Greenville Native Received Silver Star for Valor in Battle Featured in “We Were Soldiers Once... And Young”
Bud Alley, a graduate of Greenville High School and Furman University, was speaker at the Woodlawn Funeral Home & Memorial Park Annual Veterans Day Program, Sunday, November 6, 2011.
Alley received his commission as a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army through the Furman University ROTC program in 1964. One year later, he would face a test of all that he knew and was able to do in a jungle in Vietnam.
Bud Alley was assigned to the Second Battalion, Seventh Calvary, First Calvary Airmobile Division. He was involved in the terrible battles of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. These are the battles portrayed in the book, We Were Soldiers Once … And Young, by Lt. General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway and the movie by the same name starring Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, Second Battalion Commander.“On 17 November 1965 as the battalion was making a forced march across three miles of uncharted jungles their 350 man battalion was entrapped by two fresh North Vietnamese Battalions. Their column of march was overrun and cut off suffering over 150 men killed and that many wounded.
Cut off from communications and without maps, as night fell and the enemy were assassinating U. S. wounded soldiers, Alley was able to gather up four severely wounded men and by escape and evasion, led them two miles to across the jungle to an artillery fire base where at dawn he safely brought them into friendly lines.
For this he was awarded the Silver Star. Following a hospital stay in Okinawa for malaria, he returned to his unit on the 26th of January 1966 just in time to participate in the fourth bloodiest battle of the war at Landing Zone Four on the Bong Son coastal plains.”
In addition to the Silver Star, Alley earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Air Medal and the Presidential Unit Citation.
Alley discussed the origin and significance of the term “Band of Brothers” to soldiers who fight and die as brothers.
Bud Alley married Caroline Davis from Greer. They have two children and three grandchildren and reside in Brentwood, Tennessee.
Greenville County Sheriff Steve Loftis discussed the “Honor Flights” that fly World War II veterans to Washington, D. C. to see the World War II Memorial and other sights including the Vietnam War Wall and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Sheriff Loftis serves on the Honor Flight Board of Directors and has accompanied veterans on several flights.
Woodlawn Funeral Home Managing Director Chip Howard greeted guests. Charlie Porter, past DC State and Chapter President , Sons of the American Revolution, as Master of Ceremonies.
Several organizations participated in the event that presented an American flag to the family member present of each deceased veteran at rest in the memorial park.