Retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, the commander at the Battle of
Ia Drang in 1965 that led him to co-author the book, “We Were Soldiers
Once, and Young,” died Friday at his home in Auburn, Ala. He was 94.
Joe
Galloway, an award-winning journalist, former McClatchy columnist and
co-author of the best-selling book with Moore, said news of his death
hit him hard on Saturday.
“I just lost my best friend,”
Galloway said from his home in Concord, N.C. “I remember that none of us
would have come out of there alive if it weren’t for Hal Moore and his
brilliance as a combat commander.”
Arrangements are still
incomplete but a funeral mass will be held at St. Michaels Roman
Catholic Church in Auburn. A memorial service and burial will follow at
Fort Benning.
Galloway said he now must keep a promise he and Moore made to each other years ago.
“I’ve
got to tell you that he is having the last laugh on me, because 20
years ago he insisted that we shake hands on a deal that whichever died
first, the other one had to preach his funeral,” Galloway said. “I will
get in my car Thursday and drive down to Auburn, Ala., from Concord,
N.C., and on Friday afternoon at the National Infantry Museum at the
memorial service for my best friend, I have the honor and duty of
standing up and preaching his funeral. He lasted almost to 95. I was
beginning to think he was going to outlive all of us.” Moore was born on Feb. 13, 1922, in Bardstown, Ky., to Harold and Mary Moore. For
Moore, his military career started 1945 when he graduated from the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned as a second
lieutenant in the infantry. He served with the 187th Glider Infantry
Regiment in Sapporo, Japan. He later was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne
Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he jump-tested experimental
parachutes and made more than 130 test jumps in two years.
Moore served during the Korean War as a regimental operations officer.
He
came to Fort Benning in 1964 and commanded a newly formed air mobile
11th Air Assault Division which was undergoing air assault training and
testing.
As a lieutenant colonel during the Vietnam War,
Moore was commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment during
the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965. The regiment had about 450 soldiers when
they arrived at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley but was
outnumbered by more than 2,000 soldiers from the Peoples’ Army of
Vietnam.
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