We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam
by Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. GallowayEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-11-23
ISBN: 034547581X
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Presidio Press
Book Reviews of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam
Book Review: This War--And This Book--Belong to Sherman, Not John Wayne
Summary: 5 Stars
This isn't a book about John Wayne's war. It's about William Tecumseh Sherman's war, the man who said, "War is Hell..."
The actual quote from Sherman, a future president of LSU, was "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell..."
This book is about that hell, the hell of Vietnam where technology came fact to face with hand-to-hand combat. It was bloody, it was brutal...But it was also heroic. "Heroic" not in the sense of a John Wayne movie, but in the sense of heroism described in Walter Lord's epic book on the Alamo, "A Time To Stand:" "All men know fear. Perhaps, in the end, the hero is the one who, knowing that fear, marches on..."
There were lots of heroes in the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965. This book is about those heroes--on both sides.
Written by General Hal Moore and journalist Joe Gallaway, who were there, this book addresses the heroism and humanity of that battle--- the first direct confrontation of American "helicopter soldiers" and North Vietnam regulars. Fought at the very start of the war, it remains the turning point of that war, politically, militarily and otherwise.
It is striking in General Moore's respect and admiration for his men as well as for the men his forces were trying to kill. He felt a deep sense of empathy for the familes of the men who died on both sides. He is indicative of what a military man should be--He doesn't like the killing, but he does it because it is job, his duty. Duty, Honor, Country. But he never loses sight of humanity, his humanity, the humanity of his troops and the humanity of the troops--the enemy--they are fighting.
Pages 335-336 (hardback edition)contain a moving descripton of his visit to the family and to the grave of one of his fallen troops. The soldier's widow describs him kneeling at the grave of his soldier. It may be the highlight of the book. His later reconciliation with Gen. Nguyen Huu An, his Ia Drang adversary, and their subsequent visits to the battlefield make this book even more meaninngful.
If you want to read about the glories of war, go somewhere else--read fiction, a novel or something. But if you want to read about the realities of war and the men who fight it, this is the book for you.
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