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The November 1965, battle of the Ia Drang Valley, in the central higlands of Viet Nam is the subject of the best selling book, "We Were Soldiers Once and Young." It was the first major battle of US forces and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA)and set the tone for the rest of the war. The book has been made into the movie, "We Were Soldiers," by Paramount Pictures and opens in most theaters on 1 March 2002, starring Mel Gibson. The opening action of the battle took place in a small clearing at the base of Chu Pong Mountain on the Cambodian border. This clearing was called Landing Zone XRay. It is the story of the 1st Battalion,7th Cavalry (Custer's old command), part of the 1st Air Cavalry Division, with supporting assault helicopter elements (16 helicopters) of the 229th Assault Helicopter Bn. This was my first combat tour in VietNam and my first major combat experience, as a young captain, flying assault helicopter missions with the First Air Cavalry Division. The above yet unpublished photo is one that I took from the air on 14 November 1965,and shows a flight of 4 UH-1D assault helicopters silhouetted against the smoke of battle in LZ XRay. Our supporting artillery in LZ Falcon fired constant fire support around LZ XRay for several days. My West Point classmate, Capt Don Davis, commanded the artillery battery firing these missions that were instrumental in protecting the 1/7th Cav. In the right rear, you can see the smoke from a stick of bombs dropped from supporting B-52 bombers onto Chu Pong Mountain, where the North Vietnamese Army was dug-in on the Cambodian border. We were waiting for the B-52 strike and artilery fire to be completed so we could bring more troops and ammunition into LZ XRay and take out the wounded and killed. This was the first B-52 (code named Arc Light) strike of the Viet Nam War. I was pilot and the flight section leader of the last section into and out of the LZ on each of our missions.
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