We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam by Harold G. Moore;Joseph L. Galloway Page B
Authors: Harold G. Moore;Joseph L. Galloway
Tags: United States, General, History; Military, Asia, History, Travel, Military, War, vietnam, Asian history, Military Personal Narratives, Military History, Military History - Vietnam Conflict, Vietnam War, Military - Vietnam War, Southeast Asia, Essays & Travelogues, Southeast, Military - United States, Postwar 20th century history, Military veterans, c 1970 to c 1980, c 1960 to c 1970, from c 1945 to c 2000
Ads: Link
such an attack.
“I disobeyed my orders. I called off the attack,” Giap told us. “At the time I wasn’t sure if this would cost me my life.” But Giap knew that he could not afford to use China’s human wave tactics against the French because he couldn’t replace either the manpower or the big guns sited in the open.
Instead he ordered his artillery pieces pulled back to the reverse slopes of the mountaintops, and the laborers began burrowing through the earth and rock to construct impregnable gun positions where they could fire on the French below and then swiftly pull the guns back into the mountain itself. His troops were ordered to keep digging the trenches ever nearer the French lines.
When everything was ready, then, and only then—on March 13, 1954—Giap signaled the attack, and this time he would use his tactics, designed for a Vietnamese army, first cutting French supply and reinforcement lines and the vital airstrip with his artillery while the Viet Minh troops closed in on and overran the surrounding French hilltop strongpoints one by one.
All this he told us quietly, matter-of-factly, with no hint of bragging or boasting. He was there; the Politburo was not. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of his army and the positions. He knew that the French commander was betting everything he had on a victory at Dien Bien Phu. So was he. It was a winner-take-all game and Vo Nguyen Giap would win using Vietnamese tactics, not Chinese tactics.
The men chosen to make this trip were all old friends and comrades. Nadal and Herren were both West Point graduates and professional Army officers. After retiring from the Army, Herren continued to work at the Pentagon as a civilian employee, while Nadal worked as a human resource officer in several large corporations. Gwin left the Army as a captain, earned a law degree at Yale, and practiced law in the Boston area. Forrest retired from the Army, coached basketball at his alma mater in Maryland for a time, and then became director of a program designed to keep disadvantaged minority youngsters in high school. Savage, after retiring from the Army, remained at Fort Benning, Georgia, as a civilian employee helping train Army Reserve soldiers. Beck, after completing his two-year tour as a draftee, went back to being a commercial artist. Crandall was badly injured in a helicopter crash on his second combat tour in Vietnam, and after retiring from the Army was public works manager in Mesa, Arizona. Plumley retired after thirty-two years in the Army, then worked as a civilian employee at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning for another fifteen years. Smith, after his two years as an Army draftee, went back to college and drifted into television news as an on-air correspondent for ABC, a job that his father, the broadcast pioneer Howard K. Smith, had held.
The following day our group of Ia Drang veterans met with Gen. Nguyen Huu An and seven of his commanders who had fought against us at X-Ray and Albany. The meeting was held outdoors on the shores of one of Hanoi’s seven lakes. For most, on both sides, this was their first time to sit down across from each other. General An welcomed the Ia Drang veterans to Hanoi and did most of the talking on their side. I thanked them for the opportunity for such a historic visit by old enemies. The meeting outdoors in the sweltering heat was mercifully brief. We would have a chance to talk more that evening at dinner.
For all of us the greatest revelations and emotions came that evening at dinner on a floating restaurant built on a barge on Hanoi’s West Lake. When we walked up the ramp we were stunned to be welcomed by a large table of Vietnamese war veterans who regularly gather there to talk of old times over a good meal. These were all crippled war veterans, men missing arms, legs, eyes. Their wheelchairs were crude and decrepit, as were the prosthetics replacing their missing arms and legs.
Any apprehensions we had at such a
“I disobeyed my orders. I called off the attack,” Giap told us. “At the time I wasn’t sure if this would cost me my life.” But Giap knew that he could not afford to use China’s human wave tactics against the French because he couldn’t replace either the manpower or the big guns sited in the open.
Instead he ordered his artillery pieces pulled back to the reverse slopes of the mountaintops, and the laborers began burrowing through the earth and rock to construct impregnable gun positions where they could fire on the French below and then swiftly pull the guns back into the mountain itself. His troops were ordered to keep digging the trenches ever nearer the French lines.
When everything was ready, then, and only then—on March 13, 1954—Giap signaled the attack, and this time he would use his tactics, designed for a Vietnamese army, first cutting French supply and reinforcement lines and the vital airstrip with his artillery while the Viet Minh troops closed in on and overran the surrounding French hilltop strongpoints one by one.
All this he told us quietly, matter-of-factly, with no hint of bragging or boasting. He was there; the Politburo was not. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of his army and the positions. He knew that the French commander was betting everything he had on a victory at Dien Bien Phu. So was he. It was a winner-take-all game and Vo Nguyen Giap would win using Vietnamese tactics, not Chinese tactics.
The men chosen to make this trip were all old friends and comrades. Nadal and Herren were both West Point graduates and professional Army officers. After retiring from the Army, Herren continued to work at the Pentagon as a civilian employee, while Nadal worked as a human resource officer in several large corporations. Gwin left the Army as a captain, earned a law degree at Yale, and practiced law in the Boston area. Forrest retired from the Army, coached basketball at his alma mater in Maryland for a time, and then became director of a program designed to keep disadvantaged minority youngsters in high school. Savage, after retiring from the Army, remained at Fort Benning, Georgia, as a civilian employee helping train Army Reserve soldiers. Beck, after completing his two-year tour as a draftee, went back to being a commercial artist. Crandall was badly injured in a helicopter crash on his second combat tour in Vietnam, and after retiring from the Army was public works manager in Mesa, Arizona. Plumley retired after thirty-two years in the Army, then worked as a civilian employee at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning for another fifteen years. Smith, after his two years as an Army draftee, went back to college and drifted into television news as an on-air correspondent for ABC, a job that his father, the broadcast pioneer Howard K. Smith, had held.
The following day our group of Ia Drang veterans met with Gen. Nguyen Huu An and seven of his commanders who had fought against us at X-Ray and Albany. The meeting was held outdoors on the shores of one of Hanoi’s seven lakes. For most, on both sides, this was their first time to sit down across from each other. General An welcomed the Ia Drang veterans to Hanoi and did most of the talking on their side. I thanked them for the opportunity for such a historic visit by old enemies. The meeting outdoors in the sweltering heat was mercifully brief. We would have a chance to talk more that evening at dinner.
For all of us the greatest revelations and emotions came that evening at dinner on a floating restaurant built on a barge on Hanoi’s West Lake. When we walked up the ramp we were stunned to be welcomed by a large table of Vietnamese war veterans who regularly gather there to talk of old times over a good meal. These were all crippled war veterans, men missing arms, legs, eyes. Their wheelchairs were crude and decrepit, as were the prosthetics replacing their missing arms and legs.
Any apprehensions we had at such a
Similar Books
