SHAKO: Road Trip to Arkansas

FIRST STOP: Bardstown, Kentucky

Your 4gWAR editor and spouse headed southwest to Arkansas in early April to see the once-in-a-lifetime (for us) solar eclipse in the zone of totality. Along the way we’ve been stopping at places with some historical significance or interesting roadside attractions.

Most people come to Bardstown for the whiskey — bourbon to be exact — but we encountered some unexpected history in the Kentucky city that is surrounded by whiskey distilleries.

It began with the new Hal Moore United States Military Museum named for native son, Army Lieutenant General Harold “Hal” Moore, a Vietnam War hero and the subject of a 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson.

Lt. Gen. Hal Moore Museum of U.S. Military History at Bardstown, Kentucky. (4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle. Copyright 2024 Sonoma Road Strategies)

Moore’s heroism during the Battle of la Drang earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest medal for valor. At the time of the battle, Moore was commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment (the same regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn) in the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).

His unit was dropped by helicopter into the la Drang Valley on November 14, 1965, in one of the first major battles between U.S. and North Vietnamese regulars. During the battle, which included another 7th Cavalry battalion ambushed on a nearby landing zone, 234 Americans were killed, another 250 were wounded. Estimates of the North Vietnamese killed range between 600 and 1,200, depending on sources, according to a U.S. Army obituary of Moore who died in 2017 at the age of 94.

“Throughout the initial assault phase, Moore repeatedly exposed himself to intense hostile fire to ensure the proper and expedient deployment of friendly troops,” the Distinguished Service Cross citation stated, adding “By his constant movement and repeated exposure to this insurgent fire, Moore set the standard for his combat troops by a courageous display of ‘leadership by example,’ which characterized all his actions throughout the long and deadly battle.”

The Hal Moore collection at the Bardstown, Kentucky military museum. (4GWAR Blog photo by John M. Doyle, copyright 2024 by Sonoma Road Strategies.)

On the recommendation of a commission created by Congress to propose new names for Army posts honoring Confederate commanders and heroes, Fort Benning, Georgia was renamed Fort Moore, after Moore and his wife Julia Moore.

Julia Moore “was equally distinguished as a leader of Army family programs who changed how the military cares for the widows of fallen Soldiers,” the Army said in a statement announcing the renaming in May 2023.

Hal and Julia Moore’s leadership on the battlefield and on the home front in 1965 were portrayed in the 2002 motion picture, “We Were Soldiers …” which was based on Moore’s 1992 book,  “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” co-authored with Joseph L. Galloway, a former United Press International reporter, who was at the battle of Ia Drang. Click on the video below for a sampling.

 

*** *** ***

SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.