Remarks Upon Presenting the Presidential Unit Citation to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and Attached Units.

Secretary Resor, General Haines, General Kinnard, members and former members of the 1st Cavalry Division:

America's history books are filled with the names of places that are far removed from America's shores, where her strength and her will were tested, and where they triumphed.

We know most of those places very well-the Argonne--Anzio--Okinawa--and the Pusan Perimeter.

Now they will add the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

In one critical month there in the fall of 1965, American troops were locked in major combat with regular forces from North Vietnam.

When that month was over, the emerging shape of what we now know to be a certain truth could be seen: The enemy can never win Vietnam by armed conquest.

Today, we have come here to the Rose Garden in the White House to honor the men who first proved that this was so: the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Their performance in the Ia Drang Valley from October 23 to November at, 1965, has earned them a Presidential Unit Citation for heroism.

Air cavalry--with its mobility and its potential for surprise on the battlefield--was a promising but untried concept, until the men of the 1st Cavalry, in their first test of arms, proved its validity.

They proved more than a concept. To the Vietnamese people who had lived under Vietcong control for so long, their presence helped destroy the myth--which the enemy had carefully built--that the area was permanently tied to the enemy.

The war in Vietnam, as all of you know, is a new kind of conflict. American arms are being tested there by a new kind of aggression. If it should succeed, it will be used again. Of that, we and the rest of the world may be sure.

In past years, our military gave us only the alternatives of permitting the enemy to have his victory undeterred, or of stopping him with a massiveness that could provoke a nuclear war.

America needed a new response to meet the new form of aggression. Great names went into the construction of that response-John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor.

What the 1st Cavalry Division did in the Ia Drang Valley demonstrated that the new kind of warfare could be met and could be mastered. They dealt a hard blow to the Communist belief that freedom can be destroyed piece by piece.

What happens in Vietnam is extremely important to this Nation's freedom and it is extremely important to the United States security. The cavalrymen who took their stand in the Central Highlands, and showed that America could meet its responsibilities in fact as well as in theory, knew that. The men in Vietnam today know it.

And because they fought with such bravery and such skill, I salute them here this morning on behalf of all of their fellow citizens who live in this Nation of which all of us are so proud.

Thank you very much.

[Preceding the President's remarks, Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor read the citation, the text of which follows.]

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States I have today awarded

THE PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATION (ARMY) FOR EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM TO THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION ( AIRMOBILE ) AND ATTACHED UNITS

The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and attached units distinguished themselves by outstanding performance of duty and extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy in the Republic of Vietnam during the period 23 October 1965 to 26 November 1965. Following the attack on a Special Forces camp at Plei Me, in Pleiku Province, on 19 October 1965 by regular units of the Army of North Vietnam, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was committed to action.

The division was initially assigned the mission of protecting the key communications center of Pleiku, in addition to providing fire support both for an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) armored column dispatched to the relief of the besieged camp, and for the camp itself. The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), having recently been organized under a completely new concept in tactical mobility, and having arrived in the Republic of Vietnam only a month earlier, responded quickly with an infantry brigade and supporting forces. Using air assault techniques, the division deployed artillery batteries into firing positions deep within enemy-held territory and provided the vital fire support needed by the ARVN forces to accomplish the relief of the Special Forces camp.

By 27 October, the tactical and strategic impact of the presence of a North Vietnamese regular army division in Pleiku Province necessitated a change in missions for the 1st Cavalry Division. The division was given an unlimited offensive role to seek out and destroy the enemy force. With bold thrusts, elements of the division pursued the North Vietnamese regiments across the dense and trackless jungles of the west-central highlands, seeking the enemy out in his previously secure sanctuaries and giving him no quarter. In unfavorable terrain and under logistical and tactical conditions that would have stopped a unit with less capability, motivation and esprit, the cavalrymen repeatedly and decisively defeated numerically superior enemy forces.

The superb training, unflinching devotion to duty, and unsurpassed gallantry and intrepidity of the cavalrymen, individually and collectively, resulted in numerous victories and succeeded in driving the invading North Vietnamese division back from its positions at Plei Me to the foot of the Chu Pong Massif. There, in the valley of the Ia Drang, the enemy was reinforced by a fresh regiment and undertook preparations for more incursions into Pleiku Province. The 1st Cavalry Division deployed by air its men and weapons to launch an attack on this enemy staging area, which was 35 kilometers from the nearest road and 50 kilometers from the nearest logistical base. Fully utilizing air mobility in applying their combat power in a series of offensive blows, the men of the division completely defeated the numerically superior enemy.

When the enemy finally withdrew his broken forces from the battlefield, the offensive capability of the North Vietnamese Army in the II Corps tactical zone had been blunted. The outstanding performance and extraordinary heroism of the members of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and attached units, under the most hazardous and adverse conditions, reflect great credit upon themselves, the United States Army, and the Armed Forces of the United States.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON