I had just finished reading We Are Soldiers Still - A Journey Back To The Battlefields of Vietnam. The book is by Lt. General Harold Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway. Why go back and read about a long ago, divisive and disasterous war? Simply because there are still lessons to be learned.
For me, an interest in the recent appearance of this particular book began several years ago with a movie. The title of the movie was We Were Soldiers - And Young. It was based on the book of the same name also written by Moore and Galloway. It starred Mel Gibson as the young officer Moore, who's task was to convert the 7th Regiment (Custer's old cavalry unit) into an effective component of the new airmoble 1st Cavalry. That division was about to be sent and tested in Vietnam.
An old Irish folksong "Gary Owen" was the 7th's marching song and greeting.. The 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) division would mount a fleet of helicopters instead of horses. 
The 7th regiment was soon shipped in its entirety to the escalating war South Vietnam. There they were quickly helicoptered into the Ia Drang valley with the mission to locate North Vietnamese forces and to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. The idea for airmoble unit was to be able to chose its own time and place for battle. In that valley, they were immediately surrounded and attacked by hidden and well entrenched regular forces of the regular North Vietnamese army. That army had been moving south to reenforce the Viet Cong .
With great difficulty and heroism, the 7th held its own, under Moore's brilliant leadership, against an attacking force that greatly outnumbered them.
With great difficulty and heroism, the 7th held its own, under Moore's brilliant leadership, against an attacking force that greatly outnumbered them.
Several days, later a sister unit from the 1st Cav. that was moving into the same area was ambushed and basically wiped out. That, of course, never appeared in the newspapers of the time. Fifty thousand Americans were killed in this war before it was over seven years later. Moore was obviously a fine man and a great leader. I'm sure there were many others like him. The movie as movies are wont to do, elicited a strong surge of patriotic emotion, during the battle scenes. One's fellow countrymen, putting there lives on the line to protect our freedom, it seemed . And yet. And yet walking out of that theater I couldn't help but thinking..... what a waste. What a godawful waste.... The wisdom of hindsight perhaps
I had remembered a Christmas family gathering a few years before, where I met my cousin who had just returned from Vietnam. He was a civil engineer working on water projects in Saigon. Today, I guess, he would be called a "civilian contractor." He had utterly shocked me with tales of massive corruption in South Vietnam's military government. How the Americans had to bribe people left and right to accomplish anything. How, except for some of the Catholic minority, the people despised that government and regarded them as lackeys for the American "colonialists," who had replaced the "true" nationalists. A generation later, Moore kept a promise he had made to his men, that someday they would return to that battlefield, to make peace within themselves and to their fallen comrades. After years of difficulties that promise was kept and a number of these heroes returned to the Ia Drang Valley. One of those heroes is pictured here, at that place and that time. His name was Rick Riscorla. A generation later, he was the new chief of security at the World Trade Center. There he died after his actions saved the lives of thousands of people on that fateful day.
Hal Moore, Joe Galloway, and many of their comrades were to return to Vietnam. There they met and befriended some of the soldiers they had fought. Moore's counterpart in the NVA was among them. In fascinating detail we learn of the strategies of each side. More importantly, we read of their hopes, dreams and illusions. Given the delusions, that have at times colored our own foreign and security strategies, it is a tale well told and worth learning from. General Hal Moore follows up on the Vietnam war in We Are Soldiers Still - A Journey Back To The Battlefields Of Vietnam.
I highly recommend it. A few days ago an American aircraft carrier docked at a Vietnamese port. American tourists now flock to the country. America seems now wary of Chinese ambitions in the South China sea. So are the Vietnamese. How times have changed......
I had remembered a Christmas family gathering a few years before, where I met my cousin who had just returned from Vietnam. He was a civil engineer working on water projects in Saigon. Today, I guess, he would be called a "civilian contractor." He had utterly shocked me with tales of massive corruption in South Vietnam's military government. How the Americans had to bribe people left and right to accomplish anything. How, except for some of the Catholic minority, the people despised that government and regarded them as lackeys for the American "colonialists," who had replaced the "true" nationalists. A generation later, Moore kept a promise he had made to his men, that someday they would return to that battlefield, to make peace within themselves and to their fallen comrades. After years of difficulties that promise was kept and a number of these heroes returned to the Ia Drang Valley. One of those heroes is pictured here, at that place and that time. His name was Rick Riscorla. A generation later, he was the new chief of security at the World Trade Center. There he died after his actions saved the lives of thousands of people on that fateful day.
Hal Moore, Joe Galloway, and many of their comrades were to return to Vietnam. There they met and befriended some of the soldiers they had fought. Moore's counterpart in the NVA was among them. In fascinating detail we learn of the strategies of each side. More importantly, we read of their hopes, dreams and illusions. Given the delusions, that have at times colored our own foreign and security strategies, it is a tale well told and worth learning from. General Hal Moore follows up on the Vietnam war in We Are Soldiers Still - A Journey Back To The Battlefields Of Vietnam.I highly recommend it. A few days ago an American aircraft carrier docked at a Vietnamese port. American tourists now flock to the country. America seems now wary of Chinese ambitions in the South China sea. So are the Vietnamese. How times have changed......
7 comments:
Great movie.
This was also "my" war. Thankfully it ended just before I graduated college in 1973, but with a draft lottery number of 22, I would have gone.
I even got into Marine Corps PLC, but was dropped when the war was winding down.
I am always interested in revisits to war sites.
Thanks for the review. I still am not able to get through these histories of my youth, but am grateful that you do, and review them for me.
Interesting, my husband was lucky to be in the Air Force and avoid Vietnam...but many of our friends were there:(
Dear Troutbirder, thank you for this review. I have read two or three books about the Vietnam war, which I spent two years, while in grad school, protesting in Minneapolis. I wonder if you watched the Ken Burns series last September on PBS. I think it was simply called "The Vietnam War." It provided so much history about what led up to the war from both sides. I learned a lot, but like you, whenever I see or read anything about that war, I think "What a waste."
That happens when I read about World War I also. So many mistakes. So much hubris on the part of the leaders of the war that was to end all wars.
I looked for "Lost in the Wild" at our library but they didn't have it. So I'll see if it's available at a reasonable price as an ebook from Amazon. (I can no longer easily read regular-sized type in a book.) I'll also look in the library for this book. I am so grateful that you review for us all. Thank you. Peace.
I remember the Vietnam war and the heartbreak that went with it. I don't think I could read about it now but my Joe would have absorbed every word.
A tough tale to tell
How fascinating, not that I am going to read it. But I would love to listen to Dan Carlin do a series on Vietnam....Do you know Dan? If not, look up the Hard Core History podcast. I almost guarantee you will love it. During the Vietnam war I was still in the Netherlands, and had access to broader news coverage than the USA mainstream. Though you had IF Stone, and Ramparts, and Mother Jones, right? Anyway, we were well aware of the wrongness of this war as early in 1965. Apart from Dutch periodicals and newspapers we had Le Monde, and The Manchester Guardian, now just plain Guardian, and some German papers that were often used as sources for articles in the Dutch weeklies. Most of which were cynical about the whole enterprise. Fond memories of Fridays when the weeklies came out. I would buy a pile at the kiosk on Rembrandt Square and go sit on a patio and indulge in worries about the state of the world. When we decided to emigrate in 1968 the USA was not an option. Now more news than we can handle fits into my purse and is available at all times, and it is a struggle to do more than skim the headlines. We digress. This post reminded me to do a blog on the virtues of honest soldiers. One of these days.
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