Jimmy's Reviews > We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

This book tells the story of the battles in the Ia Drang valley. The word Ia means river. It was a turning point in the war because American troops became more involved in the fighting. It would lead to a massive increase in troops by President Johnson.

There was a French plantation nearby where young girls in bikinis relaxed. The owner paid the Viet Cong protection money and the Saigon government taxes to live like this. Then they charged the US government for any damage to rubber tree damage. How fucked up is all that.

Sometimes North Vietnamese soldiers would stand up and laugh. They would just be mowed down. The author never offers a theory as to why they would do this. My guess from what I know is that they were drugged up and no sense of what was happening.

I despise napalm. I can't help but think of all the millionaires who got rich inventing and selling such an absolute abomination. Two soldiers--Nakayama and Clark--were hit accidentally. Nakayama was completely black and would die later on. Their hair and clothes burned off. Their skin blistered. One man grabs the boots and they crumbled and the flesh came off. They were taken away screaming at the top of their lungs. The day Nakayama died, his wife had a baby. But they had to order the napalm strikes to keep coming in. Americans soldiers will cheer when they see the napalm strikes on the enemy soldiers.

The worst phrase I ever heard in Vietnam was "hand-to-hand combat." I can't imagine what that must have been like.

The most savage one-day battle of the Vietnam War occurred here. When the battle ended 155 Americans would be dead and 124 wounded. NVA soldiers were spotted wandering around in the elephant grass killing wounded American soldiers. The author contrasts that with how Americans took prisoners.

I was impressed by the bravery of the helicopter pilots who went in to gunfire to pick up the wounded.

Some great quotes in the book:
1. "Dulce bellum inexpertis." Or "War is delightful to those who have no experience of it."--Erasmus
2. "War is fear cloaked in courage."--General William Westmoreland
3. "There is many a boy here today who looks at war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."--General William Tecumseh Sherman
4. "I did not mean to be killed today."--dying words of the Vicomte de Turenne, 1675
5. "One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger."--Francois de la Rouchefoucald
6. "In war, truth is the first casualty."--Aeschylus
7. "Only the dead have seen the end of war."--Plato