On a dusty knoll near Dak To, survivors of Hill 875 stood in salute. Before them, arranged in the Army tradition, were 98 pairs of boots--one pair for each man of the Second Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade, who died on that hill and nearby ridges. In all, the month-long battle of Dak To had taken the lives of 280 Americans--and 1,641 North Vietnamese. As the battalion commander read aloud names of the dead, a sergeant who had lost four buddies collapsed and sat weeping in the red dust.

LIFE Magazine, December 8, 1967