By Beau Davis

I have always been captivated by history. Whether it’s imagining the flight of the Nez Perce through Yellowstone along the same rivers and grounds that I fish and work, or the steady technological progress that has somehow enabled the vast majority of us to possess smartphones more powerful than the computers that put Apollo 11 on the moon in the pockets of our jeans. However, as much as I appreciate history and its unmistakable links to the present, it has always had this intangible quality to it; a feeling that I would never truly be able to observe for myself the outstretched hands of experience concretely impacting the present. That all changed this past September, and I can now honestly say that one of the most surreal experiences of my life came from watching a documentary on the Vietnam War.

Perhaps this story is nothing new to many long-time residents of Rexburg, Rigby, and the surrounding communities, and perhaps one veteran story among the many in Southeast Idaho’s long history of military service doesn’t intrinsically mean more than the others. However, I know that I will take the sacrifice and memory of Jimmy C Nakayama with me forever.

The year was 1965 and the U.S. was just beginning to become a palpable military force on the ground in South Vietnam. Ever since John F. Kennedy had been in office, the U.S. had been supplying South Vietnam and Saigon with ever-increasing amounts of military aid, training for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam’s army), and limited airstrikes against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong (the main combatants of both the ARVN and the U.S. military during the war). However, things changed dramatically in terms of direct involvement of U.S. forces the year before, when Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Suddenly, the U.S. was constructing firebases and airfields all over South Vietnam in an effort to further hamper the ability of communist North Vietnam’s forces to conduct attacks against the democratically-aligned government in Saigon.

Unsurprisingly, these firebases and airfields became primary targets for both the NVA and Viet Cong, and casualties of U.S. servicemembers were beginning to climb defending them. So, the decision was made to start going on the offensive and try to dislodge the enemy from South Vietnam. That is how the first major battle of U.S. involvement in Vietnam began—The Battle of la Drang Valley.

This battle marked the first time that U.S. servicemembers faced off against North Vietnamese Army regulars, as opposed to smaller skirmishes with local Viet Cong soldiers prior; and among these U.S. servicemembers and personnel were Private First Class Jimmy C Nakayama, United Press International war correspondent Joe Galloway, and Lieutenant Colonel Al Moore, who led U.S. forces in the battle.  

The battle centered around the U.S. military’s then-new concept of air mobility, in which dozens of helicopters were used to ferry troops quickly to otherwise inaccessible or remote locations with artillery and air support being used in lieu of additional ground forces such as tanks. However, the main drawback of this strategy was that the whole of U.S. combat troops could not be brought in all at once, and instead had to rely on sporadic drops of a few dozen at a time. Further hampering this operation were the helicopter’s inability to effectively ferry troops at night. Because of these circumstances, the battle was largely centered around the landing zones or LZ’s where the helicopters could land—in this instance LZ’s X-Ray and Albany.

As the battle went on, it became apparent to the U.S. forces there that they were extremely outnumbered and had to rely upon close-range artillery and air support to keep the NVA forces from overrunning the landing zones, and it was in one of these moments that the unthinkable occurred. One of the air strikes landed too close.

As Galloway described it in is book, A Reporter’s Journal From Hell:

“The first [jet] had just released two cans of napalm. The second was about to do the same. Lt. Charlie Hastings, the Air Force forward observer, was screaming into his mike: Pull up! Pull up! The second plane pulled up. That left the two cans of napalm loblollying end over end towards us,” … “The two cans went right over our heads and impacted no more than 20 yards from us, the jellied gasoline spreading out and flaming up going away from us. That 20 yards saved our lives but through the blazing fire I could see two men, two Americans, dancing in that fire, I jumped to my feet. So did medic Tommy Burlile. Burlile was shot in the head by a sniper before he could reach the scene. I charged on in and someone was yelling, ‘Get this man’s feet!’ I reached down and grabbed the ankles of a horribly burned soldier,” … “We carried him to the aid station. Later I would learn that his name was Jimmy Nakayama of Rigby, Idaho. His wife, Trudie, had given birth to their first child, a daughter named Nikki, on November 7. Jimmy died in an Army hospital two days later, on November 17.”

I had seen the documentary depicting this scene (with Joe Galloway himself narrating much the same quote) some years before, but it wasn’t until that September viewing that I found myself dumbstruck.

“Jimmy Nakayama of Rigby, Idaho,” Galloway had said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. There I was, sitting not 14 miles from where Jimmy and his family had lived. Incredulous, I told my family about the bizarre coincidence and had just begun to move on with my thoughts until I remembered the Rexburg Veterans’ Freedom Memorial in Smith Park by the hospital. I had driven past it not two days prior to my watching the documentary. Suddenly, I had to know whether I could find Jimmy’s name on that wall.

Ten minutes later, I found myself gazing upon name after name of veterans from the area adorning the slabs in front of me. It was a moderately warm September day and the ground was just beginning to become cluttered with fallen leaves. As I walked, trance-like in my quest to find Jimmy, I happened to notice the flag ruffling slightly in the autumn breeze like a sigh emanating from the sky itself. There were rows upon rows of names from WWII (both in the Pacific Theatre and Europe), Korea, POW’s who died in captivity, and various names from Vietnam. It was then that I realized the site honored not just veterans in Rexburg and the immediate community, but all the counties in the area: Clark, Jefferson, Fremont, Madison and Teton. It might take me a while, I realized, to find Jimmy’s name amongst his brethren of fallen heroes.

At this thought, however, I began to feel guilty. Sure, I was here to find Jimmy Nakayama, but does that mean these other heroes deserve less attention? Was I dishonoring all these people who fought and died and struggled for not only the freedom of people in our country, but for freedom for people around the world? So, I began to read the names more closely and attempted to do my best to appreciate the ultimate sacrifice that so many had made.

I don’t know how long I stood staring at all those names, but I remember feeling small. It was at this moment that I heard my dogs barking from inside the truck parked on the road. Looking up, I saw they had been enthralled by the sight of another dog walking with someone on the opposite sidewalk.

“Calm down you two, you’re fine!” I shouted, suddenly shocked from my trance; and it was right there when I looked back up, upon the terracotta-colored slab, that I saw it: Jimmy’s plaque. And there, at the bottom of the tile, was something that instantly dumbfounded me.

“BURIED AT SUGAR CITY CEM.” 

Immediately thereafter I stood over the grave of PFC Jimmy Nakayama, still shocked and a little unsure of how safe my driving was getting there. Never before in my life had something so intangible as war become so tangible and present in my life in the span of an afternoon. Yet, despite this, I didn’t know how to feel. I was totally unprepared emotionally to make the kind of discovery I did. I knew I was angry that he had died in such an atrocious and senseless fashion, but I also knew that he probably wouldn’t want that. I was sad, of course, but not in a way that seemed to make sense. More than anything, I think I felt sorry. I was sorry for his family and the daughter he never met, his wife, and sorry for the way I had lived my life that was dwarfed totally by this stranger and his sacrifice. I was sorry for the war itself whose meaning has been lost in the decades since and sorry for the treatment that veterans of that war received when they returned home. I was sorry for the scores of other soldiers who followed him in Vietnam afterwards; and I felt sorry for myself—sorry that I had trivialized him and fictionalized him in my head subconsciously from the documentary until I stood personally staring at his headstone.

Since then, I would like to say that these feelings have gotten better—that I have been able to reconcile my feelings of remorse, sadness, and anger. I would like to say I have a little. Yet, I know something changed in me since that day I found Jimmy.

It was only in the course of writing this article that I discovered Joe Galloway himself had passed away less than a month earlier than when I visited Jimmy’s grave. Galloway said, in the course of the documentary and the other works he had been involved with, that: “That boy is my nightmare.”

Hopefully the nightmare is over Mr. Galloway. Rest in peace to all the veterans who are no longer with us, Joe Galloway, and Jimmy Nakayama. Additionally, the hearts of everyone here at Rexburg Commons and myself go out to Jimmy Nakayama’s and Joe Galloway’s family. If you are one of these people and would like to speak to us, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

The battle of la Drang has been immortalized in popular culture and in various documentaries over the years with perhaps some of the most recognizable being Mel Gibson’s portrayal as Al Moore in the 2002 film We Were Soldiers, History Channel’s Vietnam In HD (the one that I saw), and Ken Burns’ Vietnam. However, in 1994 the unique opportunity to return to the site of the battle by both Vietnamese and United States veterans (including Joe Galloway and Hal Moore) presented itself and was filmed as a documentary by ABC News titled: They Were Young and Brave.