WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE... AND YOUNG

HARPERTOURCH
An Imprint of  HarperCollinsPublishers

Written by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway

Copyright © 1992 by Lt. General H.G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway



In November of 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Calvary fought at the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam against 2000 North Vietnamese soldiers in the first major large-unit American engagements of the Vietnam War.

The basis for the movie We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson, this non-fiction book is told from eyewitness accounts by the men - both American and Vietnamese - who fought in that war. Written by the commander of the battalion Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.,) and the reporter on the ground, journalist Joseph L. Galloway, this book is basically about two battles - as a sister battalion of the 1st Battalion was also cut to pieces a few days later in the Ia Drang Valley in the first conventional battles of the Vietnam War with heavy casualties on both sides.

What got to me the most about reading the book was reading the list of names of the people who gave their lives for their country in the beginning of the book - especially when I read the names of the people who were local to me. The experiences of the 'Lost Platoon' were sad for me as I was thinking, "what if that was me?" This battle was also basically the first use of the 1st Calvary Division (Airmobile) - the first use of helicopters as a major aerial combat force in Vietnam. While reading about the helicopters, I kept on thinking about the book Chickenhawk by Robert Mason and of Mason's experiences of being a Huey helicopter pilot. One thing I learned in the book We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, that I did not know about the Vietnam War era, was that in the beginning of the war the Army was not set up to do casualty notification - so in Columbus, Georgia, Western Union used taxi-cab drivers to deliver the casualty telegrams to the soldiers relatives homes. The people in Columbus dreaded seeing the taxi-cabs driving around as a result. I know I would have dreaded seeing them as well. The book never really got into how the cab drivers felt, except for one cab driver getting drunk, but I can imagine that it must have been heart-breaking and tearing the cab drivers up inside as the drivers went out and performed this sad duty that was not originally in their job description.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.