Death in the Tall Grass 12-05-27-A. Md12-01

Back in January of 1965 my two closest friends were among those who served as groomsmen when I was privileged to marry Jo Henra. I was a recent graduate of the University of Alabama’s School of Broadcast Communications and had worked for the NBC affiliate in Montgomery for about six months. Bo Gaylard, my next-door neighbor, worked in the movie business. Jim Lawrence, a recent graduate of The Citadel, was a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. The three of us grew up together in our small southern hometown of Troy, Alabama. We served each other as groomsmen in each of our weddings. We were avid baseball fans who abandoned our wives on occasion and went on our own fantasy camps to Florida for Spring Training. At various times, we either played, coached, or umpired baseball. Yet in the spring of 1965, although we were men legally, we were not men in reality. We three were still yet to face the raw realities of life although convinced at the time that we were on top of the world. Bo and I continued in private life but Jim owed the United States Government a four-year hitch in the Army. Circumstances would soon occur that would project him into adulthood far faster than his two civilian buddies.

In July 1965, the Pentagon announced that the 11^th Air Assault Division would be renamed the 1^st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and it would take over the colors of that historic division that had distinguished itself in combat in the Korean War and in the Pacific theater in World War II.

By this time Jim was First Lieutenant and Executive Officer of Delta Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, First Cavalry Division. The Seventh Cavalry was made infamous back in its horse cavalry days by Gen. George Custer whose entire command of over 250 men were massacred on the morning of June 25, 1876 on the banks of Montana’s Little Big Horn River by the Dakota Sioux’ Teton division led by Sitting Bull. Not a single U.S. soldier of the 7^th Cavalry survived.

Now the Seventh Cavalry was back in business and on July 28, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson mobilized Jim’s division. It was the first “build-up” of many that were to follow in Johnson’s micromanagement of this war. Jim and other Rangers of the 1^st Cavalry Division cast off aboard the USNS Maurice Rose from Charleston, South Carolina, home of The Citadel, on Monday, August 16, 1965. On that very same date the last elements of the 66^th Regiment of the People’s Army of North Vietnam left their base in Thanh Hoa \tän hwä'\, North Vietnam, and headed south on foot.

The First Cavalry Division took one month to arrive at Qui Nhon \qwē nyŏn'\, South Vietnam. It would take the 66^th Regiment two months to cover five hundred miles on foot along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to a spot in the Central Highlands and a base camp established at Chu Pong Mountain.¹ Below it sprawled the Ia Drang valley. It would become the site of the first major engagement between the armies of North Vietnam and the United States.

Two battles would occur in this valley from November 14 through November 18, 1965. The first began on Sunday morning, November 14. The 1 Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry under Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, Jr., ignited the conflict by surprising the North Vietnamese enclave’s previously undiscovered location deep in the Central Highlands.

The drama that unfolded in this initial battle is portrayed in the 2002 motion picture, We Were Soldiers. It is the screen version of an account of the battles published in 1992 by Colonel Moore and UPI journalist Joseph L. Galloway. Their book is the major source of information for this study.

Moore writes on page 16 of the Prologue:

This story is our testament and our tribute to 234 young Americans who died beside us during four days in Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany in the Valley of Death, 1965. That is more Americans than were killed in any regiment, North or South, at the Battle of Gettysburg, and far more than were killed in combat in the entire Persian Gulf War. Seventy more of our comrades died in the Ia Drang in desperate skirmishes before and after the big battles at X-Ray and Albany. All the names, 305 of them … are engraved on … Panel 3-East, of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and on our hearts.^st (p. xvi)

Under orders from assistant division commander, Brigadier General Richard T. Knowles, and delivered to Lt. Col. Moore by 3 Brigade commander, Col. Thomas W. Brown, the 1^rdst Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry was ordered to take the battle to the enemy and kill him. According to Col. Moore:

What transpired from Sunday through Tuesday was a bloody battle between a small force of 450 Army Airborne Rangers and 2,000 North Vietnamese regulars.

The fighting was intense and unrelenting throughout but under the deft leadership of Col. Moore and Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumley, the 1 Battalion and reinforcements from the 2^stnd Battalion were able to establish and hold their command post at Landing Zone X-Ray. The leadership in the trenches became the source of legend. Captain Myron F. Diduryk and 2^nd Lieutenant Rick Rescorla of Bravo Company, 2^nd Battalion were instrumental in the defense of repeated Viet Cong attacks on X-Ray on the second day and night of the battle.

Col. Moore wrote of Diduryk, “He was eager and aggressive yet totally professional; over the course of three days and nights he would emerge as the finest battlefield company commander I had ever seen, bar none. Rick Rescorla esteemed himself not only at X-Ray but also at Albany. He left active duty in 1967 but continued in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 1990 as a colonel. Rescorla, British-born, earned a master’s degree and a law degree at universities in Oklahoma. He went into corporate security work and became vice-president for group security for the Morgan-Stanley financial group. In a way Rick was on the front lines of the Islamic War as is reported by:

These two men of Bravo Company of the 2 Battalion were instrumental in enabling the 1^ndst Battalion to endure fierce fighting during the night of 15 November and the early morning of 16 November. The exploits of these men are glorified in the Randall Wallace’s We Were Soldiers. The movie shows an offensive action at the end of the movie that did not occur. However, those who survived the battle and who have seen the movie claim that but for this “Hollywood ending” the rest of the film depicts very accurately the battle at X-Ray.

Jim Lawrence told me in a telephone interview that he was asked by a reporter following the film’s premier at Fort Benning if the movie was an accurate representation of the battle. He said that he responded by saying, “Yes, in every way but one … there wasn’t the smell.”

The “smell” was a combination of literal blood, sweat, napalm, gun smoke, explosives, bombs, and the ever-intensifying stench of decaying bodies of the dead. Having repulsed repeated frontal assaults by the Vietnamese soldiers the killing ground was littered with nearly a thousand enemy dead. It was decided to evacuate all personnel who had been engaged in the conflict up to this point and replace them with elements of the 2^nd Battalion of the 7^th Cavalry and the 1^st Battalion of the Fifth Cavalry.

These replacements closed in on X-Ray about noon on the 16^th. In the forefront of the column was PFC Jack P. Smith, son of radio and television broadcast journalist Howard K. Smith. Jack Smith wrote of what he saw in a 1967 article for the Saturday Evening Post:

The 1^st Battalion had been fighting continuously for three or four days, and I had never seen such filthy troops. They all had that look of shock. They said little, just looked around with darting, nervous eyes. Whenever I heard a shell coming close, I’d duck but they kept standing. There must have been 1,000 rotting bodies out there, starting at about 20 feet, surrounding the giant circle of foxholes.⁴ (p. 195)

An unlikely combatant in the battle at X-Ray was Joe Galloway. In the thick of the conflict he was issued a weapon and he gallantly fought along with the Rangers in defense of the command post. On leaving X-Ray the afternoon of the 16th, Galloway commented to fellow journalist Charlie Black of the Columbus (Georgia) Ledger-Enquirer:

Col. Moore had promised his men that none would be left behind, meaning there would be no MIAs in the 1 Battalion. He kept his word. Of those under his command 79 were killed in action and 121 were wounded. None were missing. He estimated that 634 of the enemy were killed in combat and another 1,215 by artillery and air attacks. At 3 o’clock on the afternoon of 16 November, Col. Moore was the last man to lift off of Landing Zone X-Ray, leaving the area under the command of Lt. Col. Bob Tully and his 2^stnd Battalion, 5^th Cavalry and Lt. Col. Robert McDade’s 2^nd Battalion, 7^th Cavalry.

On the morning of the 17 November these two battalions were to exit X-Ray and march together toward Landing Zone Columbus. Short of Columbus, the 2^nd Battalion was to peel off and head toward the northwest with Landing Zone Albany as its destination. The reason for these movements is not exactly clear according to General Moore in his book. It is assumed that there were three objectives with circumstances determining which would be executed: (1) Engage the enemy, (2) evacuate the area for the B-52 assault on Chu Pong Mountain; or (3) be picked up and transported back to An Khe air base.

The latter exercise was the one anticipated. No enemy was in sight from the battle of the previous three days. They did not expect to encounter the enemy on the march. They were wrong. Dead wrong!

As they advanced toward Albany they were coming closer and closer to an encounter with enemy soldiers. Just beyond Albany was a base camp established that included three battalions of the North Vietnamese army.

The 8^th, 1^st, and 3^rd battalions were headquartered there. The 8^th was a reserve battalion newly arrived off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were fresh, rested, and spoiling for a fight with the Americans.

As the American soldiers approached Albany they unfortunately burned some hooches—small grass huts—and this caught the attention of a Vietnamese recon team. Some were captured by Alpha Company which led the column and they were interrogated.

At this point the column lost unit integrity. They had been marching in file with Alpha Company in the lead followed in order by Delta Company, Charlie Company, Headquarters Company, and finally Alpha Company of the 1^st Battalion, 5^th Cavalry. With the capture of the scouts a sequence of event occurred that led to one of the most deadly battles of the entire Vietnam War.

Alpha Company was ordered to stand fast by Col. McDade who radioed that he was going to come forward to interrogate the prisoners. On arrival, McDade called for all company commanders to join him at the head of the column. What happened next set the stage for the surprise attack that was about to commence.

Specialist 4 Bob Towles of Delta Company tells what happened farther back down the column: “Everyone dropped to the ground. I sat leaning against a tree facing the rear of the column. When the command group closed up, a gap of thirty to forty yards opened in the line of march. We lounged around smoking, just taking it easy. Then the mortar-platoon sergeant came up. He went directly to First Lieutenant James Lawrence, Delta’s new executive officer, to learn the situation. The sergeant left his gear behind when he walked over. He wore his web belt and packed a pistol, but carried no rifle and didn’t wear a steel pot. Lawrence put out the information that the head of the column took two prisoners. Others could be in the area.” (p. 226)

At this precise moment, on the brink of disaster, this is what was happening: Alpha Company was moving forward toward the Albany clearing. Colonel McDade and his battalion-command group were with Alpha Company. The other company commanders had left their companies, under orders, and were moving up to join McDade for a conference. The battalion was strung out along the line of march for a distance of at least 550 yards. The men of Delta Company were lolling around on the ground. Charlie Company had flankers off to each side but most were taking a break, sitting or lying down. George Forrest’s men at the tail of the column were in a wedge formation and also had flank security posted. The men of the battalion were worn out after nearly sixty hours without sleep and four hours of marching through difficult terrain. Visibility in the chest-high elephant grass was very limited.⁶ (p. 227)

Just after 1 o’clock P.M., McDade and his company commanders reached the Albany clearing. All the brass was at the head of the line and the entire contingent had North Vietnamese surrounding them. At about 1:07 small arms fire began. The Americans had marched right into the base camp of the newly arrived 8 battalion of the 66^thth regiment along with the 1^st and 3^rd battalions of the 33^rd regiment. They had gotten the news the column was on the way to Albany from their recon team and had hurriedly organized an ambush.

The strategy used by the attacking Vietnamese army was employed by their battlefield commander Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu An:

The battle was afoot and was waged in a relentless hail of bullets and hand-to-hand combat. Suddenly, the 1 Cavalry (Airborne) found itself in a time warp that was reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I and Korea.

“North Vietnamese troops shattered the foliage and headed straight for us, AK 47 rifles blazing, on the dead run. I selected the closest one and fired twice. I hit him but he refused to go down; he kept coming and shooting. I turned by M-16 on full automatic, fired, and he crumpled. I shifted to another target and squeezed the trigger. They kept pouring out of the wood line; we kept firing; then finally they stopped coming.”

“Incoming gunfire drew our attention back to the tree line. The volume of fire became almost unendurable. Bullets peeled bark from trees. Vegetation disintegrated. I looked to Lieutenant James Lawrence for help. I saw his head violently recoil. He hit the ground.

“A second later I was spun around, then slammed into the dirt. I rose to my hands and knees and started down the line. Blood ran everywhere. Someone raised Lieutenant Lawrence and attempted to steady him. The firing continued.” (p. 242)

Each and every man still alive on that field, American and North Vietnamese, was fighting for his life. In the tall grass it was nearly impossible for the soldiers of either side to identify friend or foe except at extremely close range. Americans in olive-drab and North Vietnamese in mustard-brown were fighting and dying side by side. It may have begun as a hasty ambush or a surprise attack, but within minutes the result was a wild mêlée, a shoot-out, with the gunfighters killing not only the enemy but sometimes their friends just a few feet away.

There would be no cheap victory here this day for either side. There would be no victory at all—just the terrible certainty of death in the tall grass.^st (p. 249)

Jim Lawrence was one of the 124 who were wounded at Albany. He recovered in an army hospital in The Philippines. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal.

Today he is education director of the Alabama Center for Real Estate in the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce. Almost every year on Veterans’ Day weekend, he and the survivors of the Ia Drang Campaign gather in Washington, D.C. for a reunion. They conduct a vigil at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial and observe in quiet remembrance the names inscribed on Panel 3-East.

For 37 years the memory of the two battles at X-Ray and Albany causes each of these men to revisit those chaotic six days in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam. They remember those whom they called friends who fell in the fray and many wonder, as surviving combatants often do, about why their friend was taken and they were left.

© 2012 by Joe Griffin Media Ministries. All rights reserved. www.joegriffin.org