CIA Archives: The Battle of Ia Drang Valley - Vietnam War Documentary Film (1965)

The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between regulars of the United States Army and regulars of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN / NVA) of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The two-part battle took place between November 14 and November 18, 1965, at two landing zones (LZs) northwest of Plei Me in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam (approximately 35 miles south-west of Pleiku) as part of the U.S. airmobile offensive codenamed Operation Silver Bayonet. The battle derives its name from the Drang River which runs through the valley northwest of Plei Me, in which the engagement took place. "Ia" means "river" in the local Montagnard language.

Representing the American forces were elements of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division: the 1st Battalion and 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, facing elements of the B3 Front of the PAVN and Viet Cong. The battle involved close air support by U.S. aircraft and a strategic bombing strike by the B-52s. The initial Vietnamese assault against the landing 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray was repulsed after two days and nights of heavy fighting on November 14-16. However, the follow-up surprise attack on November 17 that overran the marching column of 7th Cavalry 2nd Battalion near the LZ Albany was the most deadly ambush of a U.S. unit during the course of the entire war. About half of some 300 American deaths in the 35-day Operation Silver Bayonet happened in just this one fight that lasted 16 hours.

In 2002, Randall Wallace depicted the first part of the battle in the film We Were Soldiers starring Mel Gibson and Barry Pepper as Moore and Galloway, respectively. In 2007, the National Geographic Channel also aired a documentary program Day Under Fire: Vietnam War.

Throughout 1963 and 1964 a series of political and military mishaps had seriously affected the capabilities of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) main forces in South Vietnam. ARVN commanders were initially under direct orders by President Ngo Dinh Diem to avoid pitched combat at all costs, allowing the NLF (VC) forces (known around the world as the Viet Cong, or simply "VC") to train and grow without significant opposition, despite losing several leaders to CIA search and destroy squads which relied heavily on rocket attacks using attack helicopters. Even after Diem's overthrow in a 1963 coup, the new military leadership largely consisted of commanders put in place by Diem prior to the coup. They showed equal lack of interest in fighting the NLF, spending their time in a series of coups and counter-coups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...

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[Minh Nguyen]

“War is old men talking and young men dying." (Troy film, 2004)

[renegadechopper]

People still disrespect the men who lived through the Vietnam war and it makes me SICK!!! These men and women were nothing more the numbers to our government and even today, they are lied too and left out in the cold without food or housing many times. In my opinion, they killed to survive and died for no good reason. Hamburger hill is one of the best scenarios to prove that!! All of those men died so we could take that hill and then our government let the VC have it right the hell back!!!!!! I

[Isaac Wright]

to a certain extent, i agree. i was reading this book and it said: if the vietnam war was a disgrace, an even greater disgrace was the way the brave soldiers were treated when they came home again. most of them had ptsd and were horrified at what they had seen, and most were also poor men who were chosen to go, they didn't have a choice. they may have agreed with the war, they may not have, but it didn't matter.

[Justin B Hill]

....but please, in my epitaph, don't tell the truth of how nationalistic I was and how I would fight for Communism, Fascism, Bushcism, Obamaism, Democratism, Republicanism, Maggie-Thatcherism, Reaganism, CIA-ism, controlling economic-oil interesitsm, and selfish-self-centered-lostism.­....

[Justin B Hill]

Ironic, but apropos how so few people learn how rube-pawn-heel-lead-absorbing-­fool-'patriot' nationalist-propaganda-lied-to­-these-marine-moron-'hero'-nat­ionalists these Dulce-retro-dead-sacrifice-stu­pid-these 'heros' are.

[Justin B Hill]

....Well, he was no longer a 'Civics' teacher, though he used to be, as our American 'Civics' teachers had since been replaced by 'Americanism vs. Communism'--coaches! Yes, that is right, and you can research it via 1983, Winter Park High School, FLorida and how many coaches vs. fun-loving players, how many coaches were sleeping with married mothers, how many teachers were sleeping with non-communist daughters and mothers....Well, regardless of high-school-girl lust, mommy betrayals and....

[Justin B Hill]

You jest TallPaul, and I can claim nothing like this now, but when I was in 10th-grade-my first year of high school, and my first semester (this is not hyperbole, exaggeration, misrepresentation or misunderstood or mis-memorized), this is just memories of me being precocious, which I am no longer (just to be clear), but back then, back in 1983, I asked my 'Civics' teacher a few questions after he presented a few 'American' facts to me....

[tallpaul881]

Russia aand Eastern Europe fell just like you knew it would.

[Justin B Hill]

Oh, my! I think this guy is 1980's deliciously describing Nancy Reagan's clitoris. I can see it now, engorged, red as lipstick-red and inflamed, as inflamed as Ronnie's ire at the Berlin Wall. And more red, her little, friggin, skinney-hooded, man-in-the-boat-clit, than Ronnie's push-button doomsday phone to SAC, Khrushchev, and the first of the last remnants of the fallout of bad nuclear movies, references, families and 'Day After,' 'Damnation Alley,' 'A Boy and his Dog,' HBO youth prime....

[Justin B Hill]

I'm saying you are right, if left to the military as a whole, we would have won the Vietnam war, just as we have won the Iraq war: 'Mission Accomplished' and all that, and the Afghanistan War: Seal-Team six rocks, and the War On Terror, and the War on Drugs, and the War on Poverty, and the War on Cancer, and the War on Al-Qaeda, and the war on Communism, the war on war and all of the other wars we won. And so, as you say, if left up to the armed forces, we have and will win all wars. Absolutely!

[Justin B Hill]

....With the semi-fate of my semi-girl-friend could maybe try to or want to grasp and grope and coddle, as a semi-D&D Remnant of those of us who wanted Ronnie to be a real Ray-Gun. But, along with the women who wanted so much to fuck him via us, he just couldn't be real, and Nancy couldn't even reach beyond Orlando's NC0011 and Voodoo Queens to frig her own confused Cuban Clitoris-hooded-licking-man-sh­aped-mini-mini-flesh-red-moist­-petulant-redacted-Mormon-redd­ish-pink-Missile crispness....

[Justin B Hill]

Aw, Hell, Tallpaul, I like the cut of your jib and the radition of your 1980s-duck & cover perspective. It turns out that, well, when it comes to Viet-'Nam', Amurica, history of things South-East-Asian, Truth and Reality, words, grammar, side-ways sentiments and second-things-said, don't often or all that much, collide.... and as far as World Opinion Fallout is concerned, that was something we wished the WESH news didn't mention, and that it was something we geeks, really and honestly....