COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Friday morning a, wearing a Harris County ball cap, stood out at a reunion of soldiers who fought in the famed 1965 Vietnam battle in the Ia Drang valley.
Jamie Creed didn’t fight in the intense three-day battle, but his life was forever changed by what happened there on November 17, 1965.
“I remember my brother waking me up, telling me my father was dead," Creed said. "I didn’t believe him. I told him to go back to sleep. But then, later on, my mother came into the room. And we found out.”
Sgt. Bernard J. Creed was killed on November 17th, 1965 at Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang valley.
That shot echoed all the way to Columbus where Jamie Creed and his five siblings and his mother were waiting out their father’s deployment.
“It was the middle of the night," Creed said. "I don’t know, 1 or 2 in the morning when that happened.”
The news was delivered by a cab driver.
"Woke up my mother," Creed said. "I don’t know if she was up or not. And gave the telegram to her.” Sgt. Creed survived battles in World War II and Korea before being killed in Vietnam.
Jamie Creed was at this weekend’s reunion just talking to the men who also fought over those three days in Ia Drang.
“I always wanted to know what happened," he said. "How it happened. When it happened. I have been studying it, the book. I have been going to these reunions. I heard Joe Galloway speak one time at an engagement. I have tried to meet as many of these guys as I can.”
He talked to Joe Marm on Friday.
Marm received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, for his actions two days before Creed’s father was killed.
“We are the greatest country in the world because of our military and our veterans," Marm said. "And so for us to have lost in our battle 79 of the 257 that went into the battle and in his battle they lost more at LZ Albany. As they were heading out, they wre had an engagement with the enemy and his father was killed, I believe it was on the 17th. So, it’s very tough.”
That loss was difficult for Creed.
“When you are growing up with kids, that don’t know you, they always ask you, what does your Dad do?" he said. "And it was always so hard to say, well, ‘my Dad is dead. Someone else had a father who went to the ballgames, the weddings and stuff like that. It was hard. It was tough.”
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