News-Info-Alerts

Re: Ia Drang Valley Vet to Speak

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 17, 2003

"Former Army aviator to speak

ERAU Communications - Press Release

Former U.S. Army combat pilot Joseph Salomone will speak on the battle of Ia Drang Valley, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the Vietnam War, on Thursday, Feb. 27, at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Sponsored by Army ROTC Eagle Battalion, the free event will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the L. Gale Lemerand Auditorium of the Capt. Willie Miller Instructional Center. Salomone, a chief warrant officer who served in the Army for eight years, will share his recollections of Ia Drang Valley and the brave men he fought beside there.

He was a UH-1 Huey helicopter pilot with the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Division. It was this division's exploits that were later featured in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now. Fighting in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam's central highlands occurred between October and December 1965, with the most intense action taking place in mid-November. On Nov. 14, Lt. Col. Hal Moore and 400 troopers of the 1st Air Cavalry Division were dropped by helicopter into a clearing the size of a football field.

The battle between the troopers and the 2,000 soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army who surrounded them has been called one of the most savage in history. The Ia Drang Valley campaign ended with an estimated 6,000 North Vietnamese dead and 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed or missing in action.

The successful use of the new tactic of air assault operations by the 1st Air Cavalry Division in the battle of Ia Drang Valley is depicted in Moore's 1992 book We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young and in the 2002 film We Were Soldiers.

The division was the first in the U.S. Army to test the innovative approach to combat that launched hundreds of soldiers onto enemy terrain from the sky by way of their "flying stallions."

In a land where airborne and more conventional operations were impossible, this new technique put U.S. soldiers on the ground faster and to greater effect than ever before.

Salomone was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism. He also earned the Bronze Star with Valor, 34 Air Medals with Valor, the Purple Heart, and the Gold Broken Wing Safety Award.

A retired captain from American Airlines and a certified flight instructor for airplanes and helicopters, Salomone holds type ratings for the Boeing 727, 737, 747, 757, and 767 and has accumulated a total time of 26,750 flight hours. He has flown more than 30 different planes and nearly 20 different
helicopters.

For more information, call Army ROTC Eagle Battalion at (888) 437-2161.

© 2002 The Avion"