A Vietnam Veteran’s Day Story: The First Major Battle of the War

By Michael Gold

Pat Selleck’s battalion, 450 men, was surrounded by more than 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers in the central Highlands of South Vietnam, mid-November 1965. This was Ia Drang, the first major battle of the Vietnam War.

Selleck, a Cortlandt Manor resident, was a P4 Specialist, a senior scout observer in his platoon, part of the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry Division. They had been dropped off by helicopter, for a search and destroy mission. The battalion came under fire as soon as they landed.

“You hear the rounds hit bushes around you, behind you,” Selleck, now 83, told me. “You’re nervous, a little jerky. You go into survival mode. You keep your head down and don’t panic.”

Selleck fired his M-16 rifle at the enemy.

“You see these guys coming at you. You shoot,” he said. “You make sure the guys on your left and right are okay.”

The battle went on for three days. Selleck was in what was called the inner perimeter, the center of the landing zone.

“We were held in reserve to back up the front lines, so no one could penetrate through. The NVA (North Vietnamese Army) could cause a massacre,” Selleck said.

The men on the front lines were in grave danger.

“They were running out of ammo,” Selleck said.

Selleck and other soldiers took it upon themselves to run ammunition to the front. He also picked up wounded men and carried them back to the medical station. Some of the soldiers had been hit in the arms or stomach.

“I grabbed a wounded guy, and we hauled back to the inner circle. I put men on my shoulder.” Or, with other soldiers, he carried the wounded in teams.

As night fell, it was hard to find the medical station. But U.S. artillery units accidentally helped him. They were “dropping white phosphorus and it lit up the area, so you could see.”

“We dropped them off, then went back,” he said, with the North Vietnamese continuing to shoot at everybody.

“The second run I made, an Air Force officer told me he wanted my name, rank and serial number to put me in for a medal. I heard a ping (of bullets), a round came in around us. I told the officer, ‘Get out of my way – I’m getting shot at!’” (Selleck’s language was somewhat stronger than what we can print here.)

During the battle, American planes dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese, but it also hit some of its own forces.

“I felt heat on my face,” when the napalm hit, Selleck said. He got on the radio and shouted at the pilot, “You dumb —! You’re dropping napalm on us!”

When the battle was over, 79 members of Selleck’s battalion were killed and 121 wounded. Other units were ambushed in a different part of the operation. Total American losses at Ia Drang were 305, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website.

“After the battle was over, we went back to the landing zone, where the artillery was. I was told to take a headcount of everybody alive. Colonel Moore said we will leave no man on the battlefield,” Selleck recalled.

That meant the battalion would recover the dead and get them home.

He was discharged shortly after the battle and returned to the U.S., first to his father’s Manhattan apartment.

“Dad knew I was in battle, but he didn’t know I was alive,” Selleck said.

When Selleck knocked on his father’s door, his dad thought it might be soldiers telling him Pat was dead.

“He was in a state of shock.”

From there, he reunited with Trudy, his wife, and resumed his job fixing telephones. The couple had two daughters – Ann Marie and Patricia.

In March 1966, Selleck got an envelope in the mail. The Army had awarded him the Bronze Star.

“Under intense enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire, Specialist Four Selleck voluntarily moved from his position, in battalion reserve, to the front lines in order to evacuate seriously wounded personnel. Specialist Four Selleck contributed to saving American lives,” his commendation states.

Colonel Moore, promoted to lieutenant general, wrote a book recording the battle, titled “We Were Soldiers Once…And Young,” published in 1992. Hollywood made a movie of the battle. Selleck asked me to watch the final segment of the film on his computer. I saw actors pretending to fight and die. Even though this was just a movie, it was extremely disturbing. Selleck said, “This is the way it was.”

He told me, “I’m not a hero. I’m a survivor. The heroes are the 58,000 names on that wall in Washington. Two or three guys I was close to are on the wall, that didn’t make it. The second group of heroes are the wives and families that took care of us.”

Michael Gold has had articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union and other newspapers, and The Hardy Society Journal, a British literary publication.