it all started at pleime. it was almost by accident.t looked like a routine combat attack on this triangular shaped outpost. a handful of advisors and 350 mountain tried than -- tribesmen. as it turned out, this was a new kind of attack i in new kind of army. this was a full-scale, sustained assault by two heavily armed regiments aimed at wiping pleime off the map and sucking american troops into an ambush. this is what stopped them from doing it, american air power. the north vietnamese attacked, and our fighter-bombers roared in with guns blazing. there was a ring of deadly fire. there was a heavier consecration of -- never a heavier concentration of tactical air fire had ever been used in the vietnam war. yet still they came, the communist determined that pleime must be destroyed, the united states determined that it would not. these troops continue to storm the camp program at her, and we were shooting them will write off of the wires, said one pilot -- camp perimeter, and "we were shooting them right off of the wires," said one pil