For Release
Oct. 18, 2002

Citadel hosts fundraising dinner and movie screening

          The Citadel Foundation will host a four-course fundraising dinner prepared by Charleston Place chefs and a movie screening of We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson, at 6:30 p.m., Thurs., Oct. 24, at the Riviera Theater on King Street. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Metsker Leadership Education Fund. The cost is $161 per person. Seating is limited. For reservations, contact Joy Simpson at 843-953-4804 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

          U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway, writers of the book on which the movie was based, will attend.

          On Nov. 14, 1965 in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, Moore, then a lieutenant colonel, led his battalion to the Ia Drang Valley. Code named Landing Zone X-Ray, it was the first search and destroy mission ever to be conducted using airmobile (helicopter) warfare tactics. Moores battalion, which numbered 450 men, was outnumbered by 1,500 North Vietnamese soldiers. Galloway was a UPI war correspondent covering the battle. We Were Soldiers is based on Moores and Galloways account of the three days and two nights Moore and his men fought before finally being relieved by another battalion.

          Capt. Tom Metsker was wounded in the Ia Drang Valley. A 1961 graduate of The Citadel, Metsker gave up his seat on a helicopter for another officer more wounded than he, when he was shot again and killed.

          The Metsker Leadership Education Fund was established in Metskers memory to help The Citadel with leadership initiatives, including the Greater Issues Lecture Series and the Institute for Leadership and Ethics.

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