We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (59 page)

Knowles has served in the New Mexico legislature since 1982.

komich, Leland C., fifty-two, Huey pilot with Bravo Company 229th in X-Ray and Albany, retired a chief warrant officer 4 with more than twenty years' service. He and his wife live in Alexandria, Virginia.

kreischer, Bill, forty-eight, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, recovered from his wounds and returned to duty with the battalion in Vietnam. He served seventeen months and rotated home in January of 1967. In June of that year he left the Army as a staff sergeant. Today, Kreischer runs his own private-investigation agency in New York, specializing in copyright and trademark infringement. He is a member of the board of trustees of the 1st Cavalry Division Association, president of the 7th Cavalry Association, and a founder of the Ia Drang Alumni--and he gives generously of both time and money to all three.

Kreischer is working on a night-school law degree in his spare time; he lives in Hauppauge, New York.

ladner, Theron, fifty, machine gunner with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in X-Ray, lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he owns a nightclub and a stable of Thoroughbred racehorses.

larsen, Stanley R. (Swede), seventy-seven, commanding general, II Field Force Vietnam, retired a lieutenant general in 1972 and for seven years was president of a large company in San Francisco. He and his wife, Nell, now are retired and living in Shoal Creek, Alabama.

lavender, David A. (Purp), fifty, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, was evacuated to Japan. He underwent four operations on his shattered hip and then was shipped home for discharge on December 21,1965, ten days overdue on his two-year hitch and judged fifty percent disabled. He went home to Murphysboro, Illinois. Purp is married, the father of three daughters, and cuts hair at Gibb's Barber

Shop, where he has worked for the last nineteen years. "Our town is only ten thousand people and we lost eleven young men from here killed in Vietnam," says Purp. "I attended every one of those funerals."

lefebvre, L.R. (Ray), fifty-nine, commander of Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent eighteen months at Martin Army Hospital, Fort Benning, recovering from the wounds he suffered at X-Ray. He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977 and returned to Georgia, where he is an executive for a trucking firm. Lefebvre earned graduate degrees in secondary school administration and public administration. He and his wife, Ann, live in Lilburn, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. They have four children and five grandchildren. His twelve-year-old granddaughter recently interviewed Ray about his experiences in Vietnam and wrote a school essay she titled: "My Grandfather: An American Hero."

lombardo, Riccardo, sixty-one, Huey pilot in X-Ray and Albany and Pop Jekel's good buddy, was retired on one hundred percent disability after a serious back injury in 1967, when he was thirty-six. He lives in Columbus, Georgia, and is a serious collector of firearms and active in a local shooting club.

lose, Charles R., the medic of the Lost Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, lives quietly in Biloxi, Mississippi, on a small veterans' disability pension. Doc Lose once told his old company commander, John Herren, "Nobody out here understands what we went through." After attending the 1992 reunion of the Band of Brothers and reading this book, he changed his mind. In a Christmas 1992 note to the authors, Doc wrote: "Thank you for giving me the tools to heal myself."

lund, Bill, fifty, who was Myron Diduryk's artillery forward observer in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, left Vietnam in March 1966, upon completion of his two-year reserve officer obligation. He and his wife, Kathie, live on a seventy-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado, where he owns and operates an outfitting company for fishing and boating trips.

mapson, Betty Jivens, forty-two, daughter of Sergeant Jerry Jivens, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, killed in action at X-Ray on November 15, 1965, is married, the mother of two, and works as a secretary at the Medical Center Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. Her mother, who never remarried, died in 1986. Of Mrs. Mapson's five brothers, three served in the Army, one made a career in the Air Force, and one is a lawyer. Mrs. Mapson is a member of the Columbus chapter of the 1 st Cavalry Division Association.

marm, Walter J. (Joe), fifty, platoon leader, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry and the only man to receive the Medal of Honor, America's highest decoration for valor, in the Ia Drang campaign, is a colonel and still on active duty after twenty-eight years. He is senior Army adviser to'the 79th Army Reserve Command in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.

martin, John C., fifty-one, rifleman in Lieutenant Sisson's platoon detached from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry for duty in X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. He retired from the Army as a staff sergeant in 1976, and now serves in the Alabama National Guard. He and his wife live in Anniston, Alabama, where Martin is employed at the Army Depot.

martin, Roger, fifty-two, rifleman, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, spent eleven months at Great Lakes Naval Hospital recovering from a hip wound suffered at LZ Albany. He was discharged in October 1966, and went home to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He works for a firm that restores classic automobiles. Martin and his wife, Carole, have six children, four of them adopted. One of their daughters is Vietnamese.

maruhnich, John, sixty-two, mortar sergeant, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray, retired a sergeant first class in 1974 with twenty-four years' service. He lives in Falls, Pennsylvania.

Mcdade, Robert, seventy, who commanded the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel in 1975. He and his wife live in Sag Harbor, New York, where they operate a summer season shop that deals in contemporary original art.

mcdonald, George J., fifty-two, mortarman, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left the Army in 1966 and went home to Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he is a commercial fisherman.

merchant, Dick, fifty-four, assistant operations officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, served a second tour in Vietnam in 1968 as Lieutenant Colonel Matt Dillon's battalion executive officer. Merchant retired a lieutenant colonel in 1982. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and works for the state government.

meyer, Edward C. (Shy), sixty-three, 3rd Brigade executive officer in the Ia Drang, retired as Army Chief of Staff, a four-star general, in 1983 after thirty-two years' service. Since retiring he serves on the boards of half a dozen major corporations and also works as a consultant to defense industries. He is president of the Army Relief Fund and a trustee of the Association of Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy.

Meyer and his wife, Carol, live in Arlington, Virginia.

miceli, Carmen, forty-eight, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray, completed a full tour in Vietnam and left the Army in September 1966. He is married and the father of two daughters. For the last twenty-two years he has worked for the North Bergen, N. J., fire department. He is a captain and the commander of Engine Company Number One.

mills, Jon, fifty-four, Bruce Crandall's copilot in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1980. He is an executive with a major defense contracting firm and lives in Centreville, Virginia.

moore, H.G. (Hal), now seventy, commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang and served six more months in Vietnam, commanding the 3rd Brigade. On January 31, 1966, The New York Times profiled Moore as ' Man Who Can Find the Viet Cong." He pressed for another assignment to troop command in Vietnam, only to be told that he had already had his turn. Moore commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, was commanding general at Fort Ord, California, and then was the Army's deputy Chief of Staff for personnel. Moore, who says he graduated from West Point "by the skin of my teeth," was the first Army officer of his class (1945) to achieve one-, two-, and three-star rank. He retired in August 1977, with thirty-two years' service. For the next four years he was executive vice president of the company that developed the Crested Butte, Colorado, ski area. He then formed a computer-software company. He and his wife, Julie, divide their time between homes in Auburn, Alabama, and Crested Butte, Colorado. They have five grown children: sons Steve, Dave, and Greg; and daughters Cecile and Julie.

Moore lectures at military academies and at several colleges and universities. In his spare time he camps, climbs, skis, and fishes for trout in the Rockies.

moreno, Francisco (Frank), copilot in Ed "Too Tall" Freeman's Huey in X-Ray, was commissioned a second lieutenant in Vietnam and retired as a major after twenty years of service. He and his wife live in Phoenix, Arizona.

nadal, Ramon ,- (Tony), fifty-six, commander of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, later earned a master's degree in psychology and taught at West Point and at the Army War College. He retired a colonel in 1981, and is vice president of human resources for a large corporation in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Billie, have a son in college and a daughter still at home.

nye, George (China Joe), demolition-team leader, 8th Engineers, attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, died of an apparent heart attack at age fifty-one on December 8, 1991, at his home in Bangor, Maine. After the Ia Drang, Nye finished his tour with the 8th Engineers and the 1st Cav and volunteered for three more tours in combat with the 5th Special Forces Group. He was evacuated, badly wounded, on January 5,1970, after serving four years, eight months, and ten days in Vietnam. He spent eighteen months in Army hospitals, and was retired, disabled, in June 1975. On his chest he wore the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and five Purple Hearts. George found solace in hiking the Maine woods, shooting nothing more deadly than a 35mm camera. In March 1991 he found a new purpose in life: meeting the chartered airliners touching down at Bangor International Airport, the first American landfall, bringing American soldiers home from the Persian Gulf. George Nye was a sparkplug of Operation Welcome Home, which brought veterans' groups, brass bands, and Bangor townsfolk to the airport by the hundreds to hug and shake hands with the Desert Storm veterans. Most of the planes touched down between midnight and six a. m., but George Nye was always there, rain or shine. He personally shook the hands of at least fifty thousand returning soldiers. One of those soldiers was Army Captain David Moore, 82nd Airborne Division, son of his old battlefield commander in X-Ray, and that homecoming gave George the greatest pleasure of all. He wanted the Gulf veterans to have the welcome-home that none of the Vietnam veterans got. The day before he died, George picked up a Christmas tree, which he planned to decorate with yellow ribbons and small American flags for the airport terminal; soldiers from the Gulf were still arriving and he didn't want them to think they had been forgotten. His friends completed the tree for him and dedicated it to Sergeant China Joe Nye. God rest you, George.

ouellette, Robert, fifty, battalion commander's radio operator in LZ X-Ray, left the Army in August 1966. He now lives in Dublin, New Hampshire, and works for a firm that sells office supplies.

paolone, Ernest E., Bob Edwards's radio operator, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, died of a massive heart attack on March 30, 1992, at the age of fifty. Ernie had gone back to his native Chicago and drove a truck for the city. He was the father of four children, aged twelve through twenty. At a surprise fiftieth-birthday party for Ernie, he was presented a plaque engraved with sergeant's stripes and inscribed with a message from Colonel (ret.) Bob Edwards saying that these were the stripes Paolone earned at LZ X-Ray but never got.

parish, Willard, fifty-one, mortarman in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who won the Silver Star for his work as a machine gunner in LZ X-Ray, was among the draftees who rotated home in December 1965 for discharge. For a number of years he was a country - and-western band leader and disc jockey. Parish now runs the Bristow, Oklahoma, toll gate on the Turner Turnpike. He married in 1981 and is the father of four daughters: an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and infant twins.

parker, Neal G., a Naval Academy graduate who transferred to the U.S. Army and was a Huey pilot in Bravo Company 229th in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel after thirty years' service. He now lives in Mobile, Alabama.

payne, D.P. (Pat), fifty, recon-platoon leader, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, served two tours in Vietnam and left the Army as a captain in June 1969. He joined IBM as a salesman in Austin, Texas, and spent twenty years with them, rising to the post of Midwestern regional manager. Today he is president of a major chemical-waste management corporation in Oak Brook, Illinois. Payne and his wife, Patty, live in Hinsdale, Illinois, and have three children.

plumley, Basil, seventy-two, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry's sergeant major, retired from the Army as a command sergeant major on December 31, 1974, after thirty-two years, six months, and four days on active duty, and a second tour in Vietnam with the U.S. Advisory Group, Pleiku. His awards include the Combat Infantryman's Badge with two stars; two Silver Stars; two Bronze Stars; four Purple Hearts; a Master Parachutist Badge with five combat-jump stars; a European Theater Service ribbon with eight campaign stars and four invasion arrows; a Korean Service . with three campaign stars and one invasion arrow; a Vietnam Service ribbon with one silver and three bronze campaign stars; and the Presidential Unit Citation badge. He worked an additional fifteen years as a civilian employee at Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia, and retired again in 1990. He and his wife, Deurice, live in Columbus, Georgia, where he is president of the 1st Cavalry Division Association local chapter and an occasional quail hunter. Basil Plumley is a grandfather now, kind and soft-spoken, but do not be deceived: He is the lion in winter.

poley, Clinton, forty-eight, assistant machine gunner, 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, was discharged from Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, early in 1966, and went home to Iowa and the family farm. He was judged seventy percent disabled due to wounds suffered in LZ X-Ray. Poley, a bachelor, lives alone on his farm outside Ackley, Iowa, and in a 1990 letter explained himself far better than we could: "Some might ask why haven't I forgotten about Vietnam after all these years. Every night I rub a towel over all my scars and see them in the mirror. I think of all those guys killed in action, wounded in action, and their friends, their relatives and all those altered lives. How could I forget? It's not so much what we went through as it is knowing what the other guys went through. They died dirty. They died hot, hungry and exhausted. They died thinking that their loved ones would never know how they died. I'm so proud to have been there and so proud of the guys who were there with me. I fought for this country and now I own and farm 120 acres of my country. To me that seems proper, and just, and so right."