Enemy Sappers Overran Fire Support Base Mary Ann in Vietnam

by Robert Fallon

Fire Support Base Mary Ann sat on a scraped-bare hill in Quảng Tín Province, its bunkers sunk into the dirt and ringed with wire. By March 1971, it was home to the 1st Battalion of the Americal Division’s 46th Infantry Regiment. Inside the perimeter were infantrymen, artillery crews, radio operators, and a command post buried under sandbags and timber.

On the night of March 28, everything was quiet.

“I had seen nothing and expected nothing,” SP/4 Dennis Schulte later told Time magazine.