was to win the war." Commenting later on the battle, Moore said, The "peasant soldiers [of North Vietnam] had withstood the terrible high-tech fire storm delivered against them by a superpower and had at least fought the Americans to a draw. By their yardstick, a draw against such a powerful opponent was the equivalent of a victory." Casualties Both sides routinely exaggerated the number of casualties inflicted on the other, and figures vary considerably depending on source. According to ARVN, they lost ~350 men Four American helicopters were shot down and 55 damaged. One USAF A-1E Skyraider was hit by automatic weapons and crashed, killing the pilot. Casualty notification The U.S. Army had not set up casualty-notification teams this early in the war. The notification telegrams at this time were handed over to taxi cab drivers for delivery to the next of kin. Moore's wife, Julia Compton Moore, followed in the wake of the deliveries to widows in the Fort Benning housing complex, grieving with the wives and comforting the children and attended the funerals of all the men killed under her husband's command who were buried at Fort Benning. Her complaints about the notifications prompted the Army to quickly set up two-man teams to deliver them, consisting of an officer and a chaplain. Mrs. Frank Henry, the wife of the battalion executive officer and Mrs. James Scott, wife of the battalion command sergeant major, performed the same duty for the dead of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Notable award recipients Although many decorations have been awarded to veterans of the Battle of Ia Drang, in his book We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, Lt. Gen. Harold Moore writes: We had problems on the awards... Too many men had died bravely and heroically, while the men who had witnessed their deeds had also been killed... Acts of valor that, on other fields, on other days, would have been rewarded with the Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross or a Silver Star were recognized only with a telegram saying,"The Secretary of the Army regrets..." The same was true of our sister battalion, the 2nd of the 7th. Medal of Honor 2nd Lt. Walter Marm, Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, received the Medal of Honor on Nov. 15, 1967, for his actions while serving as a platoon leader on 14 November during the 3-day battle at LZ X-Ray. His medal citation