Ia Drang Valley: Neil Sheehan, Nov. 15, 1965

Neil Sheehan photo Nov. 15, 1965

     Author, writer, reporter Neil Sheehan wrote a piece today(NYTimes) on the 50th anniversary of a sharp battle between the US Army's 1st Air Cavalry(air mobile)Div. and North Vietnamese Army regulars in a remote valley in the Annamese Mountains of Southeast Asia.  He was a much younger reporter for the NYT but had been covering the early years of US involvement for 3 years.  This story was prompted not only by the date, but also by the fact that 50 of his photographs of the event were recovered from old records.
        This battle was with a battalion-sized unit commanded by a Lt. Col.: Hal Moore,Jr.  A West Point grad with Korean War experience.  He knew his trade, but air mobile was a new concept, untried and unproven.  They learned many lessons over a few days that November, one in particular: it's not easy to resupply a unit that is physically remote from any base camp, and beyond all resupply routes.   The commanders went back to the drawing board after the Ia Drang battle.  The press distorted the story, calling it a clear victory.  But as Hal Moore pointed out in his book on the battle, it was a long way from victory.
     His story was the successful memoir, "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young".  It was well regarded, and made into a film of the same name.
     Just as historians are turning to the centennial anniversary of the Great War-World War 1, some historians are doing the same for Vietnam, as its 50th anniversary dates begin to click off the calendar.  The final sentence of the piece is telling: They, and so many others who fought in Vietnam, were as great as any generation that preceded them.  Their misfortune was to draw a bad war, an unnecessary war, a mistake by American politicians and statesmen, for which they paid."