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.