In 1966, The Viet Cong Attacked Firebase Bird. It Was A HUGE Mistake.

December 27th, 1966. The Kim Son Valley, Binh Dinh Province. One in the morning, two days after a Christmas truce both sides had agreed to honor. Landing Zone Bird sat in a bend of the Kim Son River, on low ground the men compared to a T-bone steak. From the air it looked like a mistake. Many of the soldiers who held it believed it was one. About two hundred Americans defended the firebase that night. A North Vietnamese regiment of close to a thousand men was already crawling through the elephant grass toward the wire. When it ended, twenty-seven Americans were dead. Sixty-seven were wounded. Close to half the garrison was hit in a fight that lasted about an hour. What broke the attack was a single artillery round the United States Army had carried in its inventory for nine years and had never once fired at a living enemy.