BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

In what was one of the largest “set-piece” battles of the Viet Nam War, the Battle of the Ia Drang River Valley pretty much set the tone for the NVA for not participating in anymore fights of that kind.

I worked in there after the battle and had a couple of patrols go bad fast. Aside from being a scary place, it was also a beautiful one, filled with bamboo groves, tigers and other assorted wildlife above and beyond the two-footed kind.

But for those 1st Cav troopers who fought in the aforementioned battle, I doubt beauty is a word they’d use.

This battle was chronicled in Joe Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once … and Young, which was the basis for the Mel Gibson movie by the same name.

(An aside: if anyone out there wants to know how to cover a war, check out Joe’s work. I had the honor of conversing him when I first started writing, and he’s as stand-up as they come.)

Anyway … in the movie about the battle for LZ X-Ray, chopper pilot — Bruce Crandall — stood out and he was — finally — awarded the MOH by President Bush. It was 41 years late, but better late than never. Here’s the story.