography. According to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, nearly one-third of war journalists will suffer from PTSD during their careers. The ARVN II Corps commander knew if he lost the relief force, Pleiku would be left defenseless. What happened there, in the Ia Drang Valley, 17 miles from the nearest red-dirt road at Plei Me and 37 miles from the provincial capital of Pleiku, sounded alarm bells in the Johnson White House and the Pentagon as they tallied the American lossesa stunning butchers bill of 234 men killed and more than 250 wounded in just four days and nights, November 14-17, in two adjacent clearings dubbed Landing Zones X-ray and Albany. And at least one psychiatrist treating war veterans has used it in his practice. It was followed by a barrage of incoming automatic weapon and artillery rounds. Francis Ford Coppola was so inspired by this image that he included a scene in his 1979 film Apocalypse Now with the famous line, Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen any day.. Even in the eyes of the wars chief architect. You have remained good friends with several journalists from your days in war zones. They arrived in the nick of time as the next PAVN assault began. This is a photo that Howard felt was very powerful. An artillery liaison officer in a Huey overhead wanted desperately to call fire missions in support, but was helpless. ART. Joseph L. Galloway The Walter Mitty of the war, Rambo the Reporter, A Plagiarist, Fiction writer, and now add fraud. ++After some time pass, some helicopters landed and I put him aboard one of them. Neither we, nor General Dao, had expected the tide of advancing communist forces to so quickly and completely surround the town. Both sides understood that the war had changed suddenly and dramatically in those few days.Both sides claimed victory. My first memories are of houses full of frightened women looking out the window for the telegraph delivery man. you were, are and will remain the looniest twit to ever grace a shrinks office, if you had anything worth taking, I would sue you. The following morning, this corpsman took the child to the rear of the battle zone where he could be handed over for more medical attention. But for that fraction of a second, in his face, his posture, was all the fatigue and despair of a young soldier who is surely wondering what in the hell hes doing there, so far from home. He did a cautious aerial reconnaissance by helicopter and selected a football fieldsized clearing at the base of the Chu Pong Massif, a 2,401-foot-high piece of ground that stretched to the Cambodian border and beyond for several miles. contribution that his branch made to the accomplishment of the Air Mobility Division mission. I shot a photo of him as he was walking toward the chopper and he was cursing everyone, me included. The child was found wandering the previous night between the North Vietnamese and the American firing lines. discharging a load of infantrymen on a search and destroy mission. General Knowles called a news conference late on the 18th in a tent at Holloway. (recommend up to 74 battalions by end-66: total to approx. Some had feared that the helicopters were too flimsy and fragile to fly into the hottest of landing zones. Joe Lee Galloway, a civilian Reporter When I first went to war.. Back in Saigon, General Westmoreland and MACV G-3, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations General William DePuy, were studying the statistics of the Ia Drang battles. Pictures of Ia Drang Vets - The First Major Battle of Vietnam Ia Drang Veterans Bill Beck Bill Beck in Vietnam Bill Ross "I was with C Co, 1/7 Cav and attached to Bn Commo Center (Trojan 65) until Jan 66 when I returned to C Co as Commo Chief with Capt Cash CO until I returned to the states in Jul 66. I could feel those bones in the palms of my hands. So while we would talk with the troops about what was happening that day, there were many moments where in the course of making photographs, I would just keep moving along. There should be no employer penalty or refusal to hire those who have suffered from PTSD. It was called Hug Them by the Belt Buckleor get in so close to the U.S. troops that the firepower could not be used, for fear of killing and wounding their own. I saw the medic shouldering wounded and then I saw the kid on his back in the grass. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. (Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes) Buy Photo. Bob McDades 2-7 Battalion plus one company of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, would follow Tully part of the way, then break off west and northwest toward another clearing closer to the river dubbed LZ Albany. When American GIs landed on British shores they exuded generosity to their allies, giving away candy, nylons and cigarettes. You had tactics, and it takes very decisive tactics to win a strategic victory.If we could defeat your tacticsyour helicoptersthen we could defeat your strategy. In November 1965, Joe Galloway snapped this photo of his childhood friend Vince Cantu during the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, without realizing who was pictured. General Westmoreland estimates that through 1966 North Vietnam will have the capability to expand its armed forces in order to infiltrate three regiments (nine battalion equivalents, or 4,500 men) a month, and that the VC in South Vietnam can train seven new battalion equivalents a monthtogether adding 16 battalion equivalents a month to the enemy forces. What was the worst case of PTSD you ever came across? An Interview with Army Correspondent Joe Galloway Joseph Galloway is a military correspondent and former columnist who frequently reported from war zones and is co-author of We were Soldiers Once and Young.. He is also survived by two sons and a stepdaughter. choppers the engineers they got burned," he said with eyes distant. Gilles Carons atypical vertical image of a face-to-face encounter exposes deep cultural divide and distrust. Date: 10/14/2003 1:27:19 PM Pacific Standard time An Associated Press photographer, Rick Merron, and a Vietnamese TV network cameraman, Vo Nguyen, had finagled a ride on a helicopter going into Albany on the morning of November 18. His MOH citation recounts several examples of conspicuous gallantry, some despite being severely wounded. They were replaced by new draftees, who flowed in as individual replacements and who knew no one around them, and nothing of their outfits history and esprit. In November 1965, journalist Joseph L. Galloway hitched a ride on an Army helicopter flying to the Ia Drang Valley, a rugged landscape of red dirt, brown elephant grass and truck-size termite. Pentagon was going to act on my idea. Colonel Crandall broke his back when he crash landed a year later while rescuing 12 trapped soldiers. I flew out with the second chopper loaded with body bags. They knew each other and their capabilities. This soldier and I exchanged pleasantries the way you would in the dusty heat. Nixon left the plane. This image of the sheltering soldier is particularly compelling to me for what I dont know. A photo of a young widow sprawled atop the grave of her soldier husband at Arlington Cemetery leaves me choked with grief and sobbing aloud. Dao yelled that they were prepared to fight the enemy, come what may. What is We Were Soldiers about? On December 15, 1965, LBJs council of wise old men, which in addition to McNamara included the likes of Clark Clifford, Abe Fortas, Averell Harriman, George Ball and Dean Acheson, was assembled at the White House to decide the path ahead in Vietnam. only a couple bottles of blue pills which you need to use more regularly. The big battles began when thenLt. That changed when the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment landed in Vietnam's Northern . Central Intelligence Agency. Ia Drang - The Battle That Convinced Ho Chi Minh He Could Win. Joe Galloway was awarded the Bronze Star with V device for his service in the battle. (Photo Credit: Joe Galloway / Bettmann / Getty Images) On the second day of fighting, he even went out into the heavy fire to rescue a soldier, Pfc. These men had seen buddies cut in half by shrapnel from an incoming round, or watched a friends head explode from a bullet between the eyes that earned him a one-way ticket home in a body bag. Bearing in mind the nature of the war, the expected weighted combat force ratio of less than 2-to-1 will not be good enough. We Were Soldiers, 2002. Both enemy regiments withdrew toward the Ia Drang with a brigade of Air Cav troopers dogging their footsteps. All total in the battle of X-Ray and the ambush near LZ Albany, 234 Americans were killed and more than 250 wounded in just four days and nights, November 14-17, 1965. Do you all ever talk about those times and the effect of all that upon you? The sign had read American who read this die.. From: jgalloway krwashington During Hal G. Moores time in the R&D at the Pentagon, He had nothing to do with anything to do with the. "It was bad. His face was on fire. The fighting quickly disintegrated into hand-to-hand combat, and men were dying all around. It would last for three days and two nights before the North Vietnamese would vanish into the tangle of brush and elephant grass, leaving a large circle of their dead scattered around the American position. Colonel, Moore as Chief, support Aircraft and Aerial delivery branch, Air Mobility Division, monitored the Armys, Research and Development program for airborne matters represented the Army General Staff in the. Prior to Nov. 14, 1965, the U.S. Army had never met its North Vietnamese counterpart in a major battle. I think that term did not come into being until sometime after 1968. The weather closed in again. No one knew quite what to do to help him. ============================= Not very much, at least during my 43 years of covering Americas wars. Joe Lee Galloway never served in any branch of the Military. The Ia Drang River Campaign of early November is an example. After a short stay, Merron grabbed another chopper going back to Camp Holloway, and the word spread quickly that a battalion of Americans had been massacred in the valley. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam at the best online prices at eBay! They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. We were ALL a bit crazy at that time of year and for good reason. Shoot pictures. At that moment, Leon and I had a sinking feeling that we were going to be part of the fall of Xuan Loc. hasta la vista foe another decade or so My film had to make it all the way to New York before it could be processed and edited. It is not often you see enemies cradling each other. Unknowable then was also the life Purdie would live after his 20 years in the Marine Corps, or how important to him faith would become. We Were Soldiers Once.And Young: Ia Drang The Battle That Changed the W - GOOD. Ironically, it was the concussion from a B52 strike that felled his Huey. It recognizes his heroism on Nov. 15, 1965, during the Battle of. Russell Burrows, son of photographer Larry Burrows: The fraction of a second captured in most photographs is just that: a snapshot of a moment in time. One morning near the end of the unsuccessful Laos invasion of early 1971 (an attempt to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail), I wandered into a group of young soldiers who were tasked with fixing tanks and track vehicles which were regularly being rocketed by North Vietnamese troops just down the road. During WWII Italian Commandos Were Tasked to Ride Torpedoes. The Americans trapped in the kill zone were on their own. In short, the battle at LZ X-Ray, 14-16 November 1965, constituted the major turning point in my life. In November 1965, journalist Joseph L. Galloway hitched a ride on an Army helicopter flying to the Ia Drang Valley, a rugged landscape of red dirt, brown elephant grass and truck-size termite mounds in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. And preferably as Pyle covered his war., Joe Lee Galloway I was so eager to get to Vietnam before the war ended that my only real fear was that the first troops to land would finish off the Viet Cong and I would miss my war.. When the war ended in 1975, that man and five others were all that were left alive of the 400. All rights reserved. Then they resumed the march. My heart was pounding. Why were these uniformed men just giving them away? - This film is about the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. exposure,+THROWING THE ROTORS INTO REVERSE as soon as we reached the clearing and braking in the air like a parachute popping open. Unfortunately the young soldier was later killed but this image conveyed the senselessness and horror of how the human condition was playing out. high above the jungle on its way to the Ia Drang Valley. As long as even one of us remembers them our friends are not dead. but you dont. The worst cases of PTSD are usually confined for treatment in a VA facility. (09/18/1947 - 12/04/1981). In 2002 at a Marine Combat Correspondents reunion in Florida I suggested that the military would do well to offer a boot camp of sorts for novice correspondents. At the head of the column, McDade had no idea where most of his men were and was near-incoherent on the radio. "He loved the boys and girls of the U.S. military. Nevertheless, the enemy can be expected to enlarge his present strength of 110 battalion equivalents to more than 150 battalion equivalents by the end of calendar 1966, when hopefully his losses can be made to equal his input. Thus, the enemy will be caught in a dilemma: He has to drag out the war in order to win it and does not possess, on the other hand, the psychological and political means to fight a long-drawn-out war.. We have but two options, it seems to me. JG A man who made sense of the Battle of Ia Drang for a generation is gone. I was 23 years old when I arrived in Vietnam in April 1965. 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