In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the la Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two-and-a-half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together these actions constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.

General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account presents a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge and dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, as rarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.