We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam by Harold G. Moore;Joseph L. Galloway Read Free Book Online Page A

confidence the Americans will use their helicopters to land in our rear, land in the Ia Drang area,” Man told us. He said his command post was to the south of the Chu Pong Massif and LZ X-Ray and was subject to bombing by American B-52s that struck within a thousand yards of his position. He said the explosions left him temporarily unable to hear anything, but he recovered. Man said, however, that his troops were widely dispersed and very adept at digging in, and thus casualties from the big bombers were few.
    Man told us that from his viewpoint the North Vietnamese won the Ia Drang battles. “Here we showed you very high spirit; very high determination. This is the first time we try our tactics: Grab them by the belt buckle! The closer we come to you the less your firepower is effective. After the Ia Drang battles we are sure we will win the limited war. We will destroy American strength and force them to withdraw.”
    The general deferred answers to our more detailed questions about the troop dispositions and tactics used at X-Ray and Albany to his old friend General An, who was the battlefield commander on the scene at the time. Before we left, General Man said in his opinion the meeting had been “open and friendly” and that augured well for better relations between our countries. He turned to Joe and added: “Also, today I got to meet a very famous reporter. I think your pen is stronger than my artillery. I hope your book will bring much better understanding to the American people and government. [They] can learn some lessons from your book on how to keep the peace.”
    Joe and I spent a sleepless night, he hunched over his computer transcribing the tape of our interview of General Man while I turned over in my mind all that had been said. What we got from the general was the larger picture, the thinking and strategy of a divisional commander and his superiors as they reacted to the arrival of American troops with high-tech weaponry, fleets of helicopters to ferry troops and supplies and even haul artillery pieces to remote battlefields. They struggled to find a way for a peasant army whose soldiers carried all their weapons, ammunition, and food on their backs—supplied by laborers who hauled 400-pound loads on bicycles down the Ho Chi Minh Trail—and moved swiftly through the jungled mountains by old-fashioned foot power to neutralize the American advantages. They had come to a simple but bloody way to level the playing field: Grab us by the belt buckle. Move in past the deadly rings of our artillery and napalm and 500-pound bombs and right into our positions. Then the American firepower is neutralized and the fighting is hand-to-hand, man-to-man, and nothing else matters but spirit and determination.
    The next day we strolled back across the Defense Ministry courtyard, past the cage with the scruffy monkey sitting forlornly on his perch begging for peanuts and bananas, back to the same formal reception room, this time to meet the one man I wanted most of all to talk with: Lt. Gen. Nguyen Huu An, my opposite number, the man who directed the furious attacks against us at X-Ray and again at Albany from a camouflaged bunker on the slope of the Chu Pong Massif that towered above us. General An, a much taller and more robust officer than his old friend and mentor General Man, arrived with a rolled-up sketch map of the Ia Drang battlefields under his arm. He wore thick eyeglasses and his smile sparkled off a couple of gold teeth. After handshakes and introductions, An welcomed us with these words: “There’s no hatred between our two peoples. Let the past bury the past. Now we look to the future. I am quite happy to see you coming to our country.”
    We spent over four hours closeted with General An and he had almost as many questions about our actions, orders, and plans as we did about his plans, orders, and thinking in the battles. One point worth noting: For all these twenty-six years since the fight, An thought