American Valor Quarterly Issue 5 - Winter 2008/09 | Page 30

hit the fan and I lost all of my platoon leaders, each Marine
knew what he had to do, and I am sure that is really what led to
our success.

Peter Arnett

Col. Marm was not the only man to display valor beyond the call of duty
at Ia Drang. Also on that battlefield was Rick Rescorla, whose story was
told earlier in this issue. Long before his heroism on September 11, 2001,
Rescorla was awarded the Silver Star for his actions at LZ X-Ray. This
famous photo of Rescorla was later featured on the cover of the book
We Were Soldiers Once...And Young.

Col. Walter Joseph Marm: My action took place on Sunday,
November 14, 1965. It was the first day of the Battle of Ia
Drang, which was the first major battle of the Vietnam War.
Our unit was pretty fresh, as we had only been in country since
September. It took us thirty days to go over by ship. We had an
advance party there preparing for us, but the main body of
about 13,000 troopers went over by ship with all of our
equipment. We were prepared, and I had great NCOs and
tremendous soldiers. I had a full complement of sergeants in
1965, many of whom had 10-18 years of service. One of my
sergeants, who was a medic in Korea, carried my aid bag
because we were short medics and I didn’t have a medic
attached to me at the time.

We were trying to get up to a platoon that had got cut off
from the main body. We called it the “lost platoon.” You may
know of the book on the battle that General Hal Moore &
Joe Galloway wrote, called We Were Soldiers Once…and Young,
which was later made into a movie starring Mel Gibson. It was
to carry my dead and wounded and fight off the enemy? It was the first day of the battle and my platoon was atta