Do You Remember? I Do & I Will Shed A Tear At The Wall

Attributed to Lt. Col. Hal Moore prior to deploying to Vietnam in 1965,

... when we go into battle, I will be the first to step on the field and I will be the last to step off. And I will leave no one behind... dead or alive.

The Ia Drang battle,

On Sunday, November 14, 1965 at 10:48 a.m., Lt. Col. Hal Moore and his young troopers touched down at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang (pronounced: eye Drang) Valley, a place in Vietnam known as "The Valley of Death."

From the web site for the movie We Were Soldiers,

A man of his word, Lt. Col. Moore set foot on the field of battle first only to find himself and approximately 400 of his men surrounded by roughly 2000 North Vietnamese soldiers. The ensuing battle was one of the most savage in U.S. history, and the first major encounter between the soldiers of North Vietnam and America.

When you visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall, panel 3 lists the names of those lost. Seventy-nine in the battle of Ia Drang. Two hundred thirty four by the end of both battles, X-Ray and Albany.