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Larry Gwin's 1999 book Baptism: A Vietnam Memoir mentioned Sgt Eade but he had lost contact with Eade and did not get his account of what happened at his position.This story has been told by Eade himself so I thought it was a good read.The man definitely had no quit in him.
The money quote:
quote:
In 1965, Sgt. Eade, 21, was a fire-team leader in 2nd Platoon, A Co., 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regt., 1st Cav Div. 1st Lt. Larry Gwin was Alpha Co.'s XO. The battalion was sent in to reinforce 1/7 Cav at LZ X-ray on Nov. 16, 1965, and with NVA forces at X-ray destroyed, 1/7 was choppered out, and 2/7 was marched 10 km to LZ Albany. They encountered and captured a couple of NVA soldiers, and had established a defensive perimeter at Albany when the two NVA regiments encamped nearby attacked. Gwin was at the A Co. command post among some trees and anthills in the center of the LZ. Eade and 2nd platoon had been sent into the trees to the left while 1st Platoon went right. Before it was over, more than two-thirds of the Americans were dead or wounded.
Eade recalls that his platoon was immediately pinned down in ferocious fighting as the NVA swarmed on them through the trees. "For the first hour and a half, it was intense hand-to-hand," Eade said. "It was like a gang fight. It was small groups of us versus small groups of them. It got down to knives. It got down to choking people."
Eade said he and three others, Wilbert Johnson, Barry Burnite and Oscar Barker Jr., had some freedom of movement along a line of brush and tried to flank the NVA.
"We wanted to hunt them down and give the platoon a chance," Eade said. "We bit off more than we could chew." Eade said. Burnite, a white trooper, was a machine gunner and Johnson, a black trooper, was his crewman. When the machine gun was disabled by shrapnel and Burnite was hit in the chest, Johnson dragged Burnite 30 meters in an effort to save him.
"It was the greatest feat of human strength I have ever witnessed," Eade said. "I don't know if Burnite was still alive." Eade, a native of Toledo, Ohio, is white and said that growing up, he had played sports with a lot of black kids and was not subject to racism. But he said that what he witnessed that day cured him of any possible vestiges and has left him with no tolerance for it.
Johnson, Barker and Eade holed up among some trees and continued to fight. Johnson was killed, and Eade was shot in the gut and the right shoulder, forcing him to fire his M-16 left-handed. His legs and boots had been sprayed with shrapnel, with a large piece stuck into his foot, so Eade couldn't walk. By about 3 p.m., much of the fighting had subsided around Barker and Eade. Barker tended to Eade's wounds when they weren't fighting, stuffing one of Eade's dirty socks into his shoulder wound to stop the bleeding because they were out of bandages.
"I knew and he knew that everyone else was dead," Eade said. He urged Barker, a black trooper, to try to save himself and run for the command post, where Gwin and others held a perimeter.
"He refused to go," Eade said. Shortly after that, Barker was shot in the chest, and Eade had to watch him die. Barker had a sucking chest wound, and it took him a long time to die, Eade said.
Eade has recently done research and is preparing paperwork in an effort to have Barker posthumously awarded a Silver Star for gallantry under fire.
Eade himself was awarded a Purple Heart. There are no living American witnesses to Eade's actions, which Gwin says would otherwise merit a Distinguished Service Cross. Eade says he is not interested in decorations. He wears the Combat Infantryman's Badge on his lapel and is satisfied with that.
After Barker was killed, Eade was alone. I asked Eade what his thoughts and emotions were at this time, as the last surviving man in his position with every expectation that he would be killed as the NVA moved around finishing off the wounded. I was under the impression that Eade had played dead to survive, but he said that wasn't the case.
"Playing dead was a way to die. It made no sense to me. Our job was to hold that position and kill the enemy," Eade said. "I had this thing in my mind, part of the U.S. Army's General Orders and the soldier's code you learn in boot camp: 'I will never forget I am an American fighting man. I will never surrender of my own free will. I will continue to resist to the utmost of my ability. I will not leave my post until properly relieved." Eade said he kept repeating it himself.
"I don't think it was unique to me," Eade said, citing the actions of men like Barker and Johnson. Eade said his seemingly hopeless position was made easier by his belief, established weeks earlier after several men in the unit were killed in other actions, that he would not be leaving Vietnam alive. What Eade says about that may sound familiar to other veterans of combat.
"It wasn't a matter of living or dying. It was taking care of each other and doing your duty. The anticipation of a future is what you give up. The question was not, 'Am I going to die?' We all know the answer to that. The question was, 'How am I going to die? I am going to die well.'"
In the command post, which Eade estimates was located about 50 meters of open ground beyond his own woodline, Gwin and the others holding out saw large groups of NVA moving through Eade's area. A couple of survivors who had made it out said they didn't think anyone was alive there, and despite some misgivings on the part of some officers, the decision was made to call in a napalm strike on the area.
"I think they made the right decision," Eade said. He was on the edge of the napalm strike and was set on fire by it, but said that among his problems, it was inconsequential.
"It set me on fire, but I managed to roll in the dirt and put it out," Eade said. In fact, he said, the napalm served a purpose. "It flushed them out and gave me an opportunity to reduce the numbers."
Later in the afternoon, he was surprised by the sudden appearance of three enemy soldiers behind him.
"There were three North Vietnamese looking at me, one with a pistol." Eade said he shot and killed two, but was shot in the face by the surviving Vietnamese, the one with the pistol. The small-caliber bullet hit him in the face, destroying his right eye socket and shattering parts of his sinuses, making it difficult to breathe. He was knocked unconscious, and when he came to, the surviving Vietnamese was gone.
"I was angry at myself for being shot in the head. I was angry at myself for being careless. I was really pissed off at the North Vietnamese. It was probably the most maniacal moment of my life." Eade said.
After the napalm, the numbers of North Vietnamese moving through the area had been great reduced, but they continued to come through until about midnight, Eade said. He said he stopped using his rifle after dark so he wouldn't give away his position.
As he heard small groups of NVA, probably collecting their dead, Eade said he crawled around and threw grenades.
"There was no shortage of grenades lying around," Eade said, referring to his dead comrades' munitions. He recalls that it was a struggle to stay awake. He was on his third night without sleep, and believed that if he fell asleep, he would be found and killed.
After midnight, the NVA activity ended. Around 9 or 10 the following morning, Eade said he heard someone moving toward him. He prepared to shoot, but held his fire. Then he saw the shape of an American helmet. "I yelled at them, 'Give me some water!'" Eade said. "I was really thirsty. He looked at me and said, 'You're shot in the stomach. I can't give you water.' I told him I had been drinking water all night, but he said no. So I asked him for some morphine. I told him I had used mine up on the other wounded. 'It really hurts,' I said. He said, "You're shot in the head. I can't give you morphine.' So I said, 'Well, then give me a cigarette.' They gave me that."
Gwin reports that the discovery of Eade alive was a tremendous morale boster for the rest of the battalion. When the battle was over, Gwin said, the battalion that had marched to LZ Albany could fit into four deuce and a half trucks -- nearly three-quarters of them had been killed or wounded in a matter of hours. But he said that despite the trauma, morale was high and remained so in following weeks as replacement rotated into nearly empty platoon tents and the battalion prepared to return to the field.
``The survivors rallied and cheered the fact that we had held the ground. We knew that we had killed a lot of them. We had given as good as we had gotten,'' Gwin said. "The morale was very high in a perverse sort of way, because we had survived it.''
Gwin went on to complete his year in Vietnam and 45 combat assaults as executive officer of Alpha Company. He was wounded later in his tour when he was shot in the leg, but returned to combat duty after a short in-country convalescence. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for gallantry under fire at the Ia Drang. Gwin's experience is detailed both in his own book and in "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young."
Eade spent the next year in the U.S. Army hospital at Valley Forge, which is where Barry Burnite's mother came to see him.
"I don't know how she found me," Eade said. "She asked me, how did her son die. I kind of told her the truth and I kind of didn't. I cleaned it up a bit. The uncontrollable grief of that woman has stayed with me my whole life. Her pain and her grief was more than I could bear to look at. I can never think about it without wanting to cry."
I include LTG Hal Moore's comments on memorial Day as I think it is important.Ia Drang was a defining moment for then LTC Moore and the result of the battle launched his career.
quote:
When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation.
It was Vietnam. I was their commander and accountable for them. We charged the enemy with bayonets fixed to our rifles in face-to-face combat. I still hear the ugly sounds of war. …
… I still see the boots of my dead sticking out from under their ponchos, laces tied one last time by their precious fingers. … I still carry the wounded to the helicopters as they bled, screamed and begged to live one more day … and I still hold those who die in my arms, with their questioning eyes dreading death, as they called for their mothers … their eyes go blank and my war-crusted fingers close their eyelids. The blood of my dead soldiers will not wash from my hands. The stains remain.
The money quote:
quote:
In 1965, Sgt. Eade, 21, was a fire-team leader in 2nd Platoon, A Co., 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regt., 1st Cav Div. 1st Lt. Larry Gwin was Alpha Co.'s XO. The battalion was sent in to reinforce 1/7 Cav at LZ X-ray on Nov. 16, 1965, and with NVA forces at X-ray destroyed, 1/7 was choppered out, and 2/7 was marched 10 km to LZ Albany. They encountered and captured a couple of NVA soldiers, and had established a defensive perimeter at Albany when the two NVA regiments encamped nearby attacked. Gwin was at the A Co. command post among some trees and anthills in the center of the LZ. Eade and 2nd platoon had been sent into the trees to the left while 1st Platoon went right. Before it was over, more than two-thirds of the Americans were dead or wounded.
Eade recalls that his platoon was immediately pinned down in ferocious fighting as the NVA swarmed on them through the trees. "For the first hour and a half, it was intense hand-to-hand," Eade said. "It was like a gang fight. It was small groups of us versus small groups of them. It got down to knives. It got down to choking people."
Eade said he and three others, Wilbert Johnson, Barry Burnite and Oscar Barker Jr., had some freedom of movement along a line of brush and tried to flank the NVA.
"We wanted to hunt them down and give the platoon a chance," Eade said. "We bit off more than we could chew." Eade said. Burnite, a white trooper, was a machine gunner and Johnson, a black trooper, was his crewman. When the machine gun was disabled by shrapnel and Burnite was hit in the chest, Johnson dragged Burnite 30 meters in an effort to save him.
"It was the greatest feat of human strength I have ever witnessed," Eade said. "I don't know if Burnite was still alive." Eade, a native of Toledo, Ohio, is white and said that growing up, he had played sports with a lot of black kids and was not subject to racism. But he said that what he witnessed that day cured him of any possible vestiges and has left him with no tolerance for it.
Johnson, Barker and Eade holed up among some trees and continued to fight. Johnson was killed, and Eade was shot in the gut and the right shoulder, forcing him to fire his M-16 left-handed. His legs and boots had been sprayed with shrapnel, with a large piece stuck into his foot, so Eade couldn't walk. By about 3 p.m., much of the fighting had subsided around Barker and Eade. Barker tended to Eade's wounds when they weren't fighting, stuffing one of Eade's dirty socks into his shoulder wound to stop the bleeding because they were out of bandages.
"I knew and he knew that everyone else was dead," Eade said. He urged Barker, a black trooper, to try to save himself and run for the command post, where Gwin and others held a perimeter.
"He refused to go," Eade said. Shortly after that, Barker was shot in the chest, and Eade had to watch him die. Barker had a sucking chest wound, and it took him a long time to die, Eade said.
Eade has recently done research and is preparing paperwork in an effort to have Barker posthumously awarded a Silver Star for gallantry under fire.
Eade himself was awarded a Purple Heart. There are no living American witnesses to Eade's actions, which Gwin says would otherwise merit a Distinguished Service Cross. Eade says he is not interested in decorations. He wears the Combat Infantryman's Badge on his lapel and is satisfied with that.
After Barker was killed, Eade was alone. I asked Eade what his thoughts and emotions were at this time, as the last surviving man in his position with every expectation that he would be killed as the NVA moved around finishing off the wounded. I was under the impression that Eade had played dead to survive, but he said that wasn't the case.
"Playing dead was a way to die. It made no sense to me. Our job was to hold that position and kill the enemy," Eade said. "I had this thing in my mind, part of the U.S. Army's General Orders and the soldier's code you learn in boot camp: 'I will never forget I am an American fighting man. I will never surrender of my own free will. I will continue to resist to the utmost of my ability. I will not leave my post until properly relieved." Eade said he kept repeating it himself.
"I don't think it was unique to me," Eade said, citing the actions of men like Barker and Johnson. Eade said his seemingly hopeless position was made easier by his belief, established weeks earlier after several men in the unit were killed in other actions, that he would not be leaving Vietnam alive. What Eade says about that may sound familiar to other veterans of combat.
"It wasn't a matter of living or dying. It was taking care of each other and doing your duty. The anticipation of a future is what you give up. The question was not, 'Am I going to die?' We all know the answer to that. The question was, 'How am I going to die? I am going to die well.'"
In the command post, which Eade estimates was located about 50 meters of open ground beyond his own woodline, Gwin and the others holding out saw large groups of NVA moving through Eade's area. A couple of survivors who had made it out said they didn't think anyone was alive there, and despite some misgivings on the part of some officers, the decision was made to call in a napalm strike on the area.
"I think they made the right decision," Eade said. He was on the edge of the napalm strike and was set on fire by it, but said that among his problems, it was inconsequential.
"It set me on fire, but I managed to roll in the dirt and put it out," Eade said. In fact, he said, the napalm served a purpose. "It flushed them out and gave me an opportunity to reduce the numbers."
Later in the afternoon, he was surprised by the sudden appearance of three enemy soldiers behind him.
"There were three North Vietnamese looking at me, one with a pistol." Eade said he shot and killed two, but was shot in the face by the surviving Vietnamese, the one with the pistol. The small-caliber bullet hit him in the face, destroying his right eye socket and shattering parts of his sinuses, making it difficult to breathe. He was knocked unconscious, and when he came to, the surviving Vietnamese was gone.
"I was angry at myself for being shot in the head. I was angry at myself for being careless. I was really pissed off at the North Vietnamese. It was probably the most maniacal moment of my life." Eade said.
After the napalm, the numbers of North Vietnamese moving through the area had been great reduced, but they continued to come through until about midnight, Eade said. He said he stopped using his rifle after dark so he wouldn't give away his position.
As he heard small groups of NVA, probably collecting their dead, Eade said he crawled around and threw grenades.
"There was no shortage of grenades lying around," Eade said, referring to his dead comrades' munitions. He recalls that it was a struggle to stay awake. He was on his third night without sleep, and believed that if he fell asleep, he would be found and killed.
After midnight, the NVA activity ended. Around 9 or 10 the following morning, Eade said he heard someone moving toward him. He prepared to shoot, but held his fire. Then he saw the shape of an American helmet. "I yelled at them, 'Give me some water!'" Eade said. "I was really thirsty. He looked at me and said, 'You're shot in the stomach. I can't give you water.' I told him I had been drinking water all night, but he said no. So I asked him for some morphine. I told him I had used mine up on the other wounded. 'It really hurts,' I said. He said, "You're shot in the head. I can't give you morphine.' So I said, 'Well, then give me a cigarette.' They gave me that."
Gwin reports that the discovery of Eade alive was a tremendous morale boster for the rest of the battalion. When the battle was over, Gwin said, the battalion that had marched to LZ Albany could fit into four deuce and a half trucks -- nearly three-quarters of them had been killed or wounded in a matter of hours. But he said that despite the trauma, morale was high and remained so in following weeks as replacement rotated into nearly empty platoon tents and the battalion prepared to return to the field.
``The survivors rallied and cheered the fact that we had held the ground. We knew that we had killed a lot of them. We had given as good as we had gotten,'' Gwin said. "The morale was very high in a perverse sort of way, because we had survived it.''
Gwin went on to complete his year in Vietnam and 45 combat assaults as executive officer of Alpha Company. He was wounded later in his tour when he was shot in the leg, but returned to combat duty after a short in-country convalescence. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for gallantry under fire at the Ia Drang. Gwin's experience is detailed both in his own book and in "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young."
Eade spent the next year in the U.S. Army hospital at Valley Forge, which is where Barry Burnite's mother came to see him.
"I don't know how she found me," Eade said. "She asked me, how did her son die. I kind of told her the truth and I kind of didn't. I cleaned it up a bit. The uncontrollable grief of that woman has stayed with me my whole life. Her pain and her grief was more than I could bear to look at. I can never think about it without wanting to cry."
I include LTG Hal Moore's comments on memorial Day as I think it is important.Ia Drang was a defining moment for then LTC Moore and the result of the battle launched his career.
quote:
When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation.
It was Vietnam. I was their commander and accountable for them. We charged the enemy with bayonets fixed to our rifles in face-to-face combat. I still hear the ugly sounds of war. …
… I still see the boots of my dead sticking out from under their ponchos, laces tied one last time by their precious fingers. … I still carry the wounded to the helicopters as they bled, screamed and begged to live one more day … and I still hold those who die in my arms, with their questioning eyes dreading death, as they called for their mothers … their eyes go blank and my war-crusted fingers close their eyelids. The blood of my dead soldiers will not wash from my hands. The stains remain.
