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On Dying And Continuing To Be Alive

Hal Moore, 1/7 Cav CO at the Ia Drang in 1965 and co-author with Joe Galloway of “We Were Soldiers Once … ” and the forthcoming “We Are Soldiers Still,”  with a pre-Memorial Day essay on making peace at USA Today: How Enemies Became Friends:   

When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation.

It was Vietnam. I was their commander and accountable for them. We charged the enemy with bayonets fixed to our rifles in face-to-face combat. I still hear the ugly sounds of war. …

… I still see the boots of my dead sticking out from under their ponchos, laces tied one last time by their precious fingers. … I still carry the wounded to the helicopters as they bled, screamed and begged to live one more day … and I still hold those who die in my arms, with their questioning eyes dreading death, as they called for their mothers … their eyes go blank and my war-crusted fingers close their eyelids. The blood of my dead soldiers will not wash from my hands. The stains remain.

Read on.

“We Are Soldiers Still” will include the story of John Eade, which was still untold when Moore and Galloway wrote the first book.* Eade’s story makes a good Memorial Day story, because it is as much about honoring the dead and how they died as it is about surviving. Eade told me once he spent decades entirely apart from his military life, not having any contact with other Ia Drang vets or taking part in 7th Cav reunions.

“You have to realize, all my friends were dead,” Eade said in his usual matter of fact way. It was a stunning commentary on what happened to Eade’s youth, and it hit like a blow, a little insight into what living on must be like. So to start your Memorial Day weekend, here’s Eade, extended version at Mudville: “I Am Going to Die Well.”

Here’s the original archived Herald version:

Soldiers’ courage; 40 years after battle, two Vietnam heroes recall horrors of Ia Drang

By Jules Crittenden

6 November 2005

The memories come to Larry Gwin as passing flashes, or with overwhelming waves of emotion.

“I remember looking at a field and seeing the American dead bloating in the sun,” said Gwin, 64, now an investment lawyer in Boston. “I remember looking at the wood line, seeing the Vietnamese coming at us in a mass, charging us. I remember how it felt, shooting them. I was thinking, `Kill as many of them as you can before they get here.’ ”

It was Nov. 17, 1965, in Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, the second phase of the battle depicted in the Mel Gibson film “We Were Soldiers,” based on the bestseller “We Were Soldiers Once, and Young.”

After destroying North Vietnamese army forces at Landing Zone X- Ray in two days of bloody fighting, the 7th Cavalry’s battered 1st Battalion was choppered out, and 2nd Battalion marched to LZ Albany. There, at 1 p.m., 345 U.S. infantrymen ran into 1,600 NVA. By dawn, 155 Americans were dead and 128 wounded - most in the first few hours.

“For the first hour and a half, it was intense hand-to-hand,” said John Eade, 61, a retired Inspectional Services chief. “It was like a gang fight. It got down to knives. It got down to choking people.”

Gwin, Eade and other survivors will mark the 40th anniversary of that battle next week in Arlington, Va. Recently, the two men spoke about the cost of war. Gwin, author of “Baptism, a Vietnam Memoir,” underwent extensive therapy, but finds it hard to talk about Ia Drang without tears. Eade, discussing it publicly for the first time, did so reluctantly.

Eade will never forget men like Wilbert Johnson, dragging Barry Burnite in a futile bid to save him before Johnson was himself killed. He remembers Oscar Barker Jr. refusing to leave when everyone else in their position was dead and Eade, badly wounded, urged him to run. Barker stayed, and when he was hit, Eade had to watch him die.

“My whole life, I’ve missed the people I was with. I just miss them a lot,” Eade said. Shot in the gut and shoulder, scorched by napalm, then shot in the face, he kept fighting into the night, until the NVA, with up to 700 dead, withdrew.

“John’s platoon held,” Gwin said. “If they hadn’t done what they did, we would have been overrun.

“There is a detritus of war, people like John Eade and Larry Gwin,” Gwin said. “I would have been a very different person if I hadn’t served in Vietnam.”

Both men are immensely proud to have been combat infantrymen. But with the relentless memories come depression and feelings of isolation, common to veterans of heavy combat. Excessive drinking and suicide are risks. Gwin blames his divorce on Vietnam. The Gulf War triggered a crisis that led him to therapy. Eade has held “serial jobs.” He remains single and carefully guards his privacy.

“That’s part of the price you pay. It doesn’t wreck your life. It makes your life different,” Eade said.

Added Gwin: “It’s made me a better father. Every day back from Vietnam has been a gift.”

Iraq has meant both pride and anguish for them. They worry about the new generation of combat vets. Eade said, “What happens when Iraq is over? What happens to these guys? Somewhere, you’re going to end up on your own.”

Gwin survived a year and 45 combat assaults in Vietnam. For Eade, combat ended at Ia Drang. He was in the Army hospital at Valley Forge when Burnite’s mother found him.

“She asked me, how did her son die,” Eade said. “Her pain and her grief was more than I could bear to look at. I can never think about it without wanting to cry.”

It was Eade’s last contact with anyone associated with Ia Drang for 37 years, until Gwin found him. That helped Eade start opening up, as Gwin already had. But although comradeship helps them cope, it doesn’t end the pain.

When he thinks about the Ia Drang Valley, Gwin said, “A deep sadness comes out, and I can’t do anything about it. It’s there.”

* Galloway informed me recently I’m in the credits in the new book, which is a tremendous unearned honor for simply listening and scribbling Eade’s tale. I’m waiting on my review copy. Full disclosure: They will have to have really screwed this up to get a bad one.

Topics: military

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:21 pm on Friday, May 23, 2008

3 Responses to “On Dying And Continuing To Be Alive”

1. ponsdorf Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm

   Thanks.

2. RebeccaH Says:
   May 23rd, 2008 at 11:31 pm

   My father almost never spoke of his wartime service in Italy in WWII. I have always believed the direction of his life was determined by it, and not only his, but all of ours.

   We owe these people more than we can ever repay.

3. Old War Dogs Says:
   May 24th, 2008 at 1:23 am

   Please remember our KIAs this weekend

   Before you rush off to the beach this weekend, won’t you take a few minutes to remember those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms? I’m not much of a writer any more but I’ve done some posts

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