Forest of the Screaming Souls: Battle of the Ia Drang Valley - Vietnam

This program examines the leadership actions and decisions of two American and one North Vietnamese commander during the first pitched battle of the Vietnam War between American and North Vietnamese regulars over three days in November of 1965.

Using new technology in a rapidly evolving environmant, two battalions of the American 7th Cavalry Division launched a search and destroy operation in a remote area of the Central Highlands of Vietnam along the Cambodian border.  The presence of a full division of North Vietnamese regulars (PAVN) was unknown at the time of insertion, and the American units encountered and battled for three days an enemy force five times larger than their own.  Only the composure and effective leaderrship of the American commanders against the determined and expert generalship of the Vietnamese was able prevent a massacre in the first engagement of the US and North Vietnamese armies.

The cases of Colonel Harold Moore,1st Battalion of the 7th, 1st Lieutenant Richard Rescorla, and Colonel Nguyen Huu An are examined in the context of their actions and decisions in the Battle of the Ia Drang.  The leadership qualities of empathy and inspiration, determination and persistence, intuition and decisiveness, situational awareness, and adaptiveness are explored as to their effect on the events and outcomes of the battle, and as they relate to the effectiveness of the same attributes in the contemporary business environment.

Case studies, video clips, Powerpoint slides, program workbooks, group discussions, facilitated dialogue, and stroytelling are used to enagage and develop the participants in an interactive and compelling experience.  The pre-reading for the program is We Were Soldiers Once, And Young by Harold G. Moore and Joseph Galloway.