Word: battalion
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...first rockets dropped directly on top of an important U.S. bunker, killing the three American occupants. With suicidal intensity reminiscent of the Chinese in Korea, wave after wave of Viet Cong rolled over each other toward the camp. This time a hail of fire from a battalion of U.S. defenders and the miniguns of circling American gunships stopped the assault short of the fort's outer fences. Chalk up another 20 Viet Cong dead, plus many bodies that would be found at the end of trails of blood leading away from the camp...
Neither Food nor Water. The battle began when the 2nd Battalion of the 173rd Airborne brigade neared the top of the first of Hill 875's twin ridges. Communists in concealed bunkers suddenly slashed the lead company with withering machine-gun fire. The battalion's trailing company moved back down the hill to try to cut out a helicopter landing zone for reinforcements. A flanking North Vietnamese force, poised waiting for the troopers, pounced and hit them hard...
...soldier, wounded in both legs and disobeying orders to retreat, propped himself and his machine gun up in the middle of the trail. He held the Communist attackers at bay until his company got away, gunning down an estimated 17 before slumping dead over his smoking barrel. The beleaguered battalion regrouped and called in air strikes. As the jets roared in at 500 feet to blast the top of the hill, one released a 500-or 750-lb. bomb too soon. It burst in the tall trees just above the battalion's command post, killing 30 U.S. paratroopers, many...
With the burst of the misplaced bomb, the real ordeal of the battalion began. Eight of its 16 line officers had been killed, the other eight wounded. Only two of its three company commanders were alive. Only one medic had survived to treat the wounded, who lay bleeding and covered with grime on all sides, moaning for lack of morphine. Rescue and relief helicopters tried to reach the battalion, but were driven off by enemy rocket and machine-gun fire; twelve helicopters went down in the five days of fighting...
...still able to fight, there was no food. Worse, for the wounded fighting for their lives, there was no water. Next morning a relief battalion set out from Fire Support Base 16, less than two miles away. So dense is Dak To's bamboo jungle that it took more than ten hours to reach the embattled men. When the rescuers finally arrived, the survivors mobbed them for food and water. But the incoming battalion had taken only enough supplies for itself, and had consumed them all on the long march...