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Excerpt taken from Military and the Media: One Man's Experience, Joe Galloway, Senior Writer, U.S. News & World Report.

"My one enduring image of what air power really means is one that I have carried in my mind and in my heart for more than 30 years. In the Ia Drang Valley in Novemberof 1965 1 found myself with a battalion of the lst Cavalry Division, surrounded by two regiments of North Vietnamese regulars, 400 Americans versus 2,000 enemy. We were clinging desperately to a small clearing called Landing Zone X-Ray. On the morning of the second day we were under attack from three sides. Wave upon wave of enemy soldiers seemed to be literally growing out of the elephant grass. On the southeast perimeter, no more than 50 meters from where I lay, two platoons had been overrun and the line was wavering and cracking. The sergeant major came over, kicked me in the ribs and invited me to get up, make use of my M-16 and defend myself. Our forward air controller, Air Force Lieutenant Charlie Hastings, set aside his rifle and spoke into his radio the code word Broken Arrow. Itsignaled: "American unit in danger of being overrun"

With that, every available air resource in South Vietnam was diverted to our control. They came by the dozens and scores: Air Force, Navy, Marines. Old Spads, F-100's, F-4s, A-6,s. Charlie Hastings stacked them up over our heads in layers a thousand feet apart from 7,000 to 35,000 feet and they literally built a wall of steel and napalm around us. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

In the middle of all this dust, smoke and confusion a tragic friendly fire incident occurred: A Supersabre unloaded two cans of napalm right into the command post area. They burst no more than 15 meters to the right of the command group and one scared reporter. Several American GI's were engulfed in the flames. I helped carry one of them out of the burning grass and I can still hear his screams and feel the bare bones of his ankles where the flesh had cooked off rubbing in the palms of my hands to this day. Then I witnessed something very important; something that placed it all in perspective: Lieutenant Charlie Hastings stood, heartstricken and trembling, before the battalion commander and tried to apologize for the terrible error. The commander looked him in the eyes and said: "Don't worry about that one, Charlie. Just keep ?em coming."

Charlie Hastings kept them coming and that air support was the difference between life and death for the rest of us. That day, just one day past my 24th birthday, I learned that war is a hard and terrible business. Mistakes are made, but you must put them behind you and deal with the job at hand. By the way, Charlie Hastings served 30 years with the Air Force and retired a colonel three years ago. He's living the good life down in Arizona, trying hard to catch up on a list of Honey Do's that somehow accumulated over about 30 years. Charlie never forgot what it's like down there in the mud with the foot soldiers; and none of us ever forgot what it's like to holler HELP and have it rain down from the skies. Nobody ever won a battle or a war all by himself. It demands teamwork. If they teach you nothing else here and at the Army and Navy War Colleges, I pray to God they teach you that."

Galloway