Lessons in Cause & Effect

We Were Soldiers Once… and Young by H. G. Moore and J. L. Galloway

book review by Jeff Berger

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young describes a brutal battle that took place in Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley in November 1965 and some of the personal and political consequences that flowed from it. Its contents are shocking and have a deep resonance for me.

Moore was the commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, the unit that was air-mobiled into Landing Zone Xray in Ia Drang against a North Vietnamese force that turned out to be many times larger. Galloway was a journalist who was there on the ground. The battle lasted several days and resulted in very high numbers of killed and wounded, both US and Vietnamese. It is clear that the “We” of the title refers to those on both sides of the slaughter.

The battle scenes are based upon many hours of interviews with the survivors and in many cases use their words directly. These are scenes from a hellish animal realm that most of us do not experience in such purity. This is difficult stuff to read, so it is fortunate that the book also investigates some of the consequences of the battle.

One section is devoted to the political consequences. So many were killed on both sides of the battle that the leaders of each side were forced to claim it as a victory. No other assessment could be morally justified. The leaders drew conclusions that would determine the shape and magnitude of the war for years to come.

Another section contains interviews with family members of some of those killed at Ia Drang. We hear from wives and children whose lives were changed utterly as a result of these deaths.

You could say that the book gives a textbook illustration of the Buddhist law of cause and effect.

But as I say, the book resonated with me.

I got out of the army in June 1965, having enlisted three years earlier. At the time I enlisted, I was twenty years old and gung-ho. The idea of winning hearts and minds had won mine, and I wanted to become a Green Beret. One way to do that was to go through jump school and Ranger training, so I enlisted for the airborne infantry as a first step. After basic training in Kentucky, I went to advanced infantry training (AIT) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. There, I was sidetracked into NCO School, the graduates of which would be the squad and platoon leaders for the AIT cycle starting two weeks later.

Then one night, a drunk driver changed my life.

That August night was hot and mosquito filled. There was no moon. Seven of us got into the back of a deuce and a half truck, and headed out into the night to be dropped off somewhere in the piney forest for a field problem. The canvas top on the truck was not up, so we were cooled slightly by the truck’s motion down the road. The fact that the top was gone turned out to be an even bigger gift to me later.

Some miles out, the deuce and a half swerved violently to the right. Bang! and the truck careened onto the shoulder. Then the right side of the truck, the side opposite me, dropped away. I stood as the truck rolled and, with some others, flew into the black night. As I hit the ground, I could hear the truck behind me grinding, upside down into the gravel ditch.

I got up knowing I didn’t want to go back to the upside-down truck to see what was happening there. I had a pretty good idea. But I figured I could still make myself somewhat useful by attempting to prevent other drivers from piling into our wreck. So I got a flashlight from one of the other guys (his shoulder was broken when he was thrown clear) and went back up the road a few yards to flag down approaching cars.

A sergeant with too much to drink had been driving back to the base on the wrong side of the road. Our driver had swerved trying to avoid the collision, but had lost control after the impact.

It all came down to where one was sitting in the back of the deuce and a half. The guys on the left went onto the air, the guys on the right went under
the truck. I got a few scrapes. Others had broken limbs, shoulders and backs. And Private Richard Tricky had his skull crushed.

At the hospital where we were taken to be checked out, one of our training sergeants told us that we now knew what it felt like to be hit by an artillery round. “Kinda takes the fight out of ya, don’t it?” He was right. I requested out of jump school a week later.

From that point on, I was just counting days. Eventually after AIT, I was assigned to the 25th Infantry, stationed in Hawaii. There in 1963, I met and married Lynn. There, I also made my first, brief contact with Zen Buddhism at the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu.

Lynn’s dad, Ralph, was a Sergeant Major with the division. He saw major action in WW II and Korea before being sent to Vietnam. Her younger brother Al went into the Army and to Nam soon after high school. Marty, one of her two younger sisters, later married Steve, another Nam-era GI. I was welcomed into the Olson family even though I was obviously not cut out for military life.

So, when I read We Were Soldiers, I see people I knew: draftees, enlistees, career soldiers, their families. I see a life I partly knew and things I myself touched. And I realize that I could have passed into that caldron.

If the guy on the wrong side of the road in Louisiana had been where he belonged, I would not have gotten that quick glimpse of where I was headed and would not have changed direction myself. If he had not had so much to drink, I would probably not have been stationed in Hawaii where I met Lynn. If that sergeant had stayed at the bar five minutes longer, Richard Tricky might still be alive. If that sergeant had stayed on base that night, I might not have done zazen with the Diamond Sangha a year and a half later.

More lessons in the Buddhist law of cause and effect.