We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young: IA Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore, General Ha Moore

From Barnes & Noble

In November 1965, America's involvement in the Vietnam War was just beginning. When 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. General Harold "Hal" Moore, were dropped into a clearing in the Ia Drang Valley, they were immediately surrounded by more than 2,000 North Vietnamese troops. Another battalion was to take part in an intense battle less than two and a half miles away. The fighting would become some of the fiercest of the entire war. General Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway (the only journalist at the scene) recount the bravery displayed at Ia Drang.

From the Publisher

In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together these actions constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.

The story of how these men persevered paints a vivid portrait of war at its most inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, as rarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.

Wall Street Journal

Between experiencing combat and reading about it lies a vast chasm. But this book makes you almost smell it.

New York Times Book Review

There are stories here that freeze the blood....The men who fought at Ia Drang could have no finer memorial than this one.

David Halberstam

A stunning achievement, a book that is not merely a book,but rather a monument to all the young men who were in thela Drang in those fateful November days—paper and words withthe permanence of marble. I read it and thought of The Red Badge of Courage, the highest compliment I can think of.

David Hackworth

A powerful and epic story . . . raw, gutty, and eye-stinging. This is the best account of infantry combat I have ever read, and the most significant book to come out of the Vietnam War.

New York Times Book Review

There are stories here that freeze the blood....The men who fought at Ia Drang could have no finer memorial than this one.

Wall Street Journal

Between experiencing combat and reading about it lies a vast chasm. But this book makes you almost smell it.

H. Norman Schwarzkopf

We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young is a great book of militaryhistory, written the way military history should be written. It is agut-wrenching account of what war is really about, which shouldbe 'must' reading for all Americans, especially those who havebeen led to believe that war is some kind of Nintendo game.

Publishers Weekly

On Nov. 14, 1965, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Col. Moore and accompanied by UPI reporter Galloway, helicoptered into Vietnam's remote Ia Drang Valley and found itself surrounded by a numerically superior force of North Vietnamese regulars. Moore and Galloway here offer a detailed account, based on interviews with participants and on their own recollections, of what happened during the four-day battle. Much more than a conventional battle study, the book is a frank record of the emotional reactions of the GIs to the terror and horror of this violent and bloody encounter. Both sides claimed victory, the U.S. calling it a validation of the newly developed doctrine of airmobile warfare. Supplemented with maps, the memoir is a vivid re-creation of the first major ground battle of the Vietnam War.

Library Journal

Ia Drang, in November 1965, was the first major battle fought by U.S. troops in Vietnam. It was also one of the fiercest. As a lieutenant colonel, Moore commanded the battalion that initiated the fighting. War correspondent Galloway accompanied Moore's troopers from start to finish. We Were Soldiers Once movingly depicts Ia Drang through the eyes of junior officers and enlisted men of the 1st Cavalry Division and their North Vietnamese opponents. The authors convincingly present Ia Drang as an archetype of a self-defeating U.S. strategy that emphasized wearing down a determined and skillful enemy on the battlefield. The result was an unacceptably high level of American losses for the results achieved. One of this book's most telling episodes is its depiction of an army so unprepared to deal with casualties that some telegrams notifying families of a son or husband killed at Ia Drang were delivered by Yellow Cab! Recommended for all collections.-- D.E. Showalter, U.S. Air Force Acad., Colorado Springs

BookList

This extraordinary account of the two major engagements in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965 is one of the year's best books about the Vietnam War. Written by one of the battalion commanders in the battle and a journalist who witnessed it, the book draws comprehensively on both published sources and survivors' accounts. The result provides a portrait of the U.S. Army at the opening of the Vietnam War as well as gripping accounts of infantry combat that exceed in emotional impact the majority of war novels. Additional dimension is added through the contributions of the widows and orphans of some of the battle's dead. It is impossible to imagine any significant Vietnam collection's being without this book.

What People Are Saying

David Halberstam
"A stunning achievement."

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
"A great book of military history."

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Read a Sample Chapter