I couldn’t see the gooks. There were about eight guys there, all badly wounded. Then a couple of our Skyraiders came in. Medic!” Others were moaning feebly and struggling to wave at the chopper. The Cong opened up on our mortar platoon, which was set up around a big tree nearby. Most of the dead were unrecognizable and were beginning to stink. Barker was hit in the legs. Some were in shock and were blazing away at everything they saw or imagined they saw. I felt a flash of panic. I guess our commanders felt the battle was over. I thought, My God, the strike is going to land on top of us. As we left the perimeter, we walked by them. It was men, and a lot of them too. The PAVN battalion was moving in on us, into the woods. There were no groupings of Americans left in the woods, just a GI here and there. 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-force units in the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands. The realization came to me now, for the first time, that I was not going to live. A bullet hit the dirt a foot to my side, and some started whistling over my head. Sgt. It was hurting unbelievably. No one knew where the fire was coming from, and so the men were shooting everywhere. After a week in and out of field hospitals, I ended up at Camp Zama in Japan. Smith’s company — Charlie Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (Regiment) — had never been in action, and Smith, who was 20 years old, had come to believe that it never would. Then he somehow managed to crawl away, saying that he was going to organize the troops. The best of The Saturday Evening Post in your inbox! Some of the wounded saw the chopper and started yelling, “Medic! —“Death in the Ia Drang Valley,” January 28, 1967, Become a Saturday Evening Post member and enjoy unlimited access. The noise of firing from all directions was so great that I couldn’t even hear a machine gun being fired three feet in front of me and one foot above my head. I had been assuming that he would get us out of this. The horrific point-blank fighting went down in history as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley… A piece got me in the head. There was complete silence everywhere now. The Foundation of the 1st Cavalry Division Association Ia Drang Scholarships Background. As a matter of fact, there were a couple who did not have fingers to cock with. He pleaded with anyone he saw to help him, for the love of God, to stop his pain or kill him. We were all sprawled out in various stages of unconsciousness. My mind was made up for me, because all of a sudden, they were there. The platoon returned the fire, killing about half of the Cong, and miraculously not hitting me. His feet were by my head, and his head was between my feet. I had seen his wife and four kids at Fort Benning. He had made it through World War II and Korea, but this little war had got him. Required fields are marked *. They lay down all around me, still babbling. Burroughs rolled over and started a scream, though it sounded more like a growl. I could hear the North Vietnamese entering the woods from our right. There was a huge thump nearby. I glanced back at Richards, one of the company’s radio operators. I think some guy near me got hit. Ia Drang Books; Main Menu. LTG Hal Moore returns to Ia Drang Valley, scene of fierce battle on November 14, 1965. He was a professional saxophone player with only two weeks left in the Army. Dead Cong were hanging out of the trees everywhere. The head of the column formed by our battalion was already in the landing zone, which was actually only 30 yards to our left. Every few minutes I heard some guy start screaming, “No, no, no, please,” and then a burst of bullets. The sound of those voices, of the enemy that close, was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced. They apparently knew the M-79. Harold G. Moore, a retired lieutenant general who, as a lieutenant colonel, led the Cav into the Ia Drang, took the floor.