Jocko Podcast 105 w/ Echo Charles: "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young"

this is Jaco podcasts number 105 with echo Charles and me jogger willing good evening echo good evening specialist Vieira was witness to scenes of horror the enemy was all over at least a couple hundred of them walking around for three or four minutes it seemed like three or four hours they were shooting and machine-gunning are wounded and laughing and giggling I knew they'd kill me if they saw I was alive when they got near I played dead I kept my eyes open and stared at a small tree I knew that dead men had their eyes open Vieira continues then one of the North Vietnamese came up looked at me then kicked me and I flopped over I guess he thought I was dead there was blood running out of my mouth my arm my legs he took my watch in my 45 caliber pistol and walked on I watched them strip off all our weapons they left then they left back where they came from I remember the artillery the bombs the napalm everywhere real close around me it shook the ground underneath me but it was coming in on the north vietnamese soldiers too all this and more much more took place between 650 a.m. and 7:40 a.m. on November 15th 1965 the Agony's of Charlie Company occurred over a hundred and forty yards of the line but men were fighting and dying on three sides of our thinly held American perimeter in the center I held the lives of all of these men in my hands the badly wounded Captain Bob Edwards was on the radio now asking for reinforcements the only reserve I had was a reconnaissance platoon 22 men was the attack on Charlie Company the main enemy threat Delta Company and the combined mortar position were also under attack now reluctantly I told captain Edwards that his company would have to fight on alone for the time being the din of the battle was unbelievable rifles and machine guns and mortars and grenades rattled banged and boomed two batteries of 105 millimeter howitzers 12 big guns located on another landing zone five miles distant were firing non-stop their shells exploding no more than 50 yards outside the ring of shallow foxholes beside me in the battalion command posts the air force forward controller lieutenant Charlie W Hastings 26 from La Mesa New Mexico radioed a special codeword Broken Arrow meaning American unit in danger of being overrun and within a short period of time every available fighter bomber in South Vietnam was stacked overhead at a thousand foot intervals from 7,000 feet to 35,000 feet waiting it's turn to deliver bombs and napalm to the battlefield among my sergeants there were three war men men who parachuted into Normandy on d-day and had survived the war in Korea and those old veterans were shocked by the savagery and hellish noise of this battle choking clouds of smoke and dust obscured the killing ground we were dry mouth and our bowels churned with fear and still the enemy came on in waves and that right there is from the opening chapter of the book We Were Soldiers Once and young by General Hal Moore and joe galloway and the book which was turned into a movie which I saw when it came out in 2002 Mel Gibson it's a good movie for sure but it's also a Hollywood movie and Hollywood movies they're forced to fit into two hours and they got to follow some kind of a plot and they can't dig into the details and I can't really give you a comprehensive understanding of the events and I purposely did not watch this movie again while preparing for this podcaster because I didn't want it in there and I won it in my brain the movies interpretation of the characters in it and the way that they were portrayed and the book is so good and it's so packed with detail and drama and action and an utterly incomprehensible heroism everyone should read this book everyone it starts off it explains the way the battle unfolded and it talks how it went tactically operationally and strategically goes through all those levels of warfare and you can see in the book how strategy unfolds at the tactical level and how tactical situations impact strategy is well you can see it on both sides and there's also which is interesting there's significant commentary from the Vietnamese enemy leadership that they went back and interviewed after the war was over which just makes it an incredible book like I said everyone should read it so it tells the story of operations in the I drank Valley in 1965 from November 14th until November 18th so five days but the fighting as was noted in that opening chapter is absolutely brutal leadership is tested over and over and over again and this battle took place with battalions and companies from the seventh Cavalry Regiment and if you remember the books we covered on General George Custer he was a officer that led 7th cavalry troops in the battle Little Bighorn where he was surrounded and he was killed along with 267 of his soldiers all of them dead by the Native American warriors on the suicide from the Lakota and the Dakota and the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and cavalry in those days meant horseback that's what I meant that's what mounted cavalry that's what it was and in 1965 they adopted cavalry to a new kind of steed a new form of transport and this was the helicopter and in 1965 they converted the 11th Air Assault test division to the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 1st Cavalry Division soon took on the historical name of general Custer's unit and and by the way general cost the 7th calves even though that's kind of the most famous along with this I guess along with the I drank valley but their day the the 7th calves in world war ii and korea all kinds of incredible service there and and a lot of that is covered in the book but again we'll have to move through this a little bit more quickly otherwise go read the book which I highly recommend but let's get into it starting about where lieutenant colonel Hal Moore takes over the 1st battalion 7th Cavalry going back to the book on Monday June 29th as scheduled I took command of my battalion I was 42 years old a West Point graduate of the class of 1945 with 19 years commissioned service including 14 month tour in Korea the combat tour in Korea in a brief talk to the Troops afterward I told them that this was a good battalion but it would get better I will do my best I said and I expect the same from each of you before taking command I had a long talk with the most important man in any battalion the sergeant major basil L Plumlee 44 years old and six and a 6 foot 2 inch bear of a man hailed from West Virginia the men sometimes called him old iron jaw but never in his hearing plumlee was a too warm man and War Master parachute wings with his five combat jump stars he was what the young airborne types called a four jump bastard Plumlee had survived all four combat jumps of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War two Sicily and Salerno in 1943 then and then in 1944 d-day at Normandy and Market Garden in the Netherlands for that matter he also made one combat parachute jump in the Korean War with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment he ended World War two a buck sergeant and was promoted to sergeant major in 1961 so let's think about that for a minute let's think about that I mean we've talked we've definitely talked about Normandy we definitely talked about Market Garden he jumped into both those and jumped into Sicily and Salerno and jumped into combat in the Korean War unbelievable going back to the book the sergeant major was a no-bullshit guy who believed as I did in tough training tough discipline and tough physical conditioning to this day there are veterans of the battalion who are convinced that God may look like sergeant major basil Plumlee but he isn't nearly as tough as the sergeant major on sin's small or large privately I thanked my lucky stars that I had inherited such a treasure I told sergeant major Plumlee that he had unrestricted access to me at any time on any subject he wish to raise after the ceremony the company commanders and the battalion staff got a look at their new boss and a word on my standards they were fairly simple only first-place trophies will be displayed accepted or presented in this battalion second place in our line of work is defeat of the unit on the battlefield and death for the individual in combat no fat troops or officers decision making will be decentralized push the power down it pays off in wartime loyalty flows down as well I check up on everything I am available day or night to talk with any officer of this battalion finally the sergeant major works for only for me and takes orders only from me he is my right-hand man so he's set in the stage pretty interesting in the only first place trophies 2nd place no not happening here back to the book the officers of my new battalion were the usual great army mix of men who had come from their jobs come to their jobs from West Point ROTC Officer Candidate School and military schools like the Citadel most of the young second lieutenants had come through OCS and college ROTC programs there were three rifle companies in the battalion alpha Bravo and Charlie companies each at full strength supposed to have six officers in 164 enlisted men they were my manoeuvre elements each rifle company had three rifle platoons plus one platoon of three 81-millimeter mortar squads for fire support each rifle platoon in turn had three rifle squads plus a weapon squad of two m60 machine guns for fire support so there's there's the breakdown right there then they also had a another combat support company Delta Company which had a recon platoon a mortar platoon and an anti-tank platoon and they converted the unneeded anti-tank platoons in a machine gun platoon for for duty in Vietnam because there was no enemy tanks going up against so that's that's what the battalion was looking like going back to the book during the during those first fourteen months and now he's gonna talk about their work up a little bit how they got ready for combat back to the book during those fourteen months before we sailed for Vietnam we spent most of the time in the field practicing assault landings from helicopters and the incredibly complex coordination of artillery tactical air support and aerial rocket artillery with the all-important flow of helicopters into and out of the battle zone commanders had to learn to see terrain differently to add a constant scan for landing zones which are called L Z's and pickup zones P Z's to all the other features they had to keep in mind we practice rapid loading and unloading of men and materiel to reduce the helicopters window of vulnerability total flexibility was the watchword and planning and attitude there was one bit of sobering reality that I insisted be introduced at every level in this training we would declare a platoon commander dead and Tate let his sergeant take over and carry out the mission or declare a sergeant dead and have one of his PFC s take over running the squad we were training for war and leaders are killed in battle I wanted every man trained for and capable of taking over the job of the man above him so they're working a whole new gig here they never no one had really done this before riding everyone's going into combat on helicopters and obviously helicopters give you great amount of maneuverability you can be up vertically and takeoff and travel a great distance and set down anywhere or not anywhere just about anywhere you can set down in a lot of places I should say because you can't set down anywhere especially in the jungle we got trees and all kinds of obstacles and then you've got enemy on top of that and helicopters are pretty vulnerable flying machines and so this idea what what they were practicing was this massive movement move all the troops into the combat zone very quickly and the enemy doesn't expect you then you can just show up there so it's that's what they're practicing over and over again and clearly you know a Korean War veteran like Hal Moore was he knows that leaders can get killed in combat and so he's sometimes killing the leaders in training and that's a tradition we still had we do that all the time when I was running training the SEAL Teams the minute the leaders started to get a grip on things it was like okay you're dead next man's gonna step up and sometimes that would just wreck a platoon or a task unit well the leader dies if they're a good leader and they're not and no one is used to stepping up it'd be problematic but sometimes it would actually be beneficial you get some guy that's a micromanager kill him and then watch everything run smoothly and you come back and you go dude you better back off a little bit because this guy's run in a better show then you are and it's really clear so sometimes we teach guys lessons that way huh back to the book unfortunately my battalion and every other in the division now began to suffer the consequences of President Johnson's refusal to declare a state of emergency and extend the active duty tours of draftees and reserve officers the order came down any soldier who had less of less who had 60 days or less left to serve on his enlistment as of the date of deployment August 16th must be left behind we were sick at heart we were being shipped off to war sadly under-strength and crippled by the loss of almost a hundred troopers in my battalion alone the very men who would be the most useful in combat those who had trained the longest and the new techniques of helicopter warfare were by this order taken away from us it made no sense then it makes no sense now so again I talked about the strategic kind of implications that these guys felt and this is one of them and obviously I'm jumping through the book they talks more about the workup and what they did to prepare but now he's getting this point where President Johnson doesn't declare a state of emergency and keep these guys in and so you know that's a political decision obviously but what aware is an impact ensure it impacts the guys on the front line that's where it impacts now like I said this book is written not only by not only by Lieutenant General Howe more is how are you retired in this book I'll refer to him as lieutenant colonel or sometimes I guess I'm just disrespectful and call him how more I don't mean it disrespectfully but anyways how Moore wrote the book but he also wrote the book along with another guy named Joe Galloway and you know you know what a ghostwriter is yeah yeah ghostwriter well this is so go try to write a person's book but no one's supposed to know it and then there's people that write the book but they get credit for it and you might think that's a situation here looking at the title because you've got Lieutenant General Harold Moore retired and Joseph L Galloway like you know it doesn't say any service thing well in this particular case that could give you an absolutely wrong impression because Joe Galloway was a reporter a combat reporter who was obviously he was very courageous and and basically got after it for lack of a better word so i'll going where they introduced him a little bit back to the book UPI reporter joe galloway a 23 year old native of refugio texas marched with us when he hooked up with us he carried on his shoulder an m16 rifle which the Special Forces commander major Charles Beckwith had handed him when the fight was over Galloway told Beckwith that strictly speaking under the Geneva Convention he was a civilian non-combatant Beckwith's response no such thing in these mountains boy take that rifle so if you know anything about Charles Beckworth Major Charlie Beckwith that's the guy that created Delta Force complete badass warrior and he was a special forces commander in Vietnam and and was one of the first people that apparently Galloway worked with and Galloway said you know you better arm yourself so here's Galloway talking Galloway remembers my first time out with Hal Moore's 1st battalion 7th cavalry was a hellish walk into the Sun to a remote mountain guard mountain village we got into a patch of brush and wait a minute vine so thick and phony that every step had to be carved out with machetes we covered maybe 300 yards in four hours and forwarded a fast running chest deep mountain stream just as darkness fell then huddled in our Poncho's wet and freezing all night long at first light I pinched off a small piece of c4 plastic explosive from the emergency supply in my pack and used it to boil up a canteen of water for coffee if you lit c4 very carefully you could be drinking hot coffee and maybe 30 seconds if you were careless it blew off your arm over a first cigarette I watched Moore's men first they shaved shaved up here I was amazed then the colonel himself blonde judge odd and very intense a son of Bardstown Kentucky and West Point walked by on this morning rounds with the sergeant made with sergeant major Plumlee Moore looked me over and said we all shave in my outfit reporters included my steaming coffee water went for a wash and a shave and I gained a measure of respect for the man daily disciplined in all things you know that's another thing that I failed to mention but it's very clear when you read the book is this is 1965 and the war had not escalated at all and it wasn't the the meat grinder that it turned into so these guys you know in their workup all they knew that they were going to fight but they didn't they didn't know it wasn't the Vietnam that we think of now where there's a lot of casualties happening it hadn't gotten there yet and as a matter of fact this battle is really the first one where that where you start seeing very significant American casualties the guy that's in charge over how over how more is a guy named Colonel Brown and he shows up going back to the not long after Colonel Brown flew in checked on the situation with Alpha Company then called me aside how I'm moving your battalion west tomorrow morning he said unfolding his map here is your area of operations north of Chu pong in the I drank Valley your mission is the same one you have now find and kill the enemy he rapidly outlined the scope of operations and the resources he could spare 16 uh-1d Huey's so that's a Huey helicopter it's the most I guess the the most iconic helicopter probably of any military and certainly of Vietnam the Huey helicopter is is completely iconic 16 Huey's to move my troops to 105 howitzer batteries within range to support us in at least two days on the ground patrolling he added that Alpha Company of the 229th helicopter alt helicopter battalion would provide the helicopters the 229th a company commander Major Bruce Crandall was on his way now one more thing how in that area be sure your companies are close enough for mutual support so the reason I highlighted that a lot of times people have a tendency in in combat situations especially when planning to get too far apart from each other and I would see this all the time and what happens is it seems to make sense because you cover more ground or you have better angles and it seems like a good idea like hey we'll just split up and you can take care of your guys and I'll take care of my guys but you always need to stay within a position where you can mutually support each other where if we get in trouble we can cover and move that that's what it is you want to be able to cover to move cover move so the minute you're out of sight out of line of sight out of radio out of the out of a distance where your weapons can be used to support you're alone mm-hmm that's the thing you you get away from line-of-sight radio contact the distance that weapons can be shot effectively from the other unit that you're out there with now you are alone so when you're planning make sure and he's saying in that area I always use that rule oh yeah as often as possible are there times where you can you can you can flex that rule a little bit of course there are there are situations you can get into and you can it might be a better tactical call but always keep in mind what you're doing and what you're sacrificing when you can no longer mutually support the other units that you're out with and they can't mutually support you you're alone so he knows this is going to be a little bit of a hot area Lee seeks he suspects it going back to the book how ready was my battalion for combat we had never maneuvered in combat as an entire battalion although all three rifle companies had been minor scrapes so they've been in Vietnam for a while they've been in a little bit of contact but nothing too major and like he just said none of them none of them had been they had been out as a group as a battalion back to the book most of the men had never seen an enemy soldier dead or alive we had killed fewer than ten black pajama gorillas in the get-acquainted patrols and small operations since our arrival the four line companies had 20 of their authorized 23 officers but the enlisted ranks been badly whittled down by expiring enlistments malaria cases and requirements for base camp guards and workers back in NK Alpha Company had 115 men 49 fewer than authorized Bravo Company at 114 men was 50 short Charlie Company at 106 men down by 58 and the weapons company Delta had only 76 men 42 fewer than authorized headquarters company was also under strength and I had been forced to draw it down further by sending men out to fill crucial medical and communications vacancies in the line companies I didn't like being short-handed but things had been no different in the Korean War and somehow we made do you just suck it up and do it and we would do the same we do the same way in the I dragged the officers and NCOs would do what they could to make up the slack just as we had done in Korea my point in reading that these guys are heavily under man they're supposed to have 150 people and they have you know 100 105 whatever and there's nothing they can do about it and it's also interesting and worth noting that he has a headquarters company so you got the battalion commander and he's got a group of guys that do weapons for him and also communications and he's pushed those guys out so instead of keeping those guys and making him his his own team all fat and happy nope he makes his team thin and gives as much as he can to the to the forces that are out in the field so another good note on leadership now they're getting ready to roll in and we will talk about he's kind of going through the plan a little bit here we go back to the book I would personally land on the first helicopter pilot to my Bruce Crandall and Bruce Crandall is the commander of the helicopters that are flying them in that would permit me a final low-level look at the landing zone and surrounding terrain and with Crandall in the front seat and me in the back we could work out on the spot any last-minute diversion to an alternate Landers landing zone if necessary and fix any other problems with the lift in the American Civil War it was a matter of principle that a good officer rode his horse as little as possible there were sound reasons for this if you are riding and your soldiers are marching how can you judge how tired they are how thirsty how heavy their packs weigh on their shoulders I applied the same philosophy in Vietnam where every battalion commander had his own command and control helicopter some commanders use their helicopter as their personal mount I never believed in that you had to get on the ground with your troops to see and hear what was happening you have to soak up first-hand information for your instincts to operate accurately besides it's too easy to be crisp cool and detached at 1,500 feet too easy to demand the impossible of your troops too easy to make mistakes that are fatal only to those souls far below in the mud the blood and confusion so this is something we talk about all the time from a leadership perspective you cannot be you know it's it's the it's the icon detachment right it does pay and there are certain times where you can tell in in these situations if you're in the command helicopter that's up above the fighting well your your de facto I mean you you are detached from the situation and you can see what's happening you have you have a good view of what's going on but even though you have a good view you're also missing a bunch you're missing what it's like down there you're missing what the men are seeing you're missing what it looks like to them you're missing the communication breakdowns that are happening down there so you have to find that balance between these two and and he clearly is aware of that he's preparing for this he's got a bull a book called street without joy by a guy named Bernard fall and it's it's a book about Vietnam it's a book about the the tragedy that the French troops went through fighting the Vietnamese and he says that he took one lesson away from that book and this is the lesson death is the price you pay for under estimating this tenacious enemy so he was aware and like general mattis said you know not too long ago they're talking about general mattis and how come you read so many books and he says because I get to see I get to learn and this is a classic case he he knew he read books about the the French that had fought the Vietnamese what ten years earlier 11 years earlier and that made him more prepared now talking a little bit like I said there's a there's great information in here about the enemy and like I said they went and interviewed and got reports from the enemy and here we go a little bit about the enemy back to the book the soldiers commanded by Brigadier General Chu Huey man had been training for more than 18 months when they joined the People's Army each recruit was issued to khaki shirts two pairs of khaki trousers a sewing kit and a pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals cut from used tire trucks those uniforms were expected to last five years basic training lasted 13 weeks 6 days a week 6 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. the instructors emphasized weapons and tactics the House of warfare while the political commissary had time had time set aside each day to lecture on the whys of this war the recruits were reminded constantly that their fathers had beaten the French colonialists now it was their duty to defeat the American imperialists they were imbued with Ho Chi Minh's dictum nothing is more precious than freedom and independence after basic training some were selected for six months of NCO school and would emerge as new corporals for the rest advanced infantry training included familiarization with all weapons the use of explosive ambush tactics reconnaissance tactics adjusting mortar fire and patrol tactics in June of 1964 man soldiers moved up into the mountains of North Vietnam on Vietnam terrain similar to that in western highlands of South Vietnam here physical conditioning was emphasized they scaled steep slopes while wearing ruck sacks loaded with 50 to 60 pounds of rocks their advanced training now also focused on the art of camouflage when the time came for them to begin the arduous two-month journey down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos general Mann's regiment broke down into battalions for security purposes each moving separately at least three days ahead of the next each soldier carried four pounds of rice seven days rations plus another 8 pounds of foodstuffs that were expected to last him the whole trip 2 pounds of salt 2 pounds of wheat flour and 4 pounds of salt pork one man in every squad carried the aluminium cook pot that would that the squad's rice would be boiled in each man also carried 50 anti malaria pills one for each day on the trail and a hundred vitamin b1 tabs to be taken at the rate of three per week despite the pills virtually every man who walked the trail contracted malaria and on average three or four soldiers of each 160 man company would die on the journey malaria diarrhea accidents poisonous snakes and American air raids took their toll man's soldiers marched nine miles each day the distance between rest camps where they spent each night every day every fourth day they stayed in camp taking the day off to rest up wash their clothes and tend to minor medical problems so this is a legit enemy mmm we're looking at legit enemy organized well-trained hard tough well led and and ready and you can't ever you know this is one of the biggest problems with fighting a counterinsurgency is you're going against someone that's fighting on their home turf and that is just you can't see how do you overcome that advantage well you overcome that advantage with firepower and with some technology but that is a hard advantage to overcome yeah and here's a quote from general an when you landed there you landed right in the middle of three of our battalions of the 66th regiment our service our reserve force it was the strongest we had at full strength the battalions each had about 450 men also there was a headquarters battalion the regiment's total strength was about 1,600 men so they're kind of by chance set up on the same spot where these guys are gonna go in which is LZ x-ray landing zone x-ray and here these they're flying in into the LZ x-ray captain john heron who's Bravo Company troops filled the helicopter recalls it was a cool it was a misty cool morning with some low-hanging fog when we lifted off but shortly after takeoff we broke into the clear and you could see the 105 artillery pounding the areas around the LZ as we headed in Vietnam even in war was scenic with green jungle heavy forested mountains and wild looking rivers criss-crossing the terrain now the helicopters of the aerial rocket artillery slammed the perimeter with rockets grenades and machine-gun fire using 24 of the 48 2.7 inch rockets they carried so it's the it's the same thing that we've heard before its cover move right as you come into a landing zone like they did in d-day what do you do first you bomb the crap out of it you hit it with naval gunfire and they're doing the same thing here they're prepping the landing zone by dropping a bunch of 105 howitzers into the around the surrounding area around the landing zone and then the helicopters once it's too close and the and the howitzers have to turn off then the helicopters start shooting and they do their best to clear of the area around the landing zone that's what's going on back to the book the People's Army commander on the battlefield then Senior Lieutenant Colonel UN who on says when you drop troops into x-ray I was on to pong mountain we had a very strong position and a strong mobile command group we were ready we were ready had prepared for you and expected you to come the only question was when the trees and bush limited our view of the helicopters landing but we had an observation post on top of the mountain and they reported to us when you drop troops and when you move them so you know I talk about all the time about having the high ground well when these guys are landing in a valley mm-hmm and they're surrounded by hanging high ground so it's a your adil you're at a tactical disadvantage there right as soon as just about as soon as they hit the ground they're there for a little while and they get a prisoner the the Americans get a prisoner and here's there's a translator and he translates the prisoners words and here's what the prisoner says or here's what the translator says he says there are three battalions on the mountain who want very much to kill Americans but have not been able to find any now you take that with a grain of salt because it's coming from a prisoner but it's not nothing I'll put it to you that way it's something back to the books only a few rifle shots rang out in the area where the prisoner had been captured sergeant Gil Roth's men were in contact it was now 12:15 p.m. we had to move fast if we were going to survive had get off the landing zone and hit them before they could hit us only if we brought the enemy to battle deep in the trees and brush could we stand even a slim chance of holding on to the clearing and getting the rest of the battalion landed that football-field-sized clearing was our lifeline and our supply line if the enemy closed the way to the helicopters all of us would die in this place so that's one of the or the hard things about helicopter warfare especially in Vietnam well actually anywhere is you gets great you can go a long distance and get in there but then once you're there there's if the helicopters can't come get you out or they can't resupply you you're in real problem you're you're back to the word that I said earlier you're alone yeah back to the book even as the first shots rang out I was raiding Ewing Heron to saddle up the rest of Bravo Company the rest of his his Bravo Company men to move out fast toward the mountain to develop the situation turning to Nadal and he's again I there's all these characters I mean there's there's all the company commanders the platoon commanders the the platoon leaders the platoon sergeants there's the ground troops there's all these characters and and the book does an outstanding job of detailing who all these individuals were what their background was where they came from and I just don't we can't do that right now but that's why you buy the book and you read the book but this guy in the doll is one of the company commanders so here we go turning to Nadal I told him that the original plan was out the window that his Alpha Company should immediately take over LC security and get ready to move up on Bravo companies left when Charlie when enough of Charlie Company and arrived on the next lift to assume the job of securing and clearing so classic you hit the ground and and now all of a sudden the plan is out the window right out the window we're going with our standard operating procedures which is hey we're gonna move a company here you're gonna set up perimeter security and go back to the book in a small cops the other two platoon platoons of Bravo Company men had opened c-ration cans and we're grabbing a bite when they heard the first shots in the brush the older sergeants glanced at one another nodded eat fast they told the men and get ready to move the Battle of LZ x-ray had just begun and it it doesn't take long to begin going back to the book says sergeant Gilreath we were virtually pinned to the ground and taking casualties lieutenant Dennis Diehl remembers that moment davines platoon was taking moderate fire we could all hear it through the foliage and I heard it crackling on my radio owl was in some sort of trouble the firing increased in volume and intensity then I saw my first wounded trooper probably the first American wounded in LZ x-ray he was shot in the neck or mouth or both was still carrying his rifle was ambulatory and appeared stunned at what had happened to him when he asked where to go I put my arm around him and pointed to where I had last seen the battalion commander so it's immediately on and and you of course it is because there's there's three battalions of Vietnamese soldiers there and this is this is how more talking back to the book the military historian SLA Marshall wrote that at the beginning of a battle units fractionalized groping between the antagonists takes place and the battle takes form from all of this Marshall had it right that is precisely what was happening up in the scrub brush above above landing zone x-ray this day and no other single event would have greater impact on the shape of this battle than what lieutenant Henry Herrick was in the process of doing Herrick charged right past lieutenant davines men swung his platoon to the right in hot pursuit of a few fleeting em enemy soldiers and disappeared from sight into the bush says sergeant Ernie Savage of Herricks orders he made a bad decision and we knew at the time it was a bad decision we were breaking contact with the rest of the company we were supposed to come up on the flank of first Platoon in fact we were moving away from them we lost contact with everyone everybody so again this is what I just talked about and it's you're gonna see throughout this book all these principles that we talk about all the time that that we taught and that we live through you can see that these types of things happen and here's a classic thing I was just talking about like when you get out of distance from your supporting elements you're now alone mm-hmm and that's a bad situation to be in back to the book now John Heron was up on my radio reporting that his men were under heavy attack by at least two enemy companies and that his second platoon was in danger of being surrounded and cut off from the rest of the company even as he spoke modern rocket rounds hid in the clearing where I stood my worst case scenario had just come to pass we are now in heavy contact before all my battalion was on the ground and now I had to deal with a cut off platoon my response was an angry shit captain Captain John herons estimate that his Bravo Company men were trying to deal with two enemy companies was slightly off one full enemy battalion more than 500 determined enemy soldiers was boiling down the mountain toward Herrick strapped 2nd platoon and maneuvering near Aldo Vinny's pinned down 1st platoon again here's something that I failed to talk about with helicopter warfare so he's got a battalion of 500 guys 550 guys hmm you can't fit all those guys on 16 helicopters so you've got to do multiple laps and that's what he's he's worried he was worried about it going in that hey I want to get my whole battalion on the ground before the fighting starts he's already failed to do that or maybe he hasn't failed to do it but it didn't happen back to the book I was tempted to join the dolls or Edwards men but resisted the temptation I had no business getting involved with the actions of only one company I might get pinned down and simply become another rifleman my duty was to lead riflemen so there's a you know we talked about the detachment that he said hey look I'm not gonna be up in the helicopter but right now he's saying look I'm not gonna be in a helicopter overhead at 1,500 feet but I'm not gonna be sitting in a platoon as a rifleman slugging it out with the enemy that's not the right place to be either you have in order to lead you have to take a step back you have to detach and he does that to the best of his ability then here we go back to the book just now the snaps and cracks of the rounds passing nearby took on a distinctly different sound like a swarm of bees around our heads I was on the radio trying to hear a transmission over the noise when I felt the firm hand on my right soldier shoulder it was sergeant major Plumlee's he shouted over the racket of the firefight sir if you don't find some cover you're gonna go down and if you go down we all go down Plumlee was right as always anyone waving yelling hand signaling or talking on the radio was instantly targeted by the enemy these guys were quick to spot and shoot leaders radio operators and medics I had never fretted about being wounded in combat in Korea or here but Plumlee brought me up short the game was just beginning this was no time for me to go out of it the sergeant major pointed to a large termite hill six or seven feet high located in some trees in the wastes between the two open areas of the landing zone it was about 30 yards away and three of us turned and ran toward it with bullets kicking up red dirt around our feet and the bees still buzzing around our heads that termite hill the size of a large automobile would become the battalion command post the aid station the supply point the collection area for enemy prisoners weapons and equipment and the place where our dead were brought casualties were now beginning to pile up as we drop behind that termite hill I fleetingly thought about an illustration an illustrious predecessor of mine in the seventh Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his final stay stand in the valley of Little Bighorn in Montana 89 years earlier I was determined that history would not repeat itself in the valley of the eyed rang we were a tight well trained and disciplined fighting force and we had one thing George Custer did not have fire support fire-support plays it it's an it's beyond critical I mean they would not have been able to do this without fire support and that's the one thing that's gonna save them I mean obviously the discipline obviously the training obviously the bravery but the fire support is is a gift mm-hmm back to the book sergeant Steve Hanson was behind and to the right of Lieutenant Taft he says we moved at a trot across the open grass toward the tree line and heard fire up on the finger to the west where we were headed my radio operator friend specialist for Ray Turner ray Tanner and I crossed the stream bed captain Nadal's party and the two other platoons were off to the right lieutenant Taft was well forward as we crossed over into the trees sergeant first class Lorenzo Nathan Ray Turner and I were close maybe 10 yards behind we were moving fast specialists speck for peat winter was near me we ran into a wall of lead every man in the lead squad was shot from the time we got the order to move to the time where men were dying was only 5 minutes the enemy were very close to us and over ran some of our dead the firing was heavy sergeant Nathan pulled us back out of the woods of the streambed Bob Hazen Bob TAFEs radio operator recalls lieutenant Taft got out in front of me I was off to his left he added he had his rady he had the radio handset in his left hand connected to the radio on my back with that flux and flexible rubber wire it got tight and I pulled back on the lieutenant and hollered we're getting off line he glanced back at me turned back to his front and took four more steps then he fired two shots at something I couldn't see what then he dropped facedown on the ground lieutenant Taft was hit I didn't realize how bad until I rolled him over he was shot in the throat and the rounded ricocheted down and come out his left side he was dead and it was difficult to roll him over even though he was a slave built man captain Nadal says the enemy on the mountain started moving down rapidly in somewhat uncoordinated attacks they streamed down the hill and down the creek bed the enemy knew the area they came down the best covered route the 3rd platoon was heavily engaged and the volume of firing reached a crescendo on my left at this time I lost con radio contact with Taft platoon in the center of that fury Bob Hazen struggled and rolled his dead platoon leader over he was gone and there was nothing we could do the first thing I thought of was what they've taught me never let the enemy get his hands on a map or the signals codebook I got those from lieutenant Taft and was kneeling over to try and pull his body back that's when my radio was hit and the shrapnel from the radio hit me in the back of the head it didn't really hurt all the sudden I was just laying face down on the ground next to lieutenant Taft I felt something running down my treeck but down my neck reached back and came out with a handful of blood Carman Miceli was on Hazen's right we knew what had happened the word passed fast they got lieutenant Taft again we're talking within minutes of these guys arriving this is two going completely sideways back to the book captain the doll out of radio contact with taps platoon moved moved toward the furious firing on his left flank to find out what was happening Nadal says my radio operator sergeant Jack Eagle the company communications chief who had volunteered to carry one of my two radios ran with me out from out of the creek bed and into the open area toward Taft's position we ran into sergeant Nathan and I asked him what was happening he said the platoon had been attacked on the left flank the left squad had taken a number of casualties and had pulled back out of the creek bed refusing their left enemy their left flank to the enemy Nathan said Taft had been hit and was left in the creek bed that made me angry we had been taught never to leave any wounded or dead on the battlefield sergeant Gale and I crawled forward of our lines to that creek bed where the enemy were to find Taft we came under grenade attack from the west side of the creek bed but had some cover from a few trees we located Taft dead while bringing him back we saw another soldier who had been left behind after leaving caps body with his platoon gal and I went back again and we picked up the other man back to the book Denis deal remembers we moved online for about a hundred or 150 yards before the volume of firing forced us to stop we were taking too many casualties i radioed Herricks platoon and said i think we're getting close to you shoot one round off wait to the count of three and shoot two more the radioman or whoever was on the radio did that so we had a pretty good fix on where he was we got up and started the assault again we went about ten yards and the whole thing just blew in our faces blew up in our faces the enemy had infiltrated between Herricks platoon and us and now we're starting to come behind us so that platoon that had gotten separated this element with Dennis deal was going out to try and get contact with him and bring him back inside the perimeter they meet they date their assaulting they go 100 yards 150 yards and they start getting mowed down and now they realize that in between they've got bad guys in between where Herricks platoon is and where the rest of the perimeter is set up because they do have kind of a rough perimeter on this on this landing zone in the landing zone apologize for not explaining this I mean in order to bring in helicopters in the jungle you need some open space so the landing zone LZ x-ray has an area where there's not much of foliage for whatever reason and so that's where they've kind of consolidated their forces only because they can't go anywhere else they hit the ground they start getting shot at so now they're setting up what's called a perimeter and obviously Herricks platoon is outside the perimeter back to the book lieutenant deal adds that he and another he and the other two platoon leaders now began planning yet another attempt to break through and rescue Herricks men leaders were running back and forth coordinating when all the sudden firing began the lull dissipated quickly it was at this time my weapon squad leader sergeant Currie the chief was killed his last words were those bastards are trying to get me he was caught rolling around on the ground later on as my men were carrying him back I had them put him down and turned his face toward me and looked at him I could not conceive of chief being dead Staff Sergeant Wilbur Curie jr. of Buffalo New York was 35 years old Herrick and the other two squads were holding precariously to the small Knoll near the bottom of the finger savage so a a kid named savage is out there with Herricks platoon and he ends up running a lot of stuff and you'll find that out but here here we start hearing a little bit of him right now savage teamed up with McHenry squad which was pinned to the ground Herrick was with that squad sergeant Valens squad was off to the left rear savage checked on his men when he tied up with McHenry he knew that spec for Robert M Hill m79 Grenadier was no longer with them he got killed in there somewhere he had his m79 and a 45 caliber pistol and he was firing both at the same time the 23 year old hill came from Starkville Mississippi and here's sergeant savage talking explaining some more back to the book the enemy was past the machine gun before it ever quit firing I could hear sergeant hurtle down there cursing even more even over the firefight I heard him he was famous for that motherfucker son of a bitch I could hear him hollering that down there when they through then they threw grenades on him hurdle 36 was from Washington DC baron bomb 24 was a native of New York City PFC Donald rowdy 22 hailed from Ann Arbor Michigan the three of them died in a hail of rifle fire and enemy grenades the enemy down below turned surgeon hurdles m60 around and began using it on the Americans on the knoll so that causes all kinds of confusion you can tell the difference between different types of weapons by the way they sound when they shoot and when someone starts shooting a friendly weapon at you it causes a lot of confusion and the m60 is a beast of a weapon belt-fed machine gun and it's when I've gotten the SEAL Teams that was the that was the machine gun that that we used was the m60 machine gun and it's a devastating weapon back to the book the enemy more than 150 strong now attacked the knoll from three sides north south and east and soldiers on both sides were falling lieutenant Herrick ran from trooper to trooper trying to get a defense organized an enemy volley cut across Herrick his radio operator specialist John R Stewart and the three reeked and the artillery recon sergeant sergeant John T Brown wounding all three Herrick and Browne seriously Stewart took a single bullet through the leg Herrick radioed Bravo Company Commander John Herron and told him he had been hit and he was turning command of the platoon over to sergeant Carl Palmer Eric then gave explicit instructions to his men to destroy the signals codes redistribute the ammunition and call an artillery and if possible make a break for it Herron says I give Herrick all the credit in the world for pulling that platoon together so they could make their stand so should we all savage ands Allen paint a clear picture of a green young lieutenant who did a superb job in a hailstorm of enemy fire his platoon stopped the very large North Vietnamese unit clearly heading down to join the attack on the landing zone i long ago concluded that the very presence of this platoon so far to the northwest confused the enemy commander as to exactly where we were and how far we had penetrated in all directions and thus helped us helped us as the battle built sergeant savage recounts the final moments of Henry Herricks life he was lying beside me on the hill and he said if I have to die I'm glad to give my life for my country I remember him saying that he was going into shock hit in the hip and in a lot of pain he didn't live long he died early in the fight next to a little brush pile speck for Charles Arlo's 22 of mobile ammo Alabama was the new platoon medic he joined a platoon only a few days earlier lieutenant Herrick was kneeling when hit he had a bullet wound to the hip he told me to go help the other wounded yeah it's we have to remember that this guy Herrick is like 22 23 year old fresh out of him he's a first he might even be 21 and he made that majorly offensive move and pursued and gone out of touch but what how Moore is saying hey that confused the enemy even though it confused the friendlies do it confused the enemy as well so there's some there's some good that came out of it back to the book sergeant Rueben Thomas was struck by a bullet above his heart that exited under his left arm bleeding heavily he grabbed a rifle and fought on the encircled infantrymen of the lost platoon refused to give up here's what specialist doorman said we were all on the ground now and if you moved you got hit our training really showed then we shifted into defensive positions we had five men killed in 25 minutes then all of a sudden they try to mass assault from three directions rushing from Bush to Bush laying fire on us we put our hem 16s on full automatic and have killed most of them another guy named Galen bung-bung bung-bung um said we gathered up all the full magazines we could find and stacked them up in front of us there was no way we could dig a foxhole the handle was blown off my entrenching tool and one of my canteens had a hole blown through it the fire was so heavy that if he tried to raise up to dig you were dead there was death and destruction all around by now eight men of the platoons 29 have been killed in action another 13 were wounded the 25 yard wide perimeter was a circle of pain death fear and raw courage medic Charlie Lowe's crawled from man to man throughout the rage and firefight doing his best to patch the wounded with limited supplies in his medical pack although he himself was wounded twice Lowe's never slowed his pace he would keep all 13 of the wounded alive for the 426 long harrowing hours Lowe's says on several occasions I had to stand or sit up to treat the wounded each time the VC fired heavily at me Lowe's used his 45 and m16 rifle to help defend his patients of getting attacked from three sides thirteen wounded eight dead was it nine dead unbelievable back to the book command had passed so this is talking about you know when someone if the leader gets killed it goes to the next person that person gets killed it goes the next person so here's what's happening in Herricks platoon the lost platoon back to the book command had passed from lieutenant Henry Herrick to sergeant Carl Palmer to sergeant Robert Stokes and each in turn died fighting now it was the turn of Buck sergeant Ernie Savage sergeant savage came up on the radio captain Herron recalls he said Herrick Palmer and Stokes were dead to give him more artillery and he would direct it in as close as possible we could never establish the platoons exact position but lieutenant riddle could have just fire on savages sensing and he began to do that the extraordinary unyielding resistance that the dozen or so effective fighting fighters were putting up plus the artillery barrages that Ernie savage was bringing down finally beat off the heavy enemy attack Ernie Savage and his small band hunkered down determined to hold their ground to the end yeah and these guys are calling in to Danger Close if we were talking about Danger Close no no Kay Danger Close is when you're calling in fire support and you want it to be very close to where you are and you on the ground have to take responsibility for it so in other words the the person whether it's artillery or whether it's aircraft you have to call and say danger-close yes send the rounds we know it's close it's we take responsibility for what happens hmm and by the way going back to the book as this fifth left lift of the day roared out at treetop level the landing zone will suddenly turned red-hot so they haven't even landed everyone yet this is going on they haven't gotten everyone on the landing zone yet and here's Crandall talking and again he's the the pilot unbelievably heroic pilot and commanding officer of this helicopter unit says Crandall as I was flaring out to touchdown we started receiving heavy heavy ground fire I had three dead and three wounded on my bird the wounded included my crew chief who had been hit in the throat when we landed we saw that every bullet had struck the wounded in the head or neck excellent marksmanship by the other side and not a happy thought for a helicopter pilot to say the least so the enemy's taken headshots back to the book with Crandall flying serpent yellow three where Chief Warrant officers Ricardo J Lombardo 34 of Hartford Connecticut and Alex s pop Jekyll 43 of Seattle Washington pop Jekyll was a father of nine children during World War two at the age of twenty he had flown b-24s out of England and b-29s during the post-war years until he left the service in 1950 pop Jekyll re-enlisted in 1952 and had been flying helicopters since 1963 pop Jekyll keyed the intercom and said I flew 31 missions in in b-24s in World War two and that's the closest I've ever come to swallowing my balls so these these landing zones were crazy with these helicopter pilots flying in there it's a it's you're here you're getting there as fast as you can but there's not much you can do you know you bring it in as fast as you can you try and get loaded up quick and you try and take off but it's not like you're able to shoot back even once you're on the ground your machine gunners in the Huey's they can't shoot anymore because you don't know where the friendly troops are so you're a sitting duck literally a sitting duck and these pilots going in time and time and time again this goes to the Delta company commander Lefebvre and here's what's going on Lefebvre seriously wounded was phasing was fading fast I had lost a lot of blood I could see people shooting but I couldn't hear any sounds anymore I told John Heron somebody had to take over I called again Colonel Moore and told him that I was going to turn over the company to sergeant Gonzales then the medic arrived to bandaged my wounds after I remember someone putting me in a poncho and hauling me over to the area of the battalion command post when I saw a lieutenant - Bona again later we never did talk much about it it was just too damn close to the real thing ray Lefebvre and his handful of Delta Company troopers had unknowingly joined the Alpha Company flight at a crucial moment about 30 North Vietnamese were flanking Nadal's men on their left and captain Lefevre the febris party ran smack into them and killed most of them the dolls men dispatched the rest unknown to Lefevre sergeant Gonzales had been hit in the face by an enemy bullet Gonzales simply said Rodger when Lefevre told him he was now in command and for the next half hour and a half he ran Delta Company sergeant Gonzales shot in the face no factor I mean is still going to take leadership right now going back to the book it was during all this horror that Beck remembers fear coming over him and hears back talking while doc null was here with me working on Russell fear real fear hit me fear like I had never known before fear comes and once you recognize it and accept that it passes just as fast as it comes and you really don't have to think about it anymore you just do what you have to do but you learn the real meaning of fear and life and death for the next two hours I was alone on that gun shooting the enemy anymore shooting at me and bullets were hitting the ground beside me and cracking above my head they were attacking me and I fired as fast as I could in long bursts my m60 was cooking I had to take a crap and a leak bad so I pulled my pants down while laying on my side and did it on my side taking fire at the time now we're going back to how more talking here from my command post at the termite hill the enemy were clearly visible 100 yards to the south they were damned good soldiers used covered concealment to perfection and were deadly shots most of my dead and wounded soldiers had been shot in the head or upper body the North Vietnamese pay particular attention to radio operators and leaders they did not appear to have radios themselves they controlled their men by shouts waves pointing whistles and sometimes bugle calls it was 2:45 p.m. all three of my rifle companies were heavily engaged we had lost the use of the larger clearing for the helicopter landings wounded were streaming into the command post aid station we were in a desperate fix and I was worried that it could become even more desperate by now I believed we were fighting at least two people's armies battalions turns out it was three they were very determined to wipe us out but a major difference between Lieutenant Colonel when who on of the People's Army of Vietnam and Lieutenant Colonel how more of the 1st Cavalry Division was that I had major fire support and he didn't Air Force captain Bruce Wallace and his fellow a1 Skyraider pilots as well as the jet fighter bombers from all three services helped provide that edge flying 50 sorties in close air support that Sunday afternoon says Wallace the importance of airplanes in a vulgar brawl is to be down among the palm trees with the troops putting ordnance on the ground at the exact time in the precise place that the ground command needs it and then so he there in these old school sky Raiders but then captain Wallace is talking about what it was like watching the helicopters back to the book with it it was different with a Huey to watch for a to them at a time maneuvering up and down and laterally and even backwards boggles the fighter pilots mind those guys swarm a target like bees over honey I had to hand it to those Huey guys they really got down there in the with the troops then this is Hal mer Hal more talking again the field artillery what we call tube artillery to distinguish howitzer folks from the helicopter rocket folks proudly calls itself the king of battle the brave cannon cockers and LZ Falcon went without sleep for three days and three nights to help keep us surrounded by a wall of Steel those two batteries twelve guns fired more than four thousand rounds of high-explosive shells on the first day alone says Barker on the first afternoon both batteries fired for effect directly on target for five straight hours one of Bruce krandalls huey slick pilots captain paul Winkle touched down at falcon briefly that at first afternoon and was astounded by what he saw there were stacks of shell casings at least ten feet high and exhausted gun crews they had fired for effect for three state straight hours by then without even pausing to level the bubbles one tube was burned out two it busted hydraulics that's some shooting no matter how bad things got for Americans fighting for their lives on the xray perimeter we can look out to the scrub brush in every direction into that seething inferno of exploding artillery shells 2.75 inch rockets napalm canisters 250 and 500 pound bombs and 20 millimeter cannon fire and thank God and our lucky stars that we didn't have to walk through that to get to work yeah so like I said the the close air support is absolutely or the close air support the artillery is absolutely what and that's that's been happened many on many occasions for for American soldiers sailors Marines overseas fighting you know the Air Force the Navy pilots the Marine Corps fire pilots coming in and actually the guy on the ground controlling these guys is a Air Force pilot as well so having that air superiority is a wonderful thing now speaking of the Aviators going back to the helicopters chapter 9 in this book is called brave aviators in it again his sitting ducks coming in is crazy to read about going back to the book over the 20 months of airmobile training a bond had been welded between the infantry and their rides the Huey helicopter pilots and crewmen now the strength of that bond will be tested in the hottest of fires if the air bridge failed so the meaning the helicopters ability to gain there if the air bridge failed the embattled men of 1st battalion 7th calves would certainly die in much the same way George Armstrong Custer's cavalry men died at Little Bighorn caught off surrounded by numerically superior forces overrun and butchered to the last man I asked Bruce can't krandalls brave air crews of Alpha Company the 229th aviation battalion for the last measure of devotion for service far beyond the limits of duty and mission and they came through as I knew they would and that so so again you're basically asking these guys to get shot down every time they fly in and this is interesting back to the book this was early in the war and the medevac commanders had decreed that their birds would not land in hot landing zones in other words that they would not go where they were needed when when they were needed the most even before I asked Bruce Crandall that our decided to begin doing everything that had to be done staying with it Crandall now dropped this Huey loaded with casualties onto the red dirt strip when we and this is this is Grand Crandall talkin when we hit the ground we were met by medics and infantry troops still waiting to be lifted into x-ray so that's another crazy thing to think about you're you're unloading wounded men and you're and you're getting on that aircraft that's gonna go pick up more men but you're going to stay so the troops that aren't on the ground yet think about what's going through their minds they may remove the dead and you want to know what's going through their minds I actually actually know what's going through their mind they're going most of those guys are saying get me in there as fast as you can that's what they're saying these are their brothers out there back to the book they removed the dead and wounded from my bird and this act is engraved in my mind deeper than any other experience in my two tours in Vietnam a huge black enlisted man clad only in shorts and boots hands bigger than dinner plates reached into my helicopter to pick up one of the dead white soldiers he had tears streaming down his face and he tenderly created cradled that dead soldier to his chest as he walked slowly from the aircraft to the medical station I never knew if the man he picked up was his buddy or not I suspect not his grief was for a fallen comrade and for the agony that violent death brings to those who witness it more about the helicopters back to the book one of the ships brought in larry linton who immediately took over command of Delta Company from the wounded sergeant Gonzales I told him to add the four Delta mortars to consolidate mortar position set up by captain Edwards and to control all seven mortars from a single fire Direction center principal direction of fire was towards alpha and Bravo companies and the mortar men would also have the mission of defending our two chopper landing zones least the reason I highlighted that is even though I talk about decentralized command all the time and how more starts off the book talking about how important decentralized command is he's right now in that in that moment he's centralizing command he needs to get control of all the mortars so that they can use it correctly so again that's why it's the dichotomy of leadership because you can there's times when you most the time you decentralized but you can actually decentralized too much and if you don't coordinate the efforts of these mortars you're not going to use them effectively so he centralizes the command of the mortars brings them all into one location and starts using them effectively so that's a good note for leaders to remember now here's another platoon commander Joe marm Joe marm describes the situation in his platoon my platoon medic was a short-timer and did not accompany us to chew pong sergeant first class George McCauley the platoon sergeant carried the aid kit and we plan to use Staff Sergeant Thomas Tolliver as our medic when the need arose he had been a combat medic during the Korean War and was well qualified still we did not have enough medics to go around so we sent down specialist Buch Knight and specialist Charles Lowe's a senior medical aid man as platoon medics to Bravo Company now Calvin Boop night still alive but mortally wounded was laid gently on the ground and his blood filled rubber poncho before the medical platoon sergeant sergeant first class Keaton his friend and comrade for the last two years and here's what Keaton says Buch Knight wasn't dead he was shot right between the soldiers right directly between the sole shoulders he reached up and took my hand and said Sarge I didn't make it we got an IV started on him and put a pressure bandage over his back wound there was just no hope we were able to get him on an evac ship but he died the scriptures say that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends this is what Calvin book Knight did in that fire filled jungle he sheltered the wounded he was treating with his own body his back to the enemy guns completely vulnerable and here's how more it was now 3:45 p.m. and except for the predicament of Sergeant Savage and the cutoff platoon I was feeling a good deal better about the situation we had all of our men in massive firepower had been deployed a company of reinforcements was on the way our two chopper lifeline landing zone was secure most of our wounded were either evacuated or awaiting evacuation and we were holding tough I was determined to make one more attempt to rescue sergeant savage and all his wounded and dead on the slope I ordered alpha and Bravo companies to evacuate their casualties withdraw out of close contact with the enemy under covering fires and prepare to launch a coordinated attack supported by heavy prepare to worry artillery fire to reach the cutoff platoon I was tortured by the fate of those men and the need to rescue them in chapter 10 is called fix bayonets which can give you an indication back to the book alpha and Bravo companies the first units to land had now been locked in violent battle for more than two hours had suffered no small number of casualties especially among the sergeants and radio operators and it shot up most of their ammunition that's another thing we got to remember the movies they never run out of ammunition right unless it makes some theatrical point yet plot point right they also in the movies there's plenty of water oh they're in the jungle they got plenty water these guys don't have water out here mmm no water no food and now they're running out of ammunition the two commanders Toni Nadal and Jon Herron needed time to evacuate they're dead and wounded to reorganize and regroup their diminished platoons and designate new leaders and to replenish stocks of ammunitions of ammunition and grenades they would have 40 minutes to accomplish this then heavy artillery fire would lain down ahead of them as they kicked off one more attempt to break through the ring of enemy troops and rescue the survivors of lieutenant Henry Herrick 2nd platoon meanwhile help was on the way back at 3rd brigade headquarters in the tea plantation the orders were going out our sister battalion the 2nd battalion 7th that one of its companies Bravo was being detached and sent to landing x-ray landing zone x-ray to reinforce on arrival in x-ray Bravo Company 2nd battalion would come under my operational control for the duration of the fight so there's a there's two battalions each battalion has a number of companies in them and they're gonna take one of the companies from the other battalion and let him let them come in as reinforcements captain Myron did Urich Bravo Company troops won the toss hand down so the there was a bunch of different companies there and they were all doing various things but Myron did Derek's company was actually I think they were they were standing guard or they were closest by and so they're the ones that were going and it's it's it's probably a good thing because this guy captain Derek is a complete badass as Woolsey Bravo Company 2nd battalion had good solid professional non comms and it's troop had served together for some for a long time it was a good rifle company I was happy to get it captain - Derek was 27 years old a native-born Ukrainian who had come to the United States with his family in 1950 he was an ROTC graduate from st. Peter's College in in Jersey City New Jersey and was commissioned in July of 1960 he completed paratrooper and Ranger training and had served tours in Germany and at Fort Benning diderik was married and the father of two children while our reinforcements were saddling up my alpha and Bravo companies were about to launch their second attempt to break through to lieutenant Herrick strapped lateen John Herron and Toni Nadal had pulled their men back to the dry creek bed during the law so they would begin they attack from their platoon sergeant Troy Miller remembers the scene our morale was very high after the first contact before we went off before we went after the colonel attuned captain Nadal got us together and said men we've got an American platoon caught off out there and we're going after them the replies word yeah and let's go get them at Gary Owen and Gary Owen is the it's like the war cry of the of the cavalry so and there's a comes from an old song and it's it's just a historical thing and that's why you read the book you can find out about Gary Owen it's their marching song back to the book captain Toni Nadal Alpha Company was the first man out of the creek bed leading first Platoon in the assault he recalls we moved about fifty yards when we ran into the enemy force which had come down the mountain I presume they were preparing to launch their attack about the time we launched ours the fighting quickly became very vicious at close range we took many casualties lieutenant wayne johnson the 1st platoon leader was hit at least three other squad leaders were also hit two of them killed one while going forward in attempt to rescue one of his soldiers against direct orders against direct orders I'm going out to get my buddy Tony Nidal had ordered his men to fix bayonets for the attack Bill Beck firing a burst from his m60 machine gun to his right front was transfixed by what he saw just forward a tall thin sergeant bayonetting of North Vietnamese in the chest it was just like practiced against the straw dummies forward thrust pull out move on one two three captain Toni Nadal had four men and his command group as he charged into the brush two radio operators sergeant Jack del and a 25 year-old native New Yorker and specialist spec Ford John Clarke of Michigan plus the company's artillery forwarded observer lieutenant Timothy M Blake 24 from Charleston West Virginia and Blake's recon sergeant sergeant Floyd L read jr. 27 years old of Heth Arkansas as they moved up Nidal had the radio handset to his ear a burst of enemy machine-gun fire swept across the group sergeant gale was hit and dropped without a sound Nidal kept moving until the long black cord pulled back on him he was looking around to see what was wrong the same burst that killed sergeant Gale had also killed lieutenant Blake and suck instructs sergeant Reed who died shortly thereafter sergeant Sam Holman native sergeant Sam Holman jr. and native offense of a native Pennsylvanian knelt beside his mortally wounded buddy Jack Dell and heard him gasp tell my wife I love her Toni Nadal had no time to mourn Jack now Jack L a man he greatly respected too many other lives were in his hands on the right flank of the Bravo line lieutenant deal was now rolling around on the ground desperately trying to dodge a valley of machine-gun slugs cutting through the grass all around him suddenly 25 yards away Deol saw an American get up and charged forward while everyone around him was flat on his belly says deal I saw him throw a grenade behind an anthill and empty his weapon into it then he fell to his knees I said to myself please get up don't be hurt I didn't know who it was I couldn't make out the form there was so much battlefield haze dust and smoke it was lieutenant Joe marm he had spotted an enemy machine-gun dug into a big termite hill it was chewing up both Bravo Company platoons after failing to knock it out with a law rocket and a grenade and a thrown grenade he decided to deal with it directly he charged through the fire tossed a hand grenade behind the hill and then cleaned up the survivors with his m16 rifle the following day lieutenant al Deveny found him dead North Vietnamese officer and 11 enemy soldiers sprawled behind that termite mound says deal Joe marm saved my life and the lives of many others lieutenant mom staggered back to his position with a bullet wound to his jaw and neck he joined a growing stream of walking wounded flowing back toward the battalion aid station sergeant Keaton treated mARMS wound and one of Bruce Kendall's krandalls Huey's evacuated him to the rear within days lieutenant Joe marm was recuperating at Valley Forge Army Hospital near his home in Pennsylvania in December of 1966 Joe marm reported to the Pentagon with a secretary of the army acting on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson presented him with the Medal of Honor the nation's highest award for valor dome arms heroic action unfortunately failed to open the door to the cutoff platoon Bravo Company had progressed only about 75 yards Alpha Company a bit further all through of Nadal's platoon leaders were now either dead or wounded as were many of his non comms worse yet alpha company's first Platoon had gotten out ahead of the two other and was heavily engaged with perhaps a hundred enemy some of the north some of the Alpha troopers bypassed the enemy in dense brush and those North Vietnamese had opened up on them not only were we unable to punch through to rescue her ex platoon we were now in danger of having another platoon cut off and again I apologize it's one of the things I should have talked about was the way this terrain is set up right so there's a lot of grass like I would say waist-high grass maybe a little bit taller than waist high and it's if you take cover you can't say anything mm-hmm because you're in grass yeah if you stand up you get shot so it's it's a terrible catch-22 do you stand up so you can see what's happening and see where people are going and see where the enemy is maneuvering and you might get shot or do you lay down where you take comfort you have a better chance of not getting shot but you can't see anything captain to Dirac ran up to me and shouted Garryowen sir now this is this is awesome so captain diderik is the guy that's coming in - he's from 2:7 he's coming in as reinforcements and like I said Gary Owen is like their war cry yeah so here we go captain - Derek ran up to me and shout so this is how more talking he's on this embroided war zone been taking so many casualties and here's what Hal Moore says captain - Derek ran up to me and shouted Gary Owen sir captain - Derek and Bravo Company 2nd battalion 7th cavalry 120 men strong reporting for duty his eyes sparkled with excitement and the challenge of the situation I told the directors to assemble his men in a clump of trees 30 yards northwest of the command post to act as a battalion reserved for the time being it's awesome coming reporter Gary Owen Garriott sir captain Udall says the fight continued for another 20 or 30 minutes with neither side making headway it was getting dark and casualties mounted and I decided we were not going to be able to break through I called Colonel Moore and asked for permission to pull back and here's what Colonel Moore says with night approaching there was no real choice I did not want to get into the hours of darkness with my battalion fragmented with the companies incapable of mutual support and subject to defeat in detail Ward came over the radio and this and so now this is a specialist Galen Buncombe who's out there with the loss platoon back to the book word came over the radio that we would have to hang on till morning I could not believe what I heard I thought there was no way we would be able to do that others thought the same thing Clarke kept asking me do you think we'll make it I didn't know but I said we have to pray and pray hard it was a big question mark in all of our minds we had to keep our cool and bear down and now we hear from Hal Moore again I now considered the toll this days fighting had taken Tony into dolls Alpha Company had lost three officers and 31 enlisted men enlisted men killed or wounded and now reported effective strength of two officers and 84 enlisted John Heron's Bravo Company had lost one officer and 46 enlisted men killed or wounded and was down to four officers and 68 enlisted men with one platoon Eric's trapped outside the perimeter for almost eight hours I had been involved in the minute-to-minute direction of the battle now I wanted to personally walk the perimeter and check the preparations for what promised to be a tough night and another tough day tomorrow just before dark sergeant major Plumlee and I broke away from the command post and set out to check the perimeter talking with the troopers and getting for a feel for the situation on the ground what concerned me the most was the morale of the men how well the companies were tied in their defensive fire plans and the situation with ammunition and water supplies morale among the men was high although there was understandable grief over the friends we had lost the men and I talked the men I talked with realized that we were facing a fierce determined enemy but he failed to break through our lines they knew the fight wasn't over I heard weary soldiers saying things like we'll get him sir and they won't get through us sir their fighting spirit had not dimmed and they made me proud and humble in every one of my companies that had landed in this place this morning there were 15 to 20 soldiers who had less than two weeks left to go in the army some of those men now lay dead wrapped in Poncho's near my command post the rest of them were out on that perimeter standing shoulder to shoulder with their buddies ready to continue the fight 37 miles to the northeast Bruce Crandall and Big Ed Freeman finally shut down their Huey's at alarm at a huge helicopter pad nicknamed the turkey farm outside the wire at Camp Holloway they had been flying non-stop since 6:00 a.m. it was after 10:00 p.m. when Crandall shut down and tried to get out of the aircraft that is when the day's activities caught up with me my legs gave out as I stepped on the skid and I fell to the ground for the next few minutes I vomited I was very embarrassed and it took some time to regain my composure someone slipped me a bottle of cognac into my hand and I took a big slug it was a waste of good booze it came up as fast as it went down I finally quit shaking and made it to the operations tend to recap the day and plan the next the aviation unit had quite a day we had not suffered a single fatality and we had not left the mission undone when our infantry brothers called we hauled the standard for combat assaults with helicopters had been sent on this day I wondered about tomorrow would it be worse I wasn't sure I could handle another day like today then again I thought about the troops in x-ray and the choice was not mine to make and here's how more talking about the wounded back to the book all of the wounded all of our wounded flown out of x-ray by krandalls Huey's ended up at Charlie Company 15th medical battalion 1st Cavalry Division which was temporarily set up in tents at Camp Holloway the executive officer of Charlie med was Captain George H killing 28 from st. Louis Missouri Charlie meds five surgeons tried to stabilize the soldiers coming off the helicopters the treatment we provided says kenneling was designed to keep the blood flowing through the patient system until he could be gotten to a hospital which had the personnel and equipment to perform definitive surgery Charlie meds doctors tied off perforated blood vessels to stop the hemorrhaging and then pumped in whole blood telling recalls that many of the casualties will rapidly bleeding to death so it was a race against time to get blood into the soldier faster than he was losing it even while the surgeons were trying to tie off bleeders we threw caution to the wind and gave a patient four cut downs which is an intravenous tube tied into blood vessels with four corpsman squeezing the blood bags as hard as they could it was not unusual for the patient to shiver and quake and lose body temperature from the rapid transfusion of so much cold blood but the alternative was to let him die so they're giving blood directly into the veins and they've got corpsman standing there squeezing the bags of blood to try and keep people alive back on Elsie here's Sergeant John shtetl and talking they probed us all night long we had a few men wounded I had never been in a situation like that when they would come at us they would come screaming and we could hear bugles as darkness fell Savage was on the radio with lieutenant bill riddle herons artillery forward absorb observer walking the high-explosive barrage is all around the cutoff platoon all of us were lifted off the ground by the impact and covered with dirt and branches Buncombe recalls Savage told them on the radio that was right where we want them we hollered that it was too close but I looked back were those first rounds hit and saw three men running towards us we opened up they must have been crawling up on our position when that artillery came in they would sneak in as close as ten yards or less and many times just stand up to laugh at us we would mow them down it begins to work on your mind what are they laughing at I couldn't believe it the North Vietnamese launched three separate attacks to keep the pressure on the trapped second platoon during that long night each time sending about 50 men against the Americans and each time being beaten back by artillery and rifle fire savage had seven men unhurt and 13 wounded nine others were dead some of the loss platoons wounded continue to fight including Sergeant Reuben Thompson who had been shot through the chest a platoon later heard still another large enemy force moving down the northern trail toward x-ray and again brought artillery fire down on them this was followed by a flurry of hand grenades back and forth at about 4:30 a.m. within an hour the first light in the eastern sky revealed dozens of khaki clad enemy dead scattered all around the little knoll the trap platoon had survived the longest night any of them would ever know they checked their ammunition and prepared to receive a dawn attack and here's one of the platoon sergeants talking patoot sergeant Robert Simmons and Jemison at first light we sent out on patrol Staff Sergeant Sidney Cohen spec for Arthur L Bronson and three other men were picked to go says Jemison they saved us from being surprised they spotted the enemy on their way back into an attack position they came running back with Bronson screaming their common Sarge a lot of them get ready I told them machine gunners to hold their fire until they were closed PFC Willie God bolt 24 of Jacksonville Florida was hit while firing from his position 20 yards to sergeant Jameson's right Jemison remembers gal bolt hollering somebody help me I yet I'll go get him lieutenant Joe Haeg they would go the Joe jiggin George Aiken PFC Willie F God bolt 24 of Jacksonville Florida was hit while firing from his position 20 yards to Sergeant Jemison's right Jemison remembers gall bolt was hollering somebody help me I yelled I'll go get him lieutenant George Hagan yelled back no I will George Aiken moved out of his position in the foxhole to help God bolt and was shot this was ten minutes or so from the time the firing first broke out struck in the back of the head lieutenant john lance jack joe jegan was killed instantly the man he was trying to save PFC god bolt died of his wounds shortly afterward the enemy was now closed to within 75 yards of Edwards line they were firing furiously some crouched low and at times crawling on their hands and knees others no taller than the elephant grass they were passing through came on standing up and shooting they advanced screaming at each other and Edwards men leaders were blowing whistles and using hand and arm signals a few were even carrying 82 millimeter mortar tubes and base plates this was clearly an no hit-and-run affair they had come to stay and here's Joe Stedman talking or sergeant John Sarge Anse Devlin it was John Steadman talking it seemed like half a battalion hit us all at once he hit us headlong and he hit us strong I thought we were going to be overrun when Charlie hit us he had this strange grazing fire he shot right at ground level trying to cut off your legs or if you weren't deep enough in your foxhole he shot your head off when he started firing at us it came like torrents of rain you just couldn't get your head long up long enough to shoot back you just stuck up your weapon pulled the trigger and emptied the magazine lieutenant Charlie Hastings our forward air controller had already swung into action sensing disaster Hastings made an immediate instinctive decision I used the codeword Broken Arrow which meant the American unit on the in contact was in danger of being overrun and we received all available aircraft in South Vietnam for close air support we had aircraft stacked at a thousand foot intervals from 7,000 feet to 35,000 feet each waiting to receive a target and deliver their ordnance and here's how more by now I was convinced that the enemy was making a primary effort to overrun us from the south and southeast and I alerted the reserve platoon for probable commitment into Charlie or Delta Company sectors the noise of the battle was unbelievable never before or since and two wars have I heard anything equal to it and here's specialist Arthur Vieira the gunfire was very loud we were getting overrun on the right side lieutenant Kroger came out into the open in all this I thought that was pretty good he yelled at me I got up to hear him he hollered at me to help cover the left sector I ran over to him and by the time I got there he was dead he had lasted a half an hour I knelt beside him took off his dad dog tags and put them in my shirt pocket I went back to firing my m79 and got shot right in the elbow my m79 went flying and I was knocked over and fell backward over the lieutenant Vieira now grabbed his 45 pistol and began firing it left-handed and he says then I got hit in the neck and the bullet went right through I couldn't talk or make a sound I got up and tried to take charge and was shot off with a third round that one blew up my right leg and put me down it went in my leg above the ankle traveled up came back out then went into my groin and ended up in my back close to my spine just then two stick grenades blew up right over me and tore up both of my legs I reached down with my left hand and touched a grenade fragments on my left leg and it felt like I touched a red-hot poker my hands just sizzled unbelievable attack and I think that script description right there really spells out how intense this was and when obviously we got chrome more saying that this is the loudest thing he's ever heard in two wars that also confirms what we're dealing with here back to the book at 7:45 a.m. the enemies struck at the left flank of toning dolls alpha company at the critical elbow where alpha and Charlie companies were tied in we will now under attack from three directions grazing fire from rifles and machine guns shredded the elephant grass and swept over the battalion command post an aid station leaves bark and small branches branches fluttered down on us several troopers were wounded in the same command post and at least one was killed my radio operator spec for Robert Peel let 23 years old had a perspective of a speckled 6-4 from Madawaska Maine was hit and slumped over in a sprawl unmoving and seemingly dead I kept the handset to my ear and here's Joe Galloway the reporter the incoming fire was only a couple of feet off the ground and I was down as flat as I could get when I felt the toe of a combat boot in my ribs I turned my head sideways and looked up there standing tall was sergeant major basil Plumlee Plumlee lean down and shouted over the noise the guns you can't take no pictures laying down there on the ground sunny he was calm fearless and grinning I thought he's right we're all going to die anyways so I might as well take mine standing up I got up and began taking a few photographs Plumlee moved over to the aid station pulled out his 45 chambered around and informed dr. Carrera and his medics gentlemen prepare to defend yourselves so clone we thought they were getting overrun - or at least gonna get close you're in the aid station that's in the center of this whole perimeter and he's pulling out his 45 and saying prepare to defend yourselves you can't make that up specialist Willard F Parrish 24 years old and a native of Bristow Oklahoma was an assistant squad leader of one of Charlie company's 81-millimeter mortar squads Parris was one of the mortar men who had been outfitted with the spare machine guns and rifles collected from our casualties input on the Delta Company perimeter Parrish recalls when we were hit I remember all the tracer rounds and I wondered how even an ant could get through that back to a right we started hearing the guys hollering they're coming around they're coming around I was in a foxhole with a guy from Chicago Jay PFC James II Coleman and he had an m16 I had my 45 in his 45 and I had an m60 machine gun we were set up facing out into the tall grass I was looking out front and I could see some of the grass going down like someone was crawling in it I hollered who's out there nobody answered and I hollered again no answer I turned to I turned to Coleman burn his ass Coleman said my rifles jammed I looked at him and him at me then I looked to the front and they were growing out of the weeds I just remember getting that machine gun from there on out and the training takes over and you put your mind somewhere else because I really don't remember what specifically I did I was totally unaware of the time the conditions on that m60 machine gun according to the extracts from his Silver Star citation specialist Paris parish delivered a lethal fire on wave after wave of the enemy until he ran out of ammunition then standing up under fire with a 45 pistol in each hand Parrish fired clip after clip into the enemy who were 20 yards out and he stopped their attack says Parrish I feel like I didn't do any more than anybody else did up there I remember a lot of noise a lot of yelling and then all at once it was quiet the silence out in front of Willard Parrish was that of this Cemetery more than a hundred dead North Vietnamese were later found where they had fallen in a semicircle around his foxhole 45 in each hand that's that's crazy actually I mean you yeah he's he's going to a whole nother level yeah because you can't reload you know you can't reload your pistol so maybe he maybe he would stand up fire both just dump a mag and each around and each pistol get back down reload them both but then he get up that's after he used all of his 60 ammo George Fox 25 and Nathaniel Byrd 22 were slumped across their silent m60 machine gun surrounded by heaps of empty shell casings and empty ammunition cans they had died together shoulder to shoulder sergeant Jemison pays them the ultimate compliment of a professional soldier bird and Fox did a great job they kept firing that gun and didn't leave it they stayed on it to the end so all this closed air sports coming in this whole time artillery is coming in the whole time and all of a sudden they get a situation where they start they see aircraft coming overhead with jets coming overhead low-pass and they're heading towards them and they drop some napalm so here's how more I yelled to top my lungs to Charlie Hastings the Air Force fact call that son of a bitch off call him off Joe Galloway heard Hastings screaming in the radio pull up pull up Matt Dillon says I can still see the canisters tumbling toward us I remember thinking turn your eyes away so you won't be blinded I put my face into a reporters shoulder to hide my eyes that was Joe Galloway's I could hear good time Charlie Hastings shouting into his radio pull up the second jet did the napalm from the first hit some people and caught some ammo on fire sergeant major Plumlee jumped out to put the fire put out the fire around the ammunition I ran out into the LZ to put an air panel out sergeant Nye says two of my people PFC Jimmy Dean Akiyama and specialist five James Clark were on the other side of me several yards away somebody was hollering and Colonel Moore was standing up there hollering about something about a wing man and I looked up there were two planes coming and one of them on already dropped his napalm and everything seemed to go in slow motion everything was on fire Nakayama was all black and Clark was burned and bleeding and here's Joe Galloway before I had walked over and talked to the engineer guys in their little foxholes now those same men were dancing in the fire their hair burned off in an instant their clothes were incinerated one was a mass of blisters the other not quite so bad but he had breathed two fire into his lungs when the flames died down we all ran out into the burning grass somebody yelled at me to grab the feet of one of the charged soldiers when I got him the boots crumbled and the flesh came off and I could feel bare bones of his ankles and the palms of my hands we carried him to the aid station I can still hear their screams respect for Thomas Eber Lyle a medical man from Bravo Company 2nd battalion rushed out into the clearing with his kit bag to help of napalm victims burlile was shot in the head and died within minutes in lieutenant Rescorla arms an Oklahoma man burl islet turned 23 years old just four days before he was killed back in the command post Part II Air Force FAC Charlie Hastings was stunned by all the consequences of the misplaced airstrike castings recalls after the napalm strike Colonel Moore looked at me and said something that I never forgot don't worry about that one Charlie just keep them coming yeah I mean he knows what he's got to do he's got hass things that just killed some of his own men wounded some of his own men by fire and he's freaking out probably don't want to call any more bombs on and how more realizes that's what's keeping him alive yeah don't worry about that one just keep him coming Charlie Company 1st battalion 7th Cavalry had begun its day with five officers and a hundred and six men by noon it had no officers left and only 49 men unhurt a total of 42 officers and men had been killed and 20 more wounded in two and a half hours of vicious hand-to-hand fighting the bodies of hundreds of slain Vietnamese North Vietnamese littered the bloody battleground spec for Pat's Selleck 24 in the native of Mount Kisco New York says I remember one guy had a small American flag on the back of his pack when I saw that I felt very proud it's something that always stuck with me this American flag was put on top of a blown-up tree just like AO Jima another battle we had won for the United States that little flag flew over landing zone X ray for the rest of the fight raising all our spirits and now there's a lull in the fighting and here we go back to the book during this lull the saddest most painful and hardest duty to endure was collecting our dead and loading them onboard the helicopters there were so many that the brigade ordered the big choppers the ch-47 Chinook s-- on such helicopter lifted out all 42 of the dead from Charlie Company they came in together died together and now left together wrapped in their green rubber Poncho's spec for Vincent Cantu says we were picking up our dead and placing them in the choppers some of these guys I had known for two years yet I could recognize them only by their name tags their faces were blown off it was hard not to get sick we would look at each other and without saying a word just continue putting our dead on the choppers now the colonel that's in charge of the both both battalions he makes a visit and here we go mid morning before Tully arrived Colonel Tim Brown flew in for a visit home Lee recalls Lieutenant Colonel Moore saluted Brown and said I told you not to come in here it's not safe Brown picked up his right collar lapel and waggled his full Colonels eagle at Moore and said sorry about that Dillon and I gave him a situation report Brown asked whether he should stay in x-ray established a small brigade command post and run the show we recommended against that I knew the area and Bob Tully and I got along just fine Brown Aggie agreed lieutenant dick merchant says Colonel Brown had trust and confidence in his commanders I'm aware that some felt he should have landed an x-ray and established a command post I've never accepted that the 1st battalion 7th Cavalry was probably the finest battalion in Vietnam well-trained superbly led with outstanding officers and NCOs throughout the unit Brown would have been out of place in x-ray besides there was no room for brigade CP I recall it being rather crowded behind that anthill so the reason I put that in nurse because here's the the guy that's you know Hal Moore's boss comes in to check on the scene and some people say oh he should have stayed there because it's a bad fight and he in this dick merchant said no like he shouldn't stayed there he did the right thing he came visited and left and by the way you want to set up a brigade command post you need to find your own little ant hill because this one's oh this one is you know the size of yeah it's full and it's the size of a car we got dead and wounded everywhere and so but it's it's the important point there from my perspective is you know the key thing is that he had trust and confidence in his officers he didn't need to go out there and micromanage them and I'm not saying you could never do that I'm definitely not saying that's the dichotomy leadership you know sometimes you might look out there and say there's something going on I need to get out there need to get in the weeds and get this problem handled I need to come out there and support in this particular case probably wouldn't have been a good idea how Moore had it under control at this point that's why they're landing a Chinook which the ch-47 giant helicopter much bigger than a Huey you know it's a slower and at least on approach it's slower so yeah there's a time to get out there and micromanage and there's a time when you let your team's lead okay going back to the book in Myron diderik and Lieutenant Rick Ross Scola so these are the two guys that came from the second battalion 7th calves and he just talks about him a little bit I think it's worth mentioning Rick Rescorla and Myron diederich Bravo Company 2nd battalion had two foreign-born officers whose accents and gung-ho attitudes lent a touch of Foreign Legion Flair the Ukrainian two Durack and the Englishman Rescorla was were destined over the next 72 hours to become battlefield legends in the seventh cave as much for their style as their fearless leadership under fire and yeah it's it's it's you can see what these leaders do and you do get to see it but here's when when to dirac remember he touched down and he was told hey go go set up security and here we go Myron did Derek and his soldiers had not yet been sorely tested but they soon would be during that wall - Derek made certain that fields of fire and observation were cleared out - beyond 200 yards that good fighting positions were dug that machine guns were placed in positions that assured that assured flanking interlocking fire that trip flares and anti-intrusion devices were installed as far as 300 yards out that every man was locked down loaded down with ammunition and that a me ammo resupply points were designated that all radios were checked and double-checked then diderik worked very carefully with his artillery forward observer registering pre-planned fires across the front the officer the officer Lieutenant William lund had four batteries 24 howitzers registered and adjusted on-call so that's you ever wonder what uh when a military leader does that's what he does right there dials everything in and here he's talking about us so one of the durricks platoon leaders was Rick Rescorla and here's what he says about Rick Ross Carla Ricker scroll of 1st platoon leader was six months out of OCS at the infantry school at Fort Benning but he had arrived there with a wealth of good training already and in under his belt he had served in the British Army in Cyprus and with the colonial police in Rhodesia and he knew what soldiering was all about what he did to prepare his position and his men speaks for his professionalism so here's what Rescorla did restaura walked the terrain and tried to see it from the enemy's point of view that's critical what's the enemy thinking scrub brush elephant grant grass ant hills and some ground cover stretched to the front the ground was not as flat as it first appeared but had seams and thick ruts stretching off to the south with a slight incline away from his positions the hasty prone shelters dug by Charlie Company 1st battalion had been dug after nightfall under enemy pressure Rescorla moved his men back 50 yards which not only shortened the sector but meant the enemy would now have to leave the trees across 40 yards of mostly open area to reach Bravo Company foxholes Rescorla recalls because of our shortened lines I decreased the number of foxholes three manholes were constructed the m60 machine guns were set on principle directions of fire from which they could switch to final protective grazing fire interlocking with each other and with the machine guns on our flanks foxholes and parapets were built in details I tested the holes some were so deep the occupants could not even see the pair over the parapet in these cases firing steps were built back up two hours before dusk sergeant each balk a27 and Sergeant Thompson organized a booby trap detail carefully they rigged grenades and trip flares far out on the main avenues of approach claymore mines claymore mines would have iced the cake but somewhere they had been lost a screw-up but I felt we were ready to tangle with the best of the North Vietnamese and again these guys are luckily there's a lull and they have all the time to prepare this and get it all set up and that's a big difference from what happened when these guys hit the LZ and they didn't have any of this stuff they didn't have any of the terrain figuring out they'd have it chance to sending their personnel up and these guys are taking advantage of that tactical situation to get up there and make things right and you know both those guys you can see that's what a leader does mmm that's what a leader does they make sure things are right they make sure you're ready to win and you can do that and that applies to every every leader in every position in every industry and every team in the world though the leader is stepping up and making sure we are going to be prepared to win and by the way this Rick Rescorla and this is a little bit of a side note he ended up working for Morgan Stanley as the head of security for Morgan Stanley and they worked at the Twin Towers in New York City that's what Morgan Stanley was and he felt like they needed to do drills like they needed to prepare and that what happened if the towers came under attack and they ran a bunch of drills and when September 11th came they ran those drills and got everyone evacuated and Rick Rescorla was last seen on the 10th floor going back up into the building to do a final check and make sure that everyone was out and the tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. then he saved a lot of lives that day not only through his actions on the day of but through his actions in preparing now the Vietnamese come the North Vietnamese come and they bring it here we go the first rush by at least 300 North Vietnamese was beaten off in less than 10 minutes by small arms machine-gun and artillery fire from the alert and well-prepared Bravo Company 2nd battalion troops at 4:31 a.m. 20 minutes later they came back to dirac said the intensity of their attack increased and I was under the under assault aimed at my three left platoon sectors screams shouts and whistles split the night as NVA swept down the mountain straight into the smoke clouded killing ground now all the mortars of my battalion and Tully's were turned loose adding their 81 millimeter high-explosive shells to the general mayhem rifleman John Martin who is in DD wrecks lines says we kept pouring rifle and machine gun fire and artillery on them and they broke and ran I don't think we had any casualties but they were catching hell so so now it's a totally different story these guys are dug in they have all their artillery dialed in they've got their fields of fire set up and the attacks come well-organized act with 300 people there did you can't they think they don't make it happen mmm the Vietnamese don't make it happen yeah back to the book over on the perimeter scoreless men fought on our m79 switched to direct fire fire delivered to a visible target and lobbed rounds out between 75 and 100 yards still the shadowy clumps moved closer RPGs and machine guns crackled as they blasted us from the dark line of ground cover across open fields they came in a ragged line the first groups cut down after a few yards a few surge right on sliding down behind their dead comrades for cover an amazing highly disciplined enemy a trooper cursed and pleaded in a high-pitched voice goddammit stop the bastards so here they are they're attacking and when the North Vietnamese soldiers get hit they're their buddies are coming up behind them taking cover behind their bodies and continuing to assault so this is an indicator you know like I said this was early in the war this is 1965 and you know we didn't know that's determined enemy yet we didn't understand that yet and here we're seeing it for the first time this is what this is what this is how determined these guys are they are going to attack they're gonna attack through whatever we put out here's another situation shtetl in this is a shtetl and whispered orders to his squad telling men on either side of him to hold their fire not to shoot until the enemy stepped out into that open space right in front suddenly a flare and a booby trap went off and they were there in the grass shooting at us I took around just above the elbow nothing really just a stitch or two and a piece of tape after the flight nobody shot back then they stepped into that open area the flares were burning they were lit up and it was easy we opened up and picked him off it was a light attack they then they hit us harder 30 minutes later blowing bugles blowing whistles we killed them all then some white phosphorus came in about 15 front him in front of my hole and I lost most of my Webb gear and my shirt had about eight burns on one arm John Steadman sat there under the light of the flares and used the point of his bayonet to quickly dig the still burning Willie Pete fragments out of his flesh so white phosphorus is a type of ammunition that we use and it's it's white phosphorus and it hits and blows up it's on fire there's a little pieces of burning hot metal and he's picking it out of his arm during the two and a half hours of the attack against a dirac sector the rest of the x-ray pruner had been quiet too quiet Dillon and I discussed the possibility of conducting a reconnaissance by fire to check for a presence of the enemy elsewhere on the line we had plenty of ammunition and what the hell the enemy knew where our lines were by now as well as I did we passed the word on the battalion net at precisely 655 a.m. every man on the perimeter would fire his individual weapon and all machine guns for a full two minutes on full automatic the word was to shoot up trees anthills bushes and high grass forward of the fort of and above the American positions Gunners would shoot anything that worried them by now we had learned to our sorrow that the enemy used the night to put snipers and trees ready to do damage at first light now is the time to clean up out front at the stated time our perimeter erupted in an ear-splitting uproar and immediately a force of 30 to 50 North Vietnamese roads from a cover 150 yards forward of Jonas Suk Dinis Alpha Company 2nd battalion lines and began shooting back the mad minute of firing triggered their attack prematurely artillery fire was instantly brought in on them and the attack was beaten off when the shooting stopped one dead sniper dangled by his rope from a tree in fort of two Derrick's leftmost position another dropped dead out of a tree almost immediately forward of John heroes John herons Bravo Company 1st battalion command post a third Vietnamese sniper was killed in the hour later when he tried to climb down for from history and run for it sergeant shtetl ins armed speckled with white phosphorus burns began hurting him now I was sent back to the aid station where my arm was bandaged and I was waiting to be medevacked out the more i sat there the more I realized I couldn't in good faith get on a chopper and fly out there and leave those guys behind so I took the sling off my arm and went back out somebody asked where are you going I said back to my foxhole nobody said anything else so obviously these guys now have gained some some good fire superiority the upper hand in the battle back to the book Rescorla and his men had been watching the airshow appreciative Lee we gathered for the last sweep suddenly a fighter bomber plowed down on us from above we buried our noses in the holes an express train screamed down and the explosions shook the earth the bomb landed 30 yards from our holes we came up cursing in the dust and debris the call came to move out every available trooper including Colonel Moore pushed the perimeter out this time it was no contest at all we killed 27 more enemy and crushed all resistance I looked over the field littered with enemy dead sprawled by ones and twos and heaps across a torn gouged land blood body fragments torn uniforms shattered weapons littered the landscape it was a sobering sight those men our enemies had mothers too but we had done what we had to do aside from wanting to make certain that de Dirac and his men did a clean safe job I had one reason for joining the final assault personally this is this is Colonel Moore talking and then it goes to Rick Ross Carla Ricker scola watched Colonel Moore in our sector was rushing up the clumps of bodies pulling them apart what the hell's the colonel doing up there sergeant Thompson asked I shift my head later we saw him coming back at the head of men carrying Poncho's by 10:30 a.m. Colonel Moore had found what he was looking for three dead American troops were no longer missing in action now they were on their way home to their loved ones by now late morning Tuesday November 16th the personality of landing zone x-ray had changed what previously had been a killing field had become something else we moved without impunity in places where movement had meant death only hours before except for our own artillery and air there was nothing to be heard it was just too quiet too sudden and it made me uneasy that old principle nothing was wrong except that nothing was wrong where was the enemy headed back to Cambodia still on the mountain preparing to attack again headed north to the IED ring and it's precious water and again the old question where would the enemy 12.7 millimeter heavy anti-aircraft machineguns if the enemy commander brought those weapons to bear on us from the mountain above LZ x-ray with three American battalions crowding the clearing would present a beautiful target I told Dillon to step up the harassing artillery fire and to keep the airstrikes coming in the slopes above us I told him I wanted a picture-perfect helicopter extraction covered by all the firepower we could bring to bear so yeah tides have turned completely and in fact they've turned so completely that a Chinook which is the big helicopter flies in with a bunch of photographers and television crews and reporters and they surround they surround Colonel Moore and here we go back to the book the other reporters now clustered around me I told them that this had been a bitterly contested battle that clearly we were up against a brave determined and very tough enemy in the North Vietnamese soldiers but that American firepower discipline guts and will to win had carried the day at LZ x-ray brave American soldiers and the m16 rifle want a victory here I said my voice choked in my eyes filled with tears as I told the reporters that many of my men who had been killed in this place were only a matter of days away from completing their service in the army but they fought and died bravely as I stood there I knew that the telegrams that would shatter the hearts and lives of scores of American families were already being drafted now came the body count and if you remember we talked about this before everyone was always they wanted to talk about the body count in Vietnam even at this early stage and he was thinking about that back to the book now came the body count from the beginning of the fight I had known that higher headquarters would eventually want to know what damage we had done to the enemy so after each major action in this battle hating it I asked my company commanders for their best estimates of enemy killed with the battle raging back and forth over three days and two nights it was anything but orderly there was no referee to call time out for a body count we did the best we could to keep a realistic count of the enemy dead in the end it added up to eight hundred and thirty-four dead by body count with an additional 1215 estimated killed and wounded by artillery air attacks and aerial rocket attacks on my own I cut the 834 figure back to 630 for a personal allowance for the confusion in fog of war and let the hundred 1215 estimated stand we captured and evacuated six enemy prisoners on our side we had lost 79 Americans killed in action 121 wounded and none missing and at this point they get extracted off the battlefield including Colonel Moore he's the last man to leave from his battalion and here we go back to the book it was a short fast ride to landing zone Falcon just a five and a half miles east of x-ray as we landed among the artillery pieces I saw 75 yards away a group of my troopers off in the northwestern edge of the LZ Dean Bareilles an NBC News correspondent was in LZ Falcon that afternoon he captured the scene in his 1967 book the face of South Vietnam and here's what Dean Bareilles wrote how Moore was the last man to come out of the battle it was the biggest battle he had ever fought he was a lieutenant colonel and he carried himself like a proud man his sergeant major was at his side it would need a Shakespeare to describe to what happened then but it was something that was love and manliness and pride it was the moment of the brave how Moore turned and went from group to group of his men and only a few bothered to get up because there was no exclusivity now no rank and how Moore did not want them to stand and salute he was saluting them he talked with them he thanked them he was not solemn and he did not bring to his greetings the salutations of a bullet above a politician there was no poverty of spirit in his hand shook shake and he shook every man's hand it was a union of men who had met and defeated the enemy not forever not in a victory that ended the war but in a victory over their uncertainty when their hour had come they had done their job and it was this thought to that Almore how more had in his mind and he said that if they had won no one else's gratitude they had his and I think that these men all these men have our absolute gratitude for fighting for freedom for fighting for each other for fighting for us and and actually the story doesn't end there nor does the book and we're gonna save it for the next podcast but we're gonna hear about the story of LZ Albany which is a few miles to the north in still inside the I drank Valley where 2nd battalion of the 7th calves moved in and fought and it's there's so much that I didn't cover in this in this what I discovered there's so much I didn't cover me didn't even cover the loss platoon who does eventually get recovered read the book I should have left that out spoiler alert but there's so much in there there's so much so many lessons learned so much action so much good description and so many heroes in so much sacrifice I don't even think gratitude I mean the gratitude is enough I think we owe them more than just gratitude we owe them our best we owe them our lives our best lives every day every moment to remember this sacrifice and what we owe them as we owe them to live our best lives and I think that's all I've got for tonight so echo yeah well I did compress over here maybe you can give some input on how to support this podcast or support yourself if you want to sure yeah if you want to so of course the first way is supporting your joints I always talk about supplements chocolate supplements best kind chocolate joint warfare and supercro krill oil Omega threes very good for you if you want some of that get it at origin mein kampf right there in the front or you just click on labs it's right there also there's some good G's but before that give a new product we do a new product out yeah yeah a new class of product class of product ivory workout now you're on a pond right now yeah buzzing on it right now yeah so discipline it's a pre-workout it's a call saying that's a co-worker that's the name both both so it's called discipline all right so it's free if technically they call it a pre-workout but we're calling it a pre mission yeah supplement well pre-workout would help you with your physical activity sure but the discipline has cognitive enhancers in it as well yeah because when you're on a mission you just don't need physical strength you need mental strength yeah so this gives you both yeah so if your mission is the workout boom there you go it's a pre-workout your mission is a exam mm-hmm it's a pre exam yes supplement if your if your mission is a mission well you're good to go pre mission there you go boom oh yeah get down um I too can vouch for this cuz I'm on it two should perform well - you know display its effects also G's and rash guards at origin me all made in America the more I think about that the more of a big deal that is it's a real big deal yeah cuz it's from a little like oh we say the cotton to the the ghee or the you know the other stuff that there's a lot of cool stuff on there jeez rash guards even a pair of all made in America or gin me.com this is about to get them if you want I want them I like them it's funny like every once in a while often find myself just wearing all origin stuff not on purpose - it's the kind of my favorite shorts even though they don't have them I know wearing that it wear every other day approximately and you know you just find yourself in the stuff it's so good that's my opinion also for fitness gear cool fitness gear you want to even if you're just doing kettlebells I say get the artistic kettlebells from on it on it calm / chuckle that's where you get them there's all other creative workout stuff on there maces and cool jump ropes and battle ropes and whatnot pretty much anything if you're getting bored with the workout and you want to enhance it in some creative way go there on it calm / chuckle don't get addicted to the website cuz a lot of good information so it's kind of a catch-22 good you can get info on there a lot of good info interesting info but you might spend a lot of time there so be careful also when you buy this book We Were Soldiers Once and young by General Howe Moore and joe galloway you know I was thinking I have no idea what you're thinking so something tells me I'm about to hear though if you watch the movie a few good men mmm I think it did me more yes she plays uh like she plays a Jag lieutenant yes I seen the movie her name the character name is Joanne Galloway but call her Jill so her name is Jill Galloway I noticed that anyway when you buy this book we were so years later there's there's some layers that David those are interpreted layers or not layers laws or coincidences there's a big difference it's a fine line Charlie Beckwith that formed up Delta Force sure being in this book that's layers that's layers yeah yeah I I would confirm those layers for fair layers for sure I don't know I I still feel like Joe Gallo is layered somewhere I don't know what if they negative no of this these stories and they name the good they could negative maybe maybe not and if they did they failed they failed yeah cuz just the wrong carry on after it yeah so really we convene oh the way I still think it's layers either way when you um when you buy this is the one you buy this book we have it listed on our website along with all the books that chocolate reviews it's on the website choco podcast.com in the section open top menu click books from podcast boom it's all there by episode click through there good way to support get from Amazon you know all that stuff and then you know continue do do more shopping if you want if you want just carry on there you go good way to support also subscribe to the podcast iTunes Google Play stitcher Spotify confirmed someone sent me the actual link vision I saw it visually visual confirmation Spotify boom and other podcasting providing platforms just subscribe I know you have already but let's say in the odd likely unlikely a chance that you didn't subscribe good subscribe good way to support if you want also subscribe to youtube if you liked the vision the visual the video version of this podcast you'll see what Jacque looks like you don't see what I look like if you care about that sort of thing boom most people don't care what we look like no I I don't I don't think it makes sense that they don't get good doesn't matter they just care about the content of your character subscribe to YouTube that's the point if you do care about what we look like also those excerpts on there good way to get little bits of lessons messages from Jocko shareable so you don't have to share the whole two and a half-ish our podcasts you can just share the excerpts pass them on you know let someone else learn these lessons with you also chuck was the store it's called Yakko store named after him John goes door comm that is where you can get the cool shirts I think they're cool and I think it goes beyond just my opinion because people have emailed me and been like hey these are cool because I made sure they're not the low quality you know people when they start a shirt brand or if they're printing shirt they're like hey let me get the cheap one so I have to spend a lot of money play it safe all this stuff I didn't do that I got the good ones stuff that I would actually wear regardless of what's printed I like it wearable they're wearable that's how I put it anyway that's why I know they're good I'm wearing one right now yeah correct me too boom see I wouldn't wear it if I didn't want to wear it so anyway they're very good that's what you can get the shirts there's women's stuff on there also this rash guards on there for activities such as surfing jiu-jitsu warrior kid rash guard out there yeah or eq'd rash guard should be reached on there should be on there good I've vowed to get them in in time to ship for Christmas so that would be like today so go on there and you know that's the the my vow is that the right word Wow why would I do this that means you better succeed yeah you know this so here yeah yeah some rash guards on there for jujitsu surfing you know kind of cool activity cycling whatever anything you want range of motion to be maintained 100% and performance be increased by 19% I think it's up to 21% back from the field yeah yeah I think I kind of average cuz some people a little bit more you know so those people they push the average up I think that's how it works anyway cool stuff on there check it out nothing get something but if you want something then you get something and and it supports podcast good way to support hoodies on there as well thicker ones they might be writing along I might have to get some more it is winter I get it but they're there the thick ones like how you said also psychological warfare what that is if you don't know I know we all know what it is already it's been number one and I - well might not be number one anymore that's a long story anyway if you don't know what it is the unlikely event that you don't know what it is is what it is it's an album with tracks chocolate tracks each track is designed to help you through moments of weakness when you're on your path when you're on your warpath I mean you so did mmm wait maybe I have I don't know nonetheless when you're on the path of discipline right you're on the program you're on your campaign against weakness you you hit little it's not just one smooth road and it's not a one straight road either and it's riddled riddled every day probably every minute literally riddled with distractions every once in a while you'll hit moments of weakness whether it's a speed bump distraction lack of energy boredom repetitiveness tediousness tediousness that's a word that's what psychological warfare is for it's a little spot for those moments you don't want to wake up early every single day ah we got the solution for that listen to the little track jockle pragmatically telling you I can get over that little moment of weakness same thing with wanting to skip the workout for the day that was mine that was mine anymore Jack and yeah there's a bunch of them for all kinds of stuff keeping on the diet it's a good one that's what psychological warfare is very effective 100% effectiveness that's a bold statement and you can get jock a white tea on Amazon which will make you deadlift eight thousand pounds it's actually confirm confirmed you can get some books on their way the warrior kid good Christmas gift it's also good whatever gift so get I'll kid on the path get them on the path got so much great feedback on that extreme ownership this is for leading at every level in combat in business and in life extreme ownership written meet by me and my brother life Babbitt also from an individual perspective if you want to get yourself on the path there's no better gift than discipline the discipline equals freedom Field Manual everyone that asked me for workouts that's where they are everyone asked me what I eat that's where it is everyone asked me how much I sleep that's where it is so get that if you want the audio version the audio version is not inaudible the audio version of discipline equals freedom Field Manual is on iTunes Amazon music Google Play and all those other mp3 distributing platforms there's another muster the muster which is echelon front Leadership Conference there's two of them gonna be only two of them in 2018 hmm we don't have enough of room in the schedule to fit three one Washington DC or sorry this is actually not one it's number five so number five Washington DC May 17th and 18th and then number six San Francisco October 17th and 18th come and get it you can register for those extreme ownership calm is are they gonna be like bigger you know like you'll have to make sure they can have more people we have a we have a little bit bigger capacity yeah yeah but we just we don't have time in the schedule anymore and we are gonna do the roll call for law enforcement military firefighters we're gonna do that as well but we haven't blocked a date on that one yet also for leadership in addition to this podcasts in addition to the books in addition to the muster we have a leadership and management consulting company and you can hire us to me Lafe Babb and JP Danelle Dave Burke email info additional on national and front comm if you want us to come and speak at an event don't call a speaker's bureau don't call a speaker's agency just go to Ashe just go to Ashland front comm you know they've been calling me yeah don't do that that's what we do and if you have comments or questions or answers or for us we can be found on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and on the face pokeball echo is at Echo Charles and I'm at Jocko willing and thanks to those people those soldiers sailors airmen and Marines that sign up that sign up and volunteer to make the ultimate sacrifice thank you all for protecting us and our freedoms and to police and law enforcement thanks for protecting us from crime and criminals and terrorists right here at home to paramedics thanks for coming to us in our time of need when we call and to the firefighters right now out there on the line especially in our state right here of California Cal Fire thanks for your service and your sacrifice and my condolences to those who have fallen in recent days and weeks and our faults are with the families of the Fallen and for everyone else that's listening when you see what men can do when pushed beyond the limit of human capacity when you see that when you hear about it when you read about it well then remember to push yourself push yourself every day every moment get out there and get after it and so until next time this is echo and Jocko

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 81,255

Keywords: jocko podcast, jocko willink, echo charles, military, book review, vietnam, leadership, discipline, freedom, echelon front, battlefield, navy seal, seal teams, seal team 3

Id: PsOXdpirQx4

Length: 153min 50sec (9230 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017