SURVIVORS OF IA DRANG BATTLE REMEMBER THEIR FALLEN COMRADES

WASHINGTON Ernie Savage, sergeant 1st class, U.S. Army, retired, was having a hard time of it. His voice kept choking up and the words just wouldn't come.

''Well,'' he stammered, ''well, I'm, I'm just going to keep on till I finish. I've been in a worse place.''

The room erupted in knowing laughter that broke the verbal logjam. Everybody there had been in that place the Ia Drang.

In Vietnam, it never got any worse than it did in the Ia Drang, a distant valley in the Central Highlands, tangled in elephant grass and simmering in heat. In four days and nights of fighting in November 1965, 234 of Ernie Savage's comrades in the 1st Air Cavalry Division died. The North Vietnamese lost at least 3,000.

Now, 27 years later almost to the day, Sgt. Savage everybody still called him ''sergeant'' had gathered in a hotel ballroom with the other members of the Ia Drang Alumni Association for a bittersweet night of reminiscing.

The whisky was flowing, along with the tears and laughter, and these veterans, most nearing 50, some missing an arm or leg, many with the combat infantryman's badge pinned to lapels, were fumbling along with the old sergeant from Columbus, Ga., for words.

''The bullets were clipping all around us, hitting men and trees and cutting the grass,'' said Savage, whose unit was surrounded for several days and is known as the ''Lost Platoon'' in 1st Cavalry lore. ''On the radio, we were being told to hang on because help would be awhile getting to us. But after a bit we realized that we had held on, we'd managed, and we just figured, well, we're going to make it. And we did.''

The hotel ballroom was only a few hundred yards down a road from Arlington National Cemetery and the graves of too many fallen comrades. Here there were only survivors.

Harold G. Moore, a retired lieutenant general who, as a lieutenant colonel, led the Cav into the Ia Drang, took the floor. Now 70, out of uniform the better part of 15 years and living in Crested Butte, Colo., he still looks poised to leap from the skids of a hovering helicopter and, with Joseph L. Galloway, a Washington journalist who was in the Ia Drang, has just completed a book about the campaign, ''We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young.''

''Listen up, people,'' he commanded, half general, half surviving comrade. ''Sgt. Ernie Savage is what good soldiering is all about. Even though his unit was surrounded and cut off and losses were so heavy that he eventually ended up commanding it, he got his men out. And when they came out, they had ammo left over. Now that's discipline. Discipline!''

The room erupted in cheers.

Then it was Rick Rescorla's turn to talk. As a second lieutenant, he led a platoon in the Ia Drang and then went on to become a colonel before retiring a couple of years ago to a home in New York City.

''A man is dying down there in the valley and what do you do?'' he began, a distant fix in his eyes. ''You hold him in your arms and you say to him it's all you can say to him you say: 'You're not alone, son. You're not alone.' And he's gone. We were plain men, trying to survive.''

During a break between speeches, Bud Alley, a former Cav communications officer from Dayton, Tenn., gave John Howard, a former medical services officer from Carlisle, Pa., a bear hug. ''This is a healing experience that I've needed for 27 years,'' Alley said.

Then it was time to go. An order was given for a roll-call of the dead.

Suddenly the room filled with the sound of whirling helicopter blades thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. With that background recording, memories came crashing back.

The roll call began Bouknight, Calvin; Metsker, Thomas C.; Mitchell, William B.; Bernard, Ramon on and on and on for the better part of 10 minutes, until all the names inscribed on Panel 3-East of the Vietnam Wall had been read.

The final word went to James Scott of Columbus, Ga., retired Cav sergeant-major, six bronze stars and three purple hearts. ''These dead did not give their life for their country,'' he declared. ''They forced someone to take it from them.''