"Vietnam Story" by Joseph L. Galloway, U.S. News & World Report, October 29, 1990

This special report was published 25 years after soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry fought the first major battle of the Vietnam War. It includes an eyewitness account of the fierce 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, the first major clash between U.S. troops and North Vietnamese forces. It explains how U.S. soldiers faced overwhelming enemy numbers in a brutal fight that tested new helicopter-based strategies and cost many lives on both sides. The battle revealed the difficult reality of the Vietnam War.