Timeline, January 19th

[David]

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
January 19, 1966 (28th day of the 12th month, Year of the Snake)(US Counteroffensive): Operation Van Buren begins.

January 19, 1966 (28th day of the 12th month, Year of the Snake) (US Counteroffensive): LBJ asks for $13 billion for the war.

January 19, 1968 (20th day of the 12th month, Year of the Goat)(US Counteroffensive Phase III): Khe Sanh base -- While searching the site of the previous day's ambush of a team from Bravo, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, near Hill 881N, a patrol from I/3/26 comes under fire from an estimated 25 NVA troops and withdraws under cover of supporting fire. Two platoons from M/3/26 are helilifted to Hill 881S as reinforcements for I/3/26, which prepares for a sweep toward Hill 881N the next day.

January 19, 1972 (4th day of the 12th month, Year of the Boar)(US Consolidation I): A MiG-21 is shot down over North Vietnam by a U.S. aircraft, the first such occurrence since March 20, 1970. Hanoi used the time after the US announced its total bombing halt on October 31, 1968, to rebuild its air force, which had taken such heavy losses it had almost ceased to exist as an effective air deterrent. With Soviet aid, it has almost tripled its number of strike aircraft over the past three years, and now Allied pilots faced a force totalling 80 MiG-17s, 33 MiG-19s and 93 MiG-21s.

January 1972 (late Year of the Boar) (US Consolidation I): Steve Ritchie volunteers for a second combat tour and is assigned to the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Udorn, Thailand.

[Andy]

William "Sonny" Marlin, Tenn.
While operating in the Hobo Woods our company was on a lunch break. Sonny on track 2-3, the writer on vehicle 2-2. Sonny was talking on the platoon net, telling me a Knock Knock joke when he took a direct hit with an RPG-7 turning him into a pink-gray mist.
Your still remembered.

Andy

[Jerry D]

wasn't a good day for Knock KNock jokes

RIP "Sonny" may he rest near a cool stream with lots of trout running an a Still full of good Tennessee Moon

[frisco-kid]

Thanks for bringing Sonny's story to us and keeping his memory alive. All of our fallen comrades deserves to have their names written out, or said out loud once in awhile. It brings them back to life to us for a moment.

May Sonny ALWAYS be remembered somewhere.

[Bill Farnie]

Sharp hand Salute to William "Sonny" Marlin....RIP brother