Ask today’s youth what might have been happening 60 years ago, and they would run to their phones looking for famous songs or movies of that era. Those of us who lived through those times would immediately think of Vietnam.

But as we trudged through the 1960s and early 1970s, we had the war along with so many other things on which to concentrate: Cuba, the Kennedy assassinations and the death of Martin Luther King, to name just a few.

Time has softened those terrible moments until something reminds us of some event, and we rethink that event all over again.

I was in the military in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The war was in my face, along with first passing the bar, getting married and starting a family. My last military assignment was to identify as many of the prisoners of war being held in North Vietnam as possible so that we might get them all back once the war might end.

Sixty years ago, in November 1965, we had two of the most horrific battles in Vietnam. I was aware of the Battle of Ia Drang and have written about it. I later had the pleasure of meeting the colonel who led that battle and spent a bit of time with the embedded war correspondent, Joseph Galloway. I have watched the movie starring Mel Gibson as the colonel and later Gen. Harold Moore, titled “We Were Soldiers Once and Young.”

But then I heard an old country song on the radio the other day by Big and Rich. The words caught me a bit off guard, as its title was “8th of November,” with an introduction spoken by none other than Kris Kristofferson, one of my favorite singers. As I listened to the words, I knew I had to learn more. This battle was a week ahead of Ia Drang and totally unknown to me.

The song is on YouTube.

He said goodbye to his mama as he left South Dakota

To fight for the red, white and blue.

He was 19 and green with his new M-16

Just doing what he had to do.

The Ia Drang battle was from Nov. 14 to 16. This battle was a week ahead, and the war plan was named Operation Hump. It called for the landing of our and some Australian troops near a place in South Vietnam called Gang Toi, not far from the Cambodian border.

The Viet Cong were in possession of the area, not the North Vietnamese regular troops, as they were at Ia Drang. The Australian troops were quickly surrounded, and the American force was trying to rescue them. The battle was relatively short in time, but while the Australians had two fatalities, the American troops lost 49 (although the song says 29), with another 83 wounded. It was believed that the VC lost over 400 troops.

Reading the available history of that battle gave me pause that such a significant battle was overwritten by what happened the following week. The story was later written by a member of that 173rd Airborne Brigade, Niles Harris.

Harris was a friend of the duo, and in relating his experience that day, he so moved Big and Rich to write a song and record it.

It did make the top 40 in Billboard Hot Country Songs.

He was dropped in the jungle where the choppers

would rumble with the smell of napalm in the air.

Twelve hundred came down on him and 29 more.

They fought for their lives, but most of them died.

There is so much more to that story. There was a medic attached to the 173rd named Lawrence Joel. Born in North Carolina the third of 16 children, poverty was a way of life, and he joined the Merchant Marine after high school.

In 1946, Joel decided to join the U.S. Army, making a career of it. He served in Korea during that war and was a first-class medic at the start of the conflict in Vietnam, one of only a few African Americans to hold that position.

On Nov. 8, 1965, Joel, then-specialist 5, and his battalion of paratroopers were sent on patrol for Viet Cong soldiers near Bien Hoa, War Zone “D” in South Vietnam. Joel defied orders to stay on the ground and risked his life saving dozens of wounded soldiers. Joel was shot twice, once in his right thigh and once in his right calf, but he continued to do his job. A number of those wounded owed their lives to his bravery.

On March 9, 1967, on the White House lawn, President Lyndon Johnson presented Joel with the Medal of Honor, the first Black soldier to be awarded the Medal since the U.S. Civil War. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. On my next visit to Washington, D.C., I will find that grave.

Yes, we age and forget much of the past. Perhaps it eases the terrible memories of certain times, but thanks to Big and Rich, I added to my knowledge of that awful war.

On the 8th of November, the angels were crying

As they carried his brothers away. With the fire raining down

And the hell all around, there were few men left standing that day.

· Dennis Marek can be reached at llamalaw23@gmail.com.