By John Deppen
Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway wrote one of the classics of military history, "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." The account of the first major battle between American and North Vietnamese forces in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 was adapted into a film titled "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson and Sam Elliot.
Moore and Galloway have written a wrenching and poignant sequel entitled "We Are Soldiers Still -- A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam" (Harper, 2008). Moore and Galloway recount their return visits to Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany in the 1990s, as well as a visit to the decisive battlefield of Dien Bien Phu, where the Vietnamese defeated French forces in 1954.
Readers will find themselves awed by the events in the book. Moore meets the enemy commander who tried desperately to slaughter his Air Cavalry troopers in 1965, only to discover a bond of comradeship that neither quite expected. Moore secretly desires to spend one last night at LZ X-Ray so that he can commune with the spirits of the fallen, only to have his wish unexpectedly granted by the arrival of a monsoon. Moore and Galloway witness the transformation of Vietnam from a war-torn, struggling country into a growing nation with a surprising blend of communism and capitalism.
Moore, now 86, feels a sacred obligation to the memory of his fallen troopers to tell their story, and to speak the truth in all things. He minces no words about current affairs, recalling his words to West Point cadets in 2005, "The war in Iraq, I said, is not worth the life of a single American soldier ... I never thought I would live long enough to see someone chosen to preside over the Pentagon [Donald Rumsfeld] who made Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara look good by comparison."
Such a judgment coming from one of our country's best combat battalion commanders demands attention. If any of the right-wing wonder boys like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh try to smear the general with the "cut-and-run, pro-surrender" label, they are likely to wake up in the middle of the night with old Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley pointing his .45 at their heads.
The stories of two remarkable heroes are included in the appendix to "We Are Soldiers Still." Cyril "Rick" Rescorla was with Moore in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965, and, in a remarkable twist of fate, was chief of security for Morgan Stanley on Sept. 11, 2001, with his office on the 44th floor of the World Trade Center's Building Two. Rescorla proved himself a hero in both Vietnam and New York City, and he died as he wished to die -- saving others.
Julia Moore was with her husband for nearly his entire adult life, and in the general's words, "If ever there was a civilian who had earned a full-dress military funeral with a flag-draped coffin and a firing party of soldiers and a bugler to blow the bittersweet notes of Taps it was Julie Moore." Her story reminds readers that not all heroes wear uniforms.
Moore lives with the memory of the men he lost in the Ia Drang, some of whom are buried near his beloved wife in the Fort Benning Post Cemetery. He visits them often, and always voices his pride in their service and sacrifice. He sees his own end coming, and writes, "I'm 86 years old and will join them all soon enough. Then we will all rest together, in the arms of Holy Mother Army.
