Transcripts For CSPAN3 Battle Of Ia Drang 20160531 : vimarsa

CSPAN3 Battle Of Ia Drang May 31, 2016

Pioneering a new kind of air warfare that the arm termed air mobile. Colonel Bruce Crandall is a veteran Master Army Aviator in fixed wing aircraft and helicopters and has led more than 900 combat missions during two tours in vietnam. He was drafted into the army in 1953 and in early 1965 he joined the Dominican Republic Expeditionary Force as a liason to the Airborne Corp and later that year commanded the first calvaries Division Company a. , 229th assault helicopter battalion in vietnam. He received many awards including the bronze star medal, the distinguished flying cross with one oak leaf cluster and the medal of honor. Dr. Tone johnson jr. Went to vietnam in 1963 as part of the seventh calvary regiment of the First Calvary Division. In november 1965, his unit was ambushed by the vietcong and all but destroyed. He received the bronze star for his achievement and in the recognition of his bravery during the campaign. Later, recovering from the hospital, he was inspired by the care he received to pursue a career in medicine. He later became a family practitioner and started a combat medical Training Program for infantry soldiers to learn first aid. Colonel joe marm enlisted in the army in 1964 and graduates from officer candidate school as a second lieutenant. He was then reassigned to the First Calvary Division and by september 1965 was in vietnam. In november of 1965 his battalion came under fire in the ia drang valley. The colonel received the medal of honor in recognition of his bravery in the campaign. He later successfully petitioned to go back to vietnam for a second tour only after signing a waiver stipulating that going back into harms way was his own choice. And finally, your moderator for this panel, mr. Joe galloway. He is one of the premier war and foreign correspondents. He is the recipient of numerous journalism awards and also the recipient of the bronze star for valor. The only civilian to receive the honor in the vietnam war and as the recipient of the doubtery award, the highest honor the u. S. Infantry can present to an individual. Mr. Galloway has coauthored several critically acclaimed books including we were soldiers, once and young. And its sequel, we are soldiers still, a journey back to the battlefields of vietnam. The first back was made into the major motion picture, we were soldiers in 2002. Ladies and gentlemen, your panel for the afternoon. [ applause ]. It is awful quiet out there. Yeah, it is. I dont know about this being a much of a panel discussion. But it sure is a great gathering of my brother soldiers. [ applause ] it has been 50 years and five months since we met on a battlefield in the Central Highlands of vietnam on the 14th of november, 1965. It was the first major battle for american infantry to run headon into north vietnamese regulars. Two very fine light infantry and they went at it tooth and nail. The north vietnamese were there to kill us all. And we were damn well determined they wouldnt. And i met it is interesting, on the battlefield, on the second day, i was shooting some pictures. And i was behind a little bush on one knee, and a fellow jumped out of a mortar pit and zig zagged across the edge of the clearing. And dove under that bush, and all i could see were two eyeballs about the size of saucers under the rim of the helmet. And he said, joe galloway, this is even cantu from missouri, dont you know me, man. We graduated in the class of 1959 from high school, 55 of us. And the next time i saw him was in the middle of the worst battle the first battle, the worst battle, the bloodiest battle of the entire vietnam war. He sure looked good. [ laughter ] thank you. And he said, hey, joe, if i live through this, im going home to refereo by christmas. I said, vince, go by and see my mom and dad, but dont tell them where we met. [ laughter ] i came to be on that battlefield at the engraved invitation of Lieutenant Colonel hal moore, who was the battalion commander. I marched with his battalion, three days before the battle began, a long hot walk in the sun to the special forces camp and i spent the night with them. Coldest night i ever spent anywhere in vietnam, in the Central Highlands at 4,000 feet and we were all soaking wet from ford fording a river. I was trying desperately to get into this battle. And there were five other reporters and photographers, including my nemesis is, Peter Arnette of the a. P. , also trying to get n. Bin. But i had the edge on this because i recognized colonel moores matt and i said i need to get in there. And i said well im going in as soon as it is dark with two helicopters full of ammo and i cant take you unless the colonel says so. I said, get him on the horn. And he got on the radio, made a report to the colonel, could hear the battle raging in the background over the radio. And he said, oh, and by the way, ive got that reporter galloway, he wants to come in with me. And im listening real close, and the colonel said, if hes crazy enough to want to come in here and you got room, bring him. How hal believed that the American People had a right to know what their sons were doing and what the army was doing with their sons. And that was that was how he conducted his operations. The press was always welcome. So i got my all i had to do then was hide from the other guys until it got near dark and they all flew back to got a hot meal and a cold bunk and a got a ride into the pages of history. So here we are. Bruce crandall, tell your story. Well, i made the mistake of taking him back out of there. [ laughter ] he took me in. I took him in and i took him back out. That was the First Experience we had with helicopters being influential on the battlefield. The infantry had a lot of experience, but the helicopters were just were just learning our role. And it i dont know why we waited until after dark to take them in. I prefer to go in when it is daylight and i can see who is shooting at me. But evidently the infantry had some kind of disagreement with that and we went in after dark. My wing man and i flew 14 1 2 hours that day. And we were we brought out 71 people that survived. And we we got ammo and water and medical supplies into the people on the ground so they survived. It was it was a very exciting time to say the least. When we would get shot up, we would shift aircraft and start flying another one. And i would call in to the base where the helicopters were, and tell them crank one, im coming and im shot up. And we would do that and we would change aircraft, i think we got five different aircraft during the day. But we flew the same aircraft a number of times. Duct tape works. [ laughter ] but we were we know what we were doing. I dont want it to sound like we didnt have a real good idea of what we were doing. But we knew. But we also knew that we had to do what we were doing, otherwise the infantry would not survive on the battlefield. And they were ours. They were ours to make sure they survived. And my wingman ed freeman too tall in the movie, he was played by sam elliott. And no, so many played Sergeant Major. Anyh anyhow, ed was one hell of a good helicopter pilot. And we had been together for ten years before we went to vietnam. We had five Company Commanders that were engineer officers that had worked in the toppo units and we had been together. So we knew each other and trusted each other and trusted the infantry. We had eight battalions of infantry and so we we had a marriage a normal relationship with the infantry and how more in the hal in the seventh was my heaviest load. They were able to find the most trouble. I think they knew custer personally. [ laughter ] but big ed freeman received the medal of honor first. And that was right. Because hes the only one that volunteered to go when i asked for volunteers. And he stayed with me all day and into the night. Until we brought joe and them in and that was the last flight. Go ahead. You want to take over . This is one of my particular personal heroes. A private of the infantry was shot to all ribbons on the battlefield, lost an eye, and spending a year in an Army Hospital decided that the doctors were his heroes and the army helped him become a doctor and he became a reservist, a reserve officer, and then he became a National Guard officer. His last tour of duty was as the Surgeon General of the texas 36th National Guard division. And he still Practices Medicine today in corpus christi. It is amazing the stories that come off a battlefield. Some of it it true. And if you could believe the craziest person that i know is here and one is sitting over here on the other side, is part of it is true. But i made the mistake myself, and i said, when i was 17 coming month the end of my 17th birthday, i went down to sign up for the board and sign up to go in for the army. And i went there anded lady said to me, son, what is your name. And i looked at her and i said, tom johnson. And she looked at me and that is not any relationship to the tom that was here before. But so she said, no, that is not your name. And i said, yes, it is, that is my name. And she said no, that is not your name. And ill give you one more chance. What is your name. And said junior johnson. And he said that is not your name. And i said, and i told her, well, i said to her, she said your name is tone. And for that, im going to send you in today. So she told me to go outside and sit down and i went outside and i sit down in the waiting room for a little bit and i got up and i walked out and i said, well, i can beat her at this. Im going to go sign up myself. So i went and signed up as a volunteer to go into the army. And so we went in and on that day that we were asked to support the to support in the field, i looked at it as, gosh, were going to go out and take our mortars, because i was an 11c10, which is heavy infantry and im going to go out and were going to support them. Were going to lay been set up our watters and lay down fire for them and that is what were going to do. And so we get out there and some i always call those helicopter pilots crazy because we were going out and hes ducking around the tree tops and then we get to the place where we were going to go in and he he just came in real low and he says, now, boys, get your tails off the plane, off the chopper. And he is up higher than the than this podium here. He is flying higher than that. And hes saying, well go ahead and jump out, just get out. Get out now, because im taking fire and i need to you just get out so i can take off. And so we jumped out and nevertheless we were in a rice patty and in the rice patty in vietnam, it is a lot of water, plus some other things that we i dont want we dont probably want to talk about. You jumped your pants, is what happened. But we did. And we were taking heavy fire. And then so i told the guys at the time, i said, guys, i said, i think we are we were sent here to take the fire off of the others. And he said, everybody was saying, well, what are we going to do . So we actually headed for the woodline and then we started we started to lay down fire. And that was that was a tough day when i stood and i was looking through the elephant grass and i pulled the elephant grass back and right before me there was a guy who looked about my age, or younger, and he was looking right at me and i was looking right at him. And neither one of us was firing at either we were just staring at each other. And then all of a sudden, a large noise out of nowhere and when i woke up, four hours, five hours later, i thought i was i thought i was dead. I said because i couldnt see anything and i was just lying there. And then all i could think of was, boy, heaven certainly is dark because i cant see a thing, because so i laid there for a while and something told me to reach up and check yourself. And so i started checking and feeling mymyself. And i said im all right. And i felt my face and it felt like somebody had caked mud on my face and it was own blood and it was covering up my eyes and i couldnt see. So when i finally opened up and got the blood off, i could see and then i noticed that, gosh, you know, im here and im here alone and i could hear firing from the distance. And so we decided, well well, i decided i would go and try to find some others and well get together and well try to develop a circle of fire. And we did that. And we fought throughout the evening and through the night and into the next day. We were playing down as much fire as we could. And then at night time, i said, we were there and the vietnamese was coming and we saw them coming and one of the guys said, well, what are we going to do . And i said, you know, sorry but i said, hell if i know. Im just a private. And everybody looked around and they said, are you the rankingest private so [ laughter ] so i said, well, okay. Well, lets try to find something to eat because this is in the middle of the night and we havent had anything to eat and so weve been at this since about 9 00 a. M. In the morning and i said, well, so we did that and we were sitting down and waiting for things to kind of clear down, settle down a little bit. And we noticed that the vietnamese started coming again and i said nobody fights at night. This is this is silly. [ laughter ] and all i could say was the trace of ammo and we had tracer ammo but i didnt think the vietnamese had tracer ammo or the vietcong had case ammo. And so i was looking at that and laying on my back and watching this tracer ammo come across my face. And said finally i said, i think it is somebody from our side is shooting our way. And so we started hollering a little bit and then finally they said who is there and we said it is dog company. Actually that is Delta Company for all of you people that know that. And they said, were here, but we have no ammo. And they said, well you better stay down because the vietcong is right up on you. So we stayed down for a little bit. And then we decided, well, we got to get back into the fight. And so we decided to move out and started doing what we can. It was a tough night. And we went through that and through the part of the day of the next day. And when i first knew joe, i said, well, he came to corpus and said and i didnt know he lived in referio. And actually he lived out on the bay and he told me one day, were going to have a meeting and up in referio and you come up and were going to discuss some things. And so we went up there and then he told me he had written a book and i had i had already seen the movie. So he asked me to come and look at it and everything. And then he showed me, gosh, your name is in the book. And he said, because i couldnt get to you to get anything else. Your name is in the book. And i looked at it and i said, wow, my name is in the book. [ laughter ] something for the rankingest private. Yeah. But actually i did live through everything. I lived through the war and i came out. And as joe said, i went back to school and the army was nice enough to let me join the army Health Professional program and go to school. And i went to school and i decided i would pay them back by going back into the army. I went back into the army to serve. And then i got out and i said, well and i went into Public Health service and i served as a commander in the Public Health service for several years. And then i got out and i said, gosh, what am i going to do . So i decided, well ill go into the guard. And i went into the guard. And i served in texas guard for about 30 30 years in the texas guard. And when i got out, i asked the governor rick perry, who was the governor, and said, tone, you are such a good fellow, we wont make you a brigadier, but i guess well make you an admiral in a texas way. And in a texas state navy. And i said, what is this. Im an army officer. No, thank you. Lets move along to my this is vince cantu. Tell us your story. Well, joe and i shouldnt have been there in the first place. Me, too. No, president kennedy had passed a proclamation, no married men. And at the time i was married and had a little girl, mary lou. And then uncle sam came knocking and he said, hey, army needs you. So i gathered all of my papers and took them to victoria, because that is where the recruiting station was, and i said, hey, you cant take me in, put all of the information in front of him and i said, im sorry, but need well youre it. And i said, okay. So i was sure i wasnt going to pass. But three guys went. One didnt make it because because of intelligence. The other one, he was too fat. And so and so i lucked out. Who was [ laughter ] who was the one that had no intelligence . [ laughter ] i should have made like i had no intelligence. I should have done that. But any way, they took me in. Now the way i met joe, Sergeant Montgomery was my platoon sergeant and Sergeant Mueller was german decent was my squad leader. And he was sitting there and fire all around us and a big old tree behind him. Apd said what are you doing sitting here. And he said i cant do that. And i said i just had a daughter coming back and went over to there and i havent seen her. And i kept on crying. And i said get behind and i went over to Sergeant Montgomery and i said sergeant, mueller cant function. And i said, well, cantu, sent him back to the back area. So i took him and i went to Sergeant Montgomery and he said, cantu, it is yours. And now the next shift coming, send some of your men to pick up the dead and put them in the chopper. So i went and i was waiting and i said, these are guys that ive been about two years together. Because when they took us in there, i needed ten days left in the army. So how can i get the company send them out and get them back in where it feels safe. So i made up my mind to tell them to follow me. So when the chopper came in, they all followed me over to put the dead bodies in the chopper. And then i see joe of course i didnt know it was him, he come from behind a bush and kneel down and take a picture buzz i thought he was going picture because i thought he was going to shoot me and i dove down into the elephant grass and the elephant grass was

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