A general confession from a hero in war and in faith

YEARS AGO I HAD THE HONOR of interviewing Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, U.S. Army (Ret.), best known as the lieutenant colonel who engaged the Viet Cong in the first major battle of the Vietnam War at la Drang in November 1965. He tells his story in the 1992 bestseller We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young, which later was made into the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers starring Mel Gibson.

Moore was also a devout Catholic. In our telephone conversation, we discussed his experience of the war and his Catholic faith.

“I lost a lot of my men,” he said of the Battle of la Drang. “I had 79 killed. I had commanded them for well over a year. A few of the noncommissioned officers who were killed were married, and I had met their wives and children.”

Like many veterans of battle, he struggled with survivor’s guilt.

“When you lose your men, and you carry them off the battlefield, bearing a terrible truth that would tear the lives and hearts of their families in 24 to 48 hours when they got the telegram, it gets to you,” he explained. “You feel guilty that you’re still alive.”

All those years later, he still remembered those heroes who served under his command during that three-day battle.

“When I go to the cemetery at Fort Benning, Georgia, a one-hour drive from my home here in Alabama, I visit the graves of my men who died in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965,” Moore said. “My wife is buried next to Sgt. Jack Gell, whom I held in my arms just after he died. He left a wife and three children. When I go out, I will be buried in the same grave with my wife.”

Soldiers don’t pray in the heat of battle, he said, because they focus on completing their mission and getting through it alive. But he always prayed beforehand “that I would make the right decisions, that I would conduct myself properly as a leader.” And he was prepared to die for his country, with his men.

More than 40 years later, Moore still prayed daily “that my men who were killed in action under my command have eternal life in Jesus Christ,” he said. “That’s the best I can do.”

His own “principal purpose in life,” he told me, was to “qualify for life hereafter.” Key strategies in this mission included daily Mass and frequent prayer.

He cited among his favorite prayers a line from the Universal Prayer of Pope Clement XI: Discover to me, O my God, the nothingness of this world, the greatness of heaven, the shortness of time, and the length of eternity.

“When I think of what awaits me if I qualify,” Moore said, “I can hardly wait to get there.”

I believe he’s there now, or on his way, having passed from this life in 2017 — a hero of war and an exemplar of faith. Pray for him as he did for his men.

Gerald Korson is editor of Legatus magazine.