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

fresh magazines in our rifles. So far we had been unopposed. We were in a lightly wooded area, with scraggly trees twenty to fifty feet tall and dry, brown elephant grass between. The area was dotted with large mounds of red dirt, most with brush and grass growing out of the tops. The size of these old termite hills ranged from that of a small automobile to that of a large pickup, and they offered excellent cover and concealment. The valley was a desolate place, with no villages and no civilians, ten miles east of where the Ho Chi Minh Trail turned left out of Cambodia into South Vietnam.
    The heavily forested eastern slopes of the Chu Pong rose steep and dark more than a thousand feet above the clearing. The massif's lower slopes were covered with thick green foliage, elephant grass, and tangles of brush. Gullies and long fingers of ground led from the bottom of the mountain and Hot; fast; flared: The pilot lifts the helicopter's nose and drops its tail to lose speed suddenly before landing.
    blended into the woods and the dry creekbed where we stood. Plenty of places for people to hide. The creekbed just inside the western edge of our clearing was an excellent route of approach for enemy troops coming from the direction of the mountain or the valley, and for us going the other way. That creekbed was a critical feature.
    Heading back toward the clearing, we ran into some of Bravo Company's 1st Platoon troopers, led by Sergeant Larry Gilreath, moving out into the brush. Gilreath yelled: "Moore's fire team has already cleared this area." Plumley grinned. He knew that the troops liked to see the Old Man out with them on the ground, sharing the risks. Gilreath and his men headed deeper into the brush to the west. Plumley and I recrossed the dry creekbed and moved around the clearing, checking on the terrain and on the patrols Herren's troopers were conducting. No enemy contact so far, and I was glad of that. We didn't want a fight before we got the rest of the battalion on the ground.
    The clearing was about a hundred yards long, east to west, and kind of funnel-shaped, with the ninety-yard-wide mouth of the funnel on the western edge near that dry creek. The bottom of the funnel was on the forty-five-yard span of the clearing's eastern edge. In the center of the clearing was a copse of scraggly trees, about half the size of a tennis court. All told, the space at X-Ray amounted to no more clear ground than a football field.
    Now I stopped and looked up at the steep slopes of the mountain. I had a strong sense that we were under direct enemy observation. That, and the fact that everything had gone so well so far, made me nervous. Nothing was wrong, except that nothing was wrong. I continued reconnoitering.
    There were no streambeds on the north, east, or south. The southern edge of the clearing was closest to the mountain and to those draws and fingers reaching out from the high ground. The terrain to the north and east was relatively flat. My attention continued to be drawn back to the south and west.
    I did two things now. I ordered Herren's 1st Platoon to intensify its search to the west of the creek, and checked to make sure that the rest of Bravo Company was gathered in the clump of trees near the creekbed and ready for action. Herren had most of his troops on the ground; the rest were on the way in the second lift.
    This clearing was the only decent helicopter landing zone between the slopes of Chu Pong and the Ia Drang and for two miles east or west. Our assault landing had, so far as we could tell, achieved total surprise.
    The enemy weren't around the clearing waiting for us. But we had been seen arriving and the North Vietnamese were already moving in our direction.
    The People's Army commander on the battlefield, then Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huu An, says, "When you dropped troops into X-Ray, I was on Chu Pong mountain. We had a very strong position and a strong, mobile command group. We were ready, had prepared