We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (60 page)

pujals, Enrique, fifty, platoon leader, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, woke up on an X-ray table first, then on a C-141 ambulance plane, and finally in Ward One at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. He spent seven months there while his shattered thigh and legs were repaired. He returned to active duty in July 1966, and served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser in Long Binh district. He left the Army in 1971 with the rank of captain, returned home to Puerto Rico, and earned a law degree. His injured right hip deteriorated, and on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1986, he found himself back on an operating table--the same place he had been on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, 1965. Pujals recently closed his law practice. "More than anything else in the world I would like to be back in the Green Machine," he says. "Since I can't have that, 1 would like a job working as closely with, the Army as possible." He is married and the father of four children.

rackstraw, Jim, forty-nine, recon-platoon leader, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as a rifle-company commander in the 25th Infantry Division. In 1974 he transferred from the infantry to the military police. He is a colonel and the provost marshal of the U.S. Army Forces Command (Forscom) in Atlanta, Georgia.

rescorla, Cyril R. (Rick), fifty-three, platoon leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, completed a full tour with Bravo Company in Vietnam and did another year teaching at Officer Candidate School in the States. He left active duty in 1967, but continued in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 1990 as a colonel. The British-born Rescorla earned a master's degree and a law degree at universities in Oklahoma and went into corporate-security work. Today he is vice president for group security at a major stock-brokerage house in New York City. He and his wife have two teenage children. Rescorla kept the battered French Army bugle he captured on the field at Albany; in 1991 he turned it over to the Ia Drang Alumni for use in memorial ceremonies.

riddle, Bill, fifty-two, artillery forward observer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, completed his Army service in the summer of 1966. He went home to Salinas, California, where he lives with his wife and three sons. For the last twenty-one years he has been in the tire business.

robinson, Edward Charles, fifty-five, Huey pilot at LZ X-Ray, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. He retired a colonel in 1983. He

holds two master's degrees, is employed in the defense industry, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

roland, William, forty-nine, rifle-squad leader, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. He retired a command sergeant major and lives in Columbus, Georgia.

rozanski, Gordon P. (Rosie), fifty-four, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry S-4 in the Ia Drang, was wounded in both arms, both legs, and the stomach in the Bong Son campaign in early 1966. He returned to serve two more tours in Vietnam--one with the Special Forces, one with an intelligence agency. Rozanski returned to the Ia Drang five times on various intelligence missions and described the place as "a cemetery." He was retired, disabled, as a major in the mid-1970s. He lives in Golden, Colorado, where he owns a firm that deals worldwide in antiques.

rudel, Karen Metsker, twenty-eight, daughter of Captain Thomas Metsker, intelligence officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry in Landing Zone X-Ray, killed in action November 14, 1965, lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband, Scott. They have three children, daughters Abigail and Alison and a son, Thomas Alexander. Karen works part time as a free-lance designer and helps with her husband's construction and contracting business.

savage, Ernie, forty-eight, the fourth man to inherit command of Lieutenant Henry Herrick's 2nd Platoon, the Lost Platoon of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray, retired a sergeant first class in 1982 after twenty years' active duty. He works at fort Benning, Georgia, evaluating Army Reserve training.

scott, James A., sixty-nine, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry's sergeant major, served a second Vietnam tour in 1970-71 as command sergeant major, USARV. Scott retired as a command sergeant major on May 1, 1973, after thirty years, ten months, and twenty days of service, wearing the Combat Infantryman's Badge with one star; six Bronze Stars; three Purple Hearts; a European Campaign ribbon with four battle stars and one invasion arrow; a Korean Service ribbon with two battle stars; a Vietnam Service ribbon with four battle stars; and the Presidential Unit Citation badge. He and his wife, Kornelia, live in Columbus, Georgia, where for several years Scott taught military subjects to Junior ROTC in the high schools. Scott and Basil Plumley meet most Fridays over breakfast at a local cafe for spirited discussions of the relative merits of their service, their two 7th Cavalry battalions, and other weighty issues. Scott says: "On the boat going to Vietnam I bet Plumley a case of beer I would be wounded first, and that I would be home for Christmas. He accepted, I won, but he only recently began paying off--one bottle at a time." Plumley says, "Scott is so tight with a dollar you'd think he came out of West Point."

selleck, Pat, fifty-one, radio operator, recon platoon, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at X-Ray, was discharged from the Army on November 29, 1965, and returned to his old job at the telephone company. He retired in August 1990, and now lives in Peekskill, New York.

setelin, John, forty-eight, squad leader, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, left Vietnam with three Purple Hearts and left the Army a sergeant. He is a master gunsmith and runs his own business repairing and selling weapons. He and his wife, Theresa, and their six year-old daughter, Megan, live in Glen Allen, Virginia. Setelin is president of the Major General George W. Casey chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association and a member of the national association's board of trustees; he also helps Bill Kreischer run the Ia Drang Alumni organization.

shadden, James Haskell, fifty, mortarman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived half a dozen operations and one year in Army hospitals recovering from the wounds received at LZ Albany. In the last operation, his shattered left knee joint was removed and the leg bones fused, leaving his left leg frozen straight and two inches shorter than his right leg. A miserly, ungrateful Veterans Administration ruled that Shadden was only thirty percent disabled. He studied to be a tool and-die machinist and worked at that job for several years until the strain of long hours standing on his bad leg severely affected his hip and back. He is married and has four children. Shadden lives on a seven-acre farm outside Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and works part-time at odd jobs.

shucart, William, M. D., surgeon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, had nearly completed his tour in Vietnam in the summer of

1966, when he suffered a broken back in the crash of a Chinook helicopter. He was evacuated, via Clark Field, to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. Shucart says, "It was interesting; they just figured I was another grunt and I didn't tell them different. They didn't discover I was a doctor until the day I was discharged--when I had a long talk with them about treating their patients like pieces of meat."

He was discharged in November 1966, and wound up in Boston in 1981.

Today, Doc Shucart of Landing Zone Albany is the chief of neurosurgery at Tufts University Medical School.

smith, Jack P., forty-seven, returned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry after his wounds healed, and completed his tour. He was discharged a sergeant, completed his college education, and is now an on-air national news correspondent for ABC Television's Weekend News. He lives in Washington, D.C.

spires, James W., operations officer, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a lieutenant colonel in 1976 and owns and operates his own industrial representational firm. He and his wife live in Lake Forest, Illinois. They have two grown children and one still at home.

staley, Les, sixty-seven, staff sergeant, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, in LZ X-Ray, retired on April 1, 1967, with twenty years' service. Married and the father of three sons, Staley now lives in Waldoboro, Maine, where he and family members run a gun shop.

stinnet, Robert L., fifty-eight, Bravo Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour. He single-handedly raised five young children and earned a doctorate, retiring a lieutenant colonel after twenty years' service. He is president of his own management-consulting firm and lives in Oklahoma City.

stockton, John B., seventy, commander, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, retired a colonel in 1967. His last known address was Miami, Florida.

suodinis, Joel E., fifty-five, who had already served one tour in Vietnam as an adviser, completed his second tour with Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. He retired a major in 1980, after twenty years' service. He lives in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, and works in real estate sales and development.

tademy, Dudley, 3rd Brigade fire-support coordinator in the Ia Drang, served a second tour in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry and retired a colonel in January 1987, after thirty years' service. He works for a consulting firm in Mclean, Virginia.

tanner, Ray, forty-nine, radio operator, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, returned home to South Carolina in April 1966 and went to work for a utility company in Charleston.

thorpe, Henry, fifty-eight, commander, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, left the Army as a captain in September 1967, after eight years' service, and went home to his native North Carolina.

After LZ Albany, Thorpe requested a transfer from his company command to the division public-information office and finished his tour as an escort officer for visiting press and VIPs. Today he is an orchestra leader and serves in the state militia.

tifft, Richard P., Pathfinder team leader in LZ X-Ray, later served as commander of the Golden Knights, the Army's parachute team. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1985; on November 26, 1987, he was killed in the crash of a private plane in Bakersfield, California. He was forty-five.

towles, Robert, forty-seven, rifleman, Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, spent five months in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania, recovering from twenty-eight shrapnel wounds he received at LZ Albany. He left the Army in October 1966, and went home to his native Ohio, where he works as a carpenter. Towles received a master's degree in history from Kent State in 1989, and is currently working on his doctorate. His dissertation is on the LZ Albany battle. He is married and has two children.

tully, Robert (Bob), sixty-eight, commander, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, served a second tour in Vietnam in 1968 as a brigade commander in the America! Division. Tully retired a colonel in 1976. He and his wife, Pat, live in Avon Park, Florida.

tully, Walter Busill (Buse) Jr., commander, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam on a second tour as a major in the Americal Division. On March 2, 1969, thirty two-year-old Buse Tully was killed in action.

viera, Arthur Jr., forty-eight, an M-79 grenadier with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, survived the terrible wounds he suffered in X-Ray, and now lives in Slatersville, Rhode Island, where he is in the photo business.

wallace, Bruce M. Jr., sixty-one, Air Force A-1E Skyraider pilot over the Ia Drang, served two more tours in Vietnam and retired a colonel in 1976. He is now an attorney in San Diego, California.

wallenius, Jon, forty-nine, mortar observer, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry in LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany, got out of the Army in August 1966. He teaches art at Venice High School, Los Angeles, California. He and his wife, Nancy, live in Lawndale, California. In his spare time Wallenius draws, paints, and does etchings and prints, sometimes of Vietnam War scenes. He is the perennial master of ceremonies at the Ia Drang dinners; he claims he is the only one of the brothers who can get through an entire sentence without using the f word.

washburn, Richard B., fifty-seven, platoon leader, 2/20th Aerial Rocket Artillery in the Ia Drang, returned to Vietnam for a second combat tour.

He retired a lieutenant colonel in 1977, and lives with his wife in Arlington, Texas.

whiteside, Jerry E., fifty-five, fire-support coordinator in LZ X-Ray, served a second tour in Vietnam as an adviser. He retired a colonel in 1982, with twenty-three years' service. He earned a doctorate in education and is personnel director for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia in Athens.

winkel, Paul Patton Jr., sixty, Orange 1 flight leader, Bravo Company, 229th Helicopter Assault Battalion in the Ia Drang, served a second combat tour in Vietnam. Returning home, he single-handedly raised his two young children while earning two master's degrees. Winkel retired a colonel in 1986, with over thirty-one years of Army service. He is a consultant to industries seeking defense business. He plays volleyball two nights a week to keep trim and has devoted much of his spare time over the past two years to a detailed study of the part played in the Ia Drang battles by his fellow aviators of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, our beloved Huey "slick" drivers. His personalized license plate proclaims: LZ X-Ray. Winkel and his wife live in Springfield, Virginia.

winter, Pete, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was discharged in December 1965. Married and the father of three children, Winter works for the Long Island Railroad and lives in Howard Beach, Queens, New York.

young, James, fifty-one, rifleman, Alpha Company, 1 st Battalion, 5th Cavalry in LZ Albany, made it home to the family farm outside Keysville, Missouri, on Christmas Eve, 1965, with an Army discharge in his pocket and a quarter-size hole in the side of his skull. He checked in with the nearest Veterans Administration hospital; they sent him home, telling him they would call him back for an operation to place a plate over the hole. They never did. Young went to work for the railroad in Steelville, Missouri. "I'm not supposed to chop wood or do anything that might cause a lick on that side of my head, but it healed up pretty well so I don't worry much about it," he says. Five years ago he attended a reunion of Alpha Company veterans of LZ Albany. ' headquarters type turned up and he returned my old helmet, bullet hole and all. I have it here with me today." He lives with his wife and family in Steelville.