We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Harold G. Moore;Joseph L. Galloway

with Tango and Yankee as alternates.
    At 8:50 a. m., on the west end of the Plei Me strip, I issued orders to the assembled company commanders, liaison officers, pilots, and staff: Assault into LZ X-Ray to search for and destroy the enemy. Bravo Company lands first, accompanied by my command group, then Alpha, then Charlie, and then Delta companies. Bravo and Alpha will move northwest on my order. Charlie Company will move southwest toward the mountain, likewise on my order. Delta Company will control all mortars. The recon and machinegun platoons will be battalion reserve. Artillery will fire eight minutes each on Yankee and Tango for deception, then a twenty-minute preparatory fire on X-Ray and adjacent areas. Thirty seconds of aerial rocket artillery and thirty seconds of helicopter gunship prep fire would follow. The battalion rear command post, run by my executive officer, Major Herman Wirth, and our supply point and medical-aid station would both shift forward to Landing Zone Falcon, where the two artillery batteries were located.
    Colonel Brown arrived and I walked him through the plan. He agreed with everything, including the selection of X-Ray as the assault landing zone. He chatted with some of the officers and troopers for a few minutes. Then, just before he left, he did something out of the ordinary. Says Matt Dillon: "Colonel Brown called Moore and me aside. He told us: ' want you two to be especially careful on this operation.' He looked concerned." As we walked Brown to his helicopter he repeated his instructions: "Stay tight" and
    "Don't let your companies get separated."
    At 9:15 a.m. the two artillery batteries reported they were going into position and would soon be ready to fire. I set 10:30 a.m. as touchdown time. Commanders returned to their companies, the staff to the command post. The Huey air crews were being briefed by their pilots.
    Then we got word that because of air movement delays the artillery was not yet in position in LZ Falcon and could not begin the prep fires on the Ia Drang targets before 10:17 a.m. H hour slid back accordingly, and the word was passed down the line. Dillon lifted off in the battalion command helicopter with the fire-support and helicopter-coordination group. Bruce Crandall and I stood beside his chopper, discussing final details. The precise flying time from liftoff at Plei Me to touchdown at X-Ray came up. Crandall's copilot, Captain Jon Mills, a twenty-five-year-old native of the Panama Canal Zone, worked for a couple of minutes over his maps, flight table, and calculator, looked up and said: "Thirteen minutes fifteen seconds." I bet him a beer he couldn't hit it dead on the nose. He took me up on that bet-- he kept an honest log--and collected his beer three nights later at Camp Holloway, near Pleiku. We loaded aboard and Crandall and Mills preflighted the Huey. Then Crandall fired up both his engine and a big fat cigar. We were enveloped in a choking cloud of red dust as all sixteen Hueys strained toward liftoff. Crandall, in the left seat, looked back. I gave him a thumbs-up and pointed westward. He pulled pitch and lifted off, and we were bound for Landing Zone X-Ray.
    We flew over a broad, slightly rolling plain dotted with trees thirty to fifty feet tall, interspersed with a few old Montagnard farm clearings, small winding streams, and dry streambeds. We saw no villages and no people. It was Sunday morning but I didn't realize that: over here we paid attention to the date, not the day. In the field in Vietnam all days were the same: hot and wet, or hot and dry, but always dangerous.
    Back in Columbus, Georgia, it was Saturday night. My wife had put our five kids to bed and was watching the nightly news on television.
    Secretary of Defense Robert Mcnamara announced plans to abolish 751 Army Reserve units, including six reserve divisions. The Yarmouth Castle cruise ship burned and sank at sea, and ninety-one passengers were missing. The New York Times headlined a