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We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam Paperback – January 1, 2004
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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 at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.
How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up--makes 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, have 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.
- Print length480 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPresidio Press
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2004
- Dimensions6.1 x 1 x 9.2 inches
- ISBN-10034547581X
- ISBN-13978-0345475817
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What's it about?
The book is about the experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam War, specifically the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, and their acts of heroism and sacrifice.
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The country that sent us off to war was not there to welcome us home. It no longer existed.684 Kindle readers highlighted this
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I wanted every man trained for and capable of taking over the job of the man above him.656 Kindle readers highlighted this
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We went to war because our country asked us to go, because our new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered us to go, but more importantly because we saw it as our duty to go. That is one kind of love.652 Kindle readers highlighted this
Editorial Reviews
Review
–GENERAL H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF
“Hal Moore and Joe Galloway have captured the terror and exhilaration, the comradeship and self-sacrifice, the brutality and compassion that are the dark heart of war.”
–NEIL SHEEHAN, author of A Bright Shining Lie
“A powerful and epic story . . . This is the best account of infantry combat I have ever read, and the most significant book to come out of the Vietnam War.”
–COLONEL DAVID HACKWORTH, author of the bestseller About Face
From the Inside Flap
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 at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.
How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up--makes 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, have 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.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover
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 at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.
How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up--makes 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, have 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.
"From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Joseph L. Galloway is a native Texan. At seventeen he was a reporter on a daily newspaper, at nineteen a bureau chief for United Press International. He spent fifteen years as a foreign and war correspondent based in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore, and the Soviet Union. Now a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report, he covered the Gulf War and coauthored Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War. Galloway lives with his wife, Theresa, and sons, Lee and Joshua, on a farm in northern Virginia.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars...
-Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part One, Act II, Scene 3
This story is about time and memories. The time was 1965, a different kind of year, a watershed year when one era was ending in America and another was beginning. We felt it then, in the many ways our lives changed so suddenly, so dramatically, and looking back on it from a quarter-century gone we are left in no doubt. It was the year America decided to directly intervene in the Byzantine affairs of obscure and distant Vietnam. It was the year we went to war. In the broad, traditional sense, that "we" who went to war was all of us, all Americans, though in truth at that time the larger majority had little knowledge of, less interest in, and no great concern with what was beginning so far away.
So this story is about the smaller, more tightly focused "we" of that sentence: the first American combat troops, who boarded World War II-era troopships, sailed to that little-known place, and fought the first major battle of a conflict that would drag on for ten long years and come as near to destroying America as it did to destroying Vietnam.
The Ia Drang campaign was to the Vietnam War what the terrible Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was to World War II: a dress rehearsal; the place where new tactics, techniques, and weapons were tested, perfected, and validated. In the Ia Drang, both sides claimed victory and both sides drew lessons, some of them dangerously deceptive, which echoed and resonated throughout the decade of bloody fighting and bitter sacrifice that was to come.
This is about what we did, what we saw, what we suffered in a thirty-four-day campaign in the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam in November 1965, when we were young and confident and patriotic and our countrymen knew little and cared less about our sacrifices.
Another war story, you say? Not exactly, for on the more important levels this is a love story, told in our own words and by our own actions. We were the children of the 1950s and we went where we were sent because we loved our country. We were draftees, most of us, but we were proud of the opportunity to serve that country just as our fathers had served in World War II and our older brothers in Korea. We were members of an elite, experimental combat division trained in the new art of airmobile warfare at the behest of President John F. Kennedy.
Just before we shipped out to Vietnam the Army handed us the colors of the historic 1st Cavalry Division and we all proudly sewed on the big yellow-and-black shoulder patches with the horsehead silhouette. We went to war because our country asked us to go, because our new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered us to go, but more importantly because we saw it as our duty to go. That is one kind of love.
Product details
- Publisher : Presidio Press; Reprint edition (January 1, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 480 pages
- ISBN-10 : 034547581X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345475817
- Item Weight : 1.35 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.1 x 1 x 9.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #35,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #27 in Vietnam War Biographies (Books)
- #49 in Vietnam War History (Books)
- #157 in Asian History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Legendary combat leader and New York Times Bestselling author, Lieutenant General Harold (Hal) Gregory Moore Jr, passed away peacefully at age 94 on February 10, 2017.
Hal was born on February 13, 1922, in Bardstown KY to Harold and Mary (Crume) Moore. Hal started a 32-year military career upon entry into the United States Military Academy in 1942, convincing a Congressman from Georgia to swap Hal’s Kentucky appointment to the Naval Academy for one to West Point. Upon graduation in 1945, he served on occupation duty in Japan; he returned to Fort Bragg where he met and married the great love of his life, Julie Compton. He tested parachutes, surviving multiple malfunctions to include being hung up and towed behind a plane. Deployed to the Korean War in 1952, he commanded an Infantry rifle and heavy mortar company in the 7th Infantry Division and was awarded two Bronze Star Medals for Valor.
Subsequent assignments included teaching tactics at West Point, developing airborne and air assault equipment in the Pentagon, and a tour of duty in Norway where he planned the ground defense of northern Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. Upon completion of the course of study at the Naval War College, Hal took command of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry at Fort Benning, GA. Fourteen months later, the unit was designated the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry (Custer’s old outfit) and deployed to Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1965.
Hal is best known for his leadership in the first major battle between the US and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) that occurred in the remote Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands in November 1965. Within 20 minutes of the first shot, the 7th Cavalry, vastly outnumbered, was assaulted by hundreds of enemy furiously determined to over-run it. After a three-day bloodbath, the enemy quit the field leaving over six hundred of their dead littering the battleground. Hal was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor, for his actions during the fight. Hal then assumed command of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and led it through several major campaigns in 1966 earning another Bronze Star Medal for Valor for carrying wounded to safety under “withering small and automatic weapons fire.”
In 1968, Hal pinned on his first star and led the planning for the Army’s withdrawal from Vietnam. He returned to Korea in 1969 and was promoted to Major General and given command of the 7th Infantry Division to “straighten out that Division” after it was fractured with insubordination and riots. Over the next year, Hal rebuilt the Division back into an effective fighting force. In 1971, he took command of the Training Center and Fort Ord, CA in the era of the Vietnam antiwar demonstrations, associated drug problems, continuing racial tensions and the transition to the “modern volunteer Army.” He applied lessons learned from the 7th Infantry to create another successful outcome. In 1974, Hal was promoted to Lieutenant General and assigned to the Pentagon as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel for the Army where he was most proud of actions he took to rebuild an NCO Corps almost destroyed by the Vietnam War.
Following retirement from active duty in 1977, he worked as the Executive Vice President of the Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado. In 1981, working with his co-author, Joe Galloway, he turned his attention to the research that underpinned their 1992 New York Times Bestselling book on the Ia Drang battles, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. In 2002, the book was the basis of the acclaimed movie, We Were Soldiers, where Mel Gibson portrayed Hal. After being devastated by the loss of his wife, Julie, in 2004, Hal withdrew from public life but worked with Joe Galloway to produce the 2008 sequel to the first book; We are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam.
Hal was a dedicated outdoorsman who loved to ski, hike, camp, and fish and was most proud of the fact that he “infected” all his children with the same passion. Hal was fishing in a local bass fishing tournament in 1952 on the morning his son, Steve was born. He always claimed he had permission to go - something Julie disputed. The fact that Hal won a nice Shakespeare reel did nothing to mitigate the trouble he was in upon his return.
Hal was known for his finely tuned sense of humor; earning the nickname of “Captain Fun” from his grandchildren. He would routinely send funny postcards of “jackalopes” and hide small toys around the house in anticipation of visits.

Joseph L. Galloway, one of America’s premier war and foreign correspondents for half a century, recently retired as the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. Before that he held an assignment as a special consultant to General Colin Powell at the State Department.
He is the co-author of the 2020 book They Were Soldiers: The Sacrifices and Contributions of Our Vietnam Veterans with Marvin J. Wolf, published by Nelson Books. They Were Soldiers features 49 interviews with Vietnam Veterans from all walks of life and focuses on the contributions they made to America after they returned home. It makes a strong case that the men and women who participated in the Vietnam War were every bit the equal to their “Greatest Generation” parents—and that they were certainly the greatest of their generation.
Early in 2013, Galloway was sworn into service as a special consultant to the Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration project run by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was also a permanent consultant to Ken Burns’ Florentine Films project to make a documentary history of the Vietnam War which was initially broadcast in 2017 on PBS.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. He joined Knight Ridder in the fall of 2002.
During the course of 15 years of foreign postings—including assignments in Japan, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union—Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. Galloway also covered the Haiti incursion and made trips to Iraq to cover the war there in 2003 and 2005-2006.
The late Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who first met Galloway in South Vietnam when he was a brand new Army major, called the Texan “the finest combat correspondent of our generation—a soldier’s reporter and a soldier’s friend.”
He is co-author, with the late Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, of the New York Times and national bestseller We Were Soldiers Once…And Young (published by Random House), which was made into the critically acclaimed movie, “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson. We Were Soldiers Once…And Young is presently in print in six different languages with more than 1.2 million copies sold.
Galloway also co-authored Triumph Without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War for Times Books—and in 2008 he and Gen. Moore published their sequel to We Were Soldiers for HarperCollins, the New York Times bestseller We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam.
When Military History magazine polled 50 leading historians to choose the Ten Greatest Books Ever Written on War, We Were Soldiers Once…and Young was among those ten books.
On May 1, 1998, Galloway was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal with V for Valor for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. His is the only medal of valor the U.S. Army awarded to a civilian for actions in combat during the entire Vietnam War.
Galloway received the National Magazine Award in 1991 for a U.S. News cover article on the 25th anniversary of the Ia Drang Battles, and the National News Media Award of the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1992 for coverage of the Gulf War. In 2000, he received the President’s Award for the Arts of the Vietnam Veterans Association of America. In 2001, he received the BG Robert L. Denig Award for Distinguished Service presented by the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. In 2005, he received the Abraham Lincoln Award of the Union League Club of Philadelphia, and the John Reagan (Tex) McCrary Award of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
Galloway was awarded the 2011 Doughboy Award, the highest honor the Army’s Infantry can bestow on an individual. Few civilians have ever received a Doughboy. On Veterans Day, 2011, he received the Legacy of Service Award of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
Galloway is a member of the boards or advisory boards of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the 1st Cavalry Division Association, the National Infantry Museum, the School of Social Studies of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., the Museum of America’s Wars, and the Military Reporters and Editors Association.
Galloway is the recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Norwich University and Mount St. Mary’s College of Newburgh, N.Y.
He now resides in Concord, N.C., with his wife, Dr. Grace Liem Galloway.
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Customers find the writing quality awesome and compelling. They describe the storyline as remarkable, deeply moving, and wonderful. Readers describe the book as detailed, well-researched, and captures the spirit. They also find the emotional impact riveting and painful. Customers say the book provides good insight into the long-term strategic implications and discipline. They appreciate the candid depiction of a tragic period in American history.
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Customers find the writing quality of the book awesome, well written, and a real page turner. They also say the movie is compelling.
"Great book but pages come loose...." Read more
"...Just a very well written book ,a real page turner...." Read more
"...This book was written by a veteran and an author. It's very good and respectful of all of the characters in it...." Read more
"...Excellent book, and much better than I expected. Still waiting, though, for Gibson’s mea culpa...." Read more
Customers find the storyline remarkable, compelling, moving, riveting, and thought provoking. They appreciate the quotes from survivors and the historical perspective. Readers also mention that the action is intense.
"...Just a very well written book ,a real page turner. The end of the book was very interesting, a small follow-up on every main player be it non-com or..." Read more
"...portray a force of superbly-trained, well-led and highly motivated US combat forces...." Read more
"...that describes in excellent detail the deeds of so many great and heroic men...." Read more
"...This is a really good story and I would recommend that you read it. Follow up the book with the movie...." Read more
Customers find the book very readable, with detailed writing and complete descriptions. They say the book brings the fighting to life and brings them closer to the men.
"...Its a very very descriptive ,very detailed writing by two people who were right there in the battle...." Read more
"...This book is simply but brilliantly written and goes into extensive details which are quite profound and a sad reflection of the political arrogance..." Read more
"...First of all, it was a very detailed, well written Narrative, of the battle of the Ia Drang Valley, in 1965 Viet Nam...." Read more
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Customers find the book very informative and excellent. They also say it provides good background about the enemy's army and the intention of our new helicopter. Readers appreciate the clear, wrenching, and detailed account. They say the book draws them in on a personal level and portrays the long-term strategic implications.
"...And it was bittersweet. Good to gain knowledge, heartbreaking for what happened...." Read more
"...Moore and Galloway have presented us with a fine and accurate accounting of the first major battle involving US forces in Vietnam, which took place..." Read more
"...These troopers were well trained and Moore's officers were of a very high level...." Read more
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Customers find the book deeply emotional, sad, and moving. They say it makes them appreciate the sacrificial efforts of the men. They also describe the book as beautifully written, loving, honorable, and respectful. Readers also mention that the book is gut wrenching, sobering, and hurts to read at times.
"...And it was bittersweet. Good to gain knowledge, heartbreaking for what happened...." Read more
"...books this summer, but reading the final chapters of this one brought tears to my eyes and led to a catharsis of the pain I have silently suffered..." Read more
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Customers find the visuals candid, real, and intense. They say the book clearly depicts the horrors of war and the wrack and ruin to both sides. Readers also describe the book as riveting and disturbing.
"...It's really a very compelling look as to what field commanders from both sides felt about what was happening during all phases of the different..." Read more
"...“We Were Soldiers” captures the reality of combat, which I believe is important for every human to know...." Read more
"...enlarged would have helped, but at the end of the book, the picture was so well painted in my mind that they visual aids were unnecessary...." Read more
"This breathtaking, eye-opening account of the first major military engagement between US forces and the NVA was a watershed moment in history that..." Read more
Customers find the book an excellent, first-person account of the IaDrang battle. They also appreciate the brutal honesty and the large selection of the book.
"A great up-close account of the battles at LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany in the Ia Drang Valley..." Read more
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"...An honest, heartbreaking account of those who went to war, and those who led them...." Read more
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Customers find the plot gripping, detailed, and powerful. They also say the book is touching and uplifting. Readers also mention that the impact is hard and the tactics are brilliant.
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"...Still, this was a gripping account of several crucial days at an early point in the Vietnam War...." Read more
"...I read this at the beginning of company command, and it gripped me very powerfully to the point of where I've given several copies of it to other..." Read more
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Moore and Galloway have presented us with a fine and accurate accounting of the first major battle involving US forces in Vietnam, which took place at LZ X-ray in the ‘Valley of Death’ (the Ia Drang Valley, Central Highlands, South Vietnam) in Nov. 1965. The Battle of the Ia Drang presented many firsts for both the US Army and the US Government and the book does a good job of describing these firsts, including the policy decisions made in Washington which set the tone and rules for much of the Vietnam War. The battle was fought by the 1st Battalion of the 7th Regiment, 1St (Air) Cav Division, commanded by (then) Lt. Col. Hal Moore. Joe Galloway covered the battle as reporter and photographer for UPI. The 1st Air Cavalry Division was the Army’s first ‘airmobile’ soldiers and set the standard for US offensive operations in Vietnam.
The book seems entirely comprehensive and accurate in the details of the battle. The analysis by the authors is generally correct in so far as it goes. (I.e. they note in detail the limitations put upon US forces in Vietnam by Lyndon Johnson, notably the prohibition on our forces to pursue the NVA into their sanctuary across the Cambodian border). Their analysis is less complete for their failing to state the obvious – that changes in all those “hands tied” policies would have made not one whit of difference in the outcome.
The book covers in detail the ~48-hour Battle of LZ X-Ray, which if one only watches the movie of the same name, would think ended in the glorious routing and compete defeat of NVA (North Vietnamese Army) forces. Moore’s book continues the real story of the battle after extraction and replacement of his (Moore’s) forces from LZ X-Ray. The replacement US forces (mainly the 2/7) were attacked and badly mauled the next day a few miles away near LZ Albany. The two battles, which became known as the Battle of the Ia Drang, killed over 200 US forces and got the attention of the Army, the government and the American people. The battle gave policy makers a good image of what the Vietnam War effort would entail and forced a decision between withdrawal from Vietnam, or massive reinforcement and commitment to a long, difficult war. Wrong decisions (*) based on wrong assumptions were made at every level by US policy makers, but most of that is beyond the scope of Moore’s and Galloway’s book.
I recommend the book and also recommend the movie. (**) “We Were Soldiers” captures the reality of combat, which I believe is important for every human to know. It is interesting and informative to note the vast differences portrayed of US soldiers in Vietnam by the movies “Platoon,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “We Were Soldiers.” We Were Soldiers accurately portray a force of superbly-trained, well-led and highly motivated US combat forces. Platoon and Full Metal Jacket (the first US-produced war movies of any accuracy and reality) show a force of drug-addled, indifferent grunts, poorly trained and led. The two portrayals are both true … the 1st Air Cav was highly trained, very well led and motivated …. in November of 1965. But the obvious absurdity and futility of the Vietnam War was apparent to anyone with a brain by mid-1967 – and everyone knew it – not the least of whom was the cannon-fodder grunt on the ground who developed one of the most prized philosophical maxims of all time … “It Don’t Mean Nothin.’” But the war could not be ended because of the vanity of old white men, and so another 40,000 US died, hundreds of thousands were maimed physically and mentally, maybe a million Vietnamese died, the national debt was trebled and the US economy was wrecked. All because Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did not want history to record them as the first American president to lose a war. Such a shame too for Lyndon Johnson, whom I consider one of our greatest presidents, except …….
(*) I started to say here, “As everyone knows ….,” but then I recalled a conversation I had recently with a perfectly lovely, well-educated 30-something elementary school teacher. I was pontificating on the importance of the lessons learned from the Vietnam War, when she looked at me and asked, “That’s the one that had Pearl Harbor, right?”
(**) Which will undoubtedly be Mel Gibson’s last decent movie preceding his complete personal destruction with his production of the S&M Epic, The Passion of The Christ, his public problems with alcoholism and substance abuse, religious fanaticism, fanatic public Anti-Semitism and criminal conduct, just to name a few. Gibson (whose career is indeed over) was a decent actor with memorable performances in Braveheart and We Were Soldiers, among others. He is now revealed as a despicable person and, I think, representative of much that is wrong with America.
Top reviews from other countries
This book is co-written by the commanding officer (USA), H. Moore, and an embedded journalist, J. Galloway, who was forced to fight for his life alongside the soldiers. The tone is one of neither glorification nor coverup, and the military input also tries to take a sympathetic note towards the Vietnamese army commander and units (as reflected in the movie). Lots of detail, especially trying to focus on the individual experience of a wide range of soldiers involved in a complex sequence of battles.
If you are familiar with the movie, the most important of many aspects that the movie could not cover, is that the Battle of Ia Drang Valley actually consisted of two major engagements, the second of which is not covered by the film. That said, I think the movie made a fairly good version of this.
This is major military history written with a sense of humility, compassion and comprehension of the realities of planning and engagement. Absolutely recommended.
This book is not an easy read. War action is described in great details in the 400 pages. The author does service to every individual from the battalion who faught the La Drang battle by mentioning their part in the action, which makes it a complex reading experience. It takes some patience and even perseverance to stay with the story till the end, but it is worth it.






