Tale tells of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley

This is the tale of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965.

The 430 troops of the 1st  Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division loaded into helicopters and were dropped into the Ia Drang valley. Unknown to them at the time, they were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops.

After three days of fighting, 240 Americans had been killed and another 300 wounded (more troops were brought in in support). However, Americans killed an estimated 1,800 North Vietnamese, through rifles, artillery, helicopters, and jets.

Clinton Poley was an assistant machine gunner, who said they landed in grass that was 5 feet high and didn’t know where the other troops were. Things were quiet, but in the morning, the North Vietnamese attacked. It was his first real combat; first, he got a round to the side of his neck. The enemy was so close he could hear them talking and he could see them right in front of him. The machine gunner was mowing them down.

Next, he was shot in the chest; as he moved around, he was shot again in the leg. He tried to crawl away and was shot again in the hip. Luckily for him, not a single shot he received hit any vital organs.

For information, the 1st Air Cavalry arrived in the fall of 1965, about the same time I did as a member of the 1st Infantry Division. Being the first big units there, we had to make our own camp, no showers for months, World War II C rations to eat, no toilets, just a hole dug in the ground, etc. We lived in tents. Finally, after 10 months, had some makeshift buildings.

Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran, serving in the 1st Infantry Division and is a business owner in Priest River.