Word: mortared
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Peaceful as the reception was, however, nobody was taking any chances, Navy frogmen combed the beach before the marines landed. Two battalions of Vietnamese soldiers patrolled the area while rocket-armed U.S. helicopters skimmed just above the treetops. Marine security squads began digging foxholes and mortar emplacements as soon as they landed...
...soon as they picked up "pips" on their radar screens, the marines: called on a nearby howitzer battery for flare shells to illuminate the area, then swept the slope with a barrage of machine-gun and mortar fire. Though there were no signs of bodies the next morning, the marines were delighted with the radar's performance in its first combat tests. Chuckled one machine gunner: "I'll bet they wondered how we knew they were out there...
Danang's 25-mile perimeter is patrolled by the so-called "Special Sector," made up of Vietnamese Rangers and U.S. Special Forces, which on two occasions in the past month has surprised Viet Cong units within mortar range of the airstrip. Last week one flustered patrol reported "enemy" activity, and Danang's artillery opened up-on a herd of 15 wild elephants...
...week-long lull in the war while Vietnamese celebrated the lunar New Year. As the Year of the Dragon went out and the Year of the Snake came in, the Viet Cong had unilaterally proclaimed a seven-day ceasefire. They spent that period busily caching explosives and setting up mortar positions near the central highlands town of Pleiku, 240 miles northeast of Saigon. As headquarters of South Viet Nam's II Army Corps and site of a U.S.-run airstrip at nearby Camp Holloway, Pleiku was a tempting target...
...airstrip, cut through a double apron of barbed wire without being seen by guards, began blowing up parked helicopters and light reconnaissance planes with satchel charges. At the same time, guerrillas hiding in a hamlet 1,000 yds. from the camp poured 55 rounds from 81-mm. mortars smack into the compound where 400 U.S. advisers lived. They were right on target. Fifty-two billets were damaged, including some totally destroyed. In one, Cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who happened to be in Pleiku visiting his son Bruce, a 21-year-old U.S. Army warrant officer, leaped up at the first mortar...