| 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, 1965 |
| "We were soldiers..." The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley was the first major engagement between the People's Army of Vietnam and the newly arrived American Army in South Vietnam. Some believed it also to be the fiercest battle of the war. For the Americans, the battle was the validation of the new airmobile warfare concept. 450 U.S. soldiers were dropped into a small clearing, "LZ Xray" in the Ia Drang Valley. Within an hour, a fierce battle was underway. The 7th Cavalry was once again surrounded, not by Indians, but by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers determined to overrun and kill every American on the field. Employing massive air and artillery fire support, the disciplined Cavalrymen held onto the landing zone against 7-1 odds and eventually caused the PAVN units to fall back. Three days later, a sister battalion engaged in a vicious fire-fight only two and half miles away, at "LZ Albany." Together, these actions at landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. U.S. losses were serious, over 250 killed, mainly from two battalions of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. The North Vietnamese Army losses were harder to assess, but were estimated at 1800. Lt. Colonel Moore wears the standard fatigues in the early stages of the Vietnam war before issue of special tropical uniforms. These uniforms had the straight shirt pockets and and the high pockets at the hip on the trousers rather than the cargo pockets on the thigh found on later uniforms. The high lacing black combat boots were still a standard for tropical climates at that time. His helmet has a printed "leaf" pattern cover with slits for the insertion of foliage. It remained the standard helmet cover through out the war. |
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