The Ia Drang Battlefield

The Ia Drang Battlefield. Anthills and Creek Beds. , The Ia Drang battlefield was dotted with large dirt anthills of varying sizes. They were generally very hard, baked earth and were home to ants and termites. These features made good defensive positions and Lieutenant Colonel Moore used one as the site of his battlefield command post during the fighting at LZ (Landing Zone) X-Ray., Another feature that played a pivotal role in the battle was a dry creek bed that wound through the battlefield. It served as a defensive position for the American forces and as an avenue of approach for the North Vietnamese troops attempting to penetrate the American positions., Mr. Bill Beck, who was serving on a machinegun crew, made several trips through the fighting to obtain ammunition. During one trip he noticed an American Soldier taking cover behind an anthill, while on the opposite side of the anthill were North Vietnamese Soldiers doing the same thing, neither party aware of the other. Bill tried to warn the American Soldier and then drew his .45 automatic pistol and fired on the Vietnamese soldiers in an attempt to draw them off and warn the American Soldier., Years later, Mr. Beck drew a watercolor image of his memory of that anthill. In 1993, he returned to the Ia Drang battlefield and found and photographed the same anthill. Upon his return home, he found that his photograph fit perfectly over the watercolor artwork, as if the artwork had been done from the photograph rather than the other way around. His memories of that moment in time remain as fresh in his mind as the day he lived the reality., [Captions:] , This watercolor drawing produced by Mr. Beck shows him firing on the Vietnamese soldiers hiding behind an anthill that is also sheltering American Soldiers on the other side. (Courtesy Mr. Bill Beck), American forces taking refuge in the dry creek bed during the Ia Drang Battle., The anthill in Bill Beck's memory was illustrated in a watercolor he produced many years later. The overlayed photograph he took of the same anthill during a visit in 1993. (Courtesy Mr. Bill Beck)