From the S&S archives:
An unusual quiet at Con Thien

CON THIEN, Vietnam — It was a beautiful, if unseasonal, Christmas.

There was no blanket of snow, so this beleaguered Marine bastion settled for a two-foot plastic Christmas tree and a paper banner over the command bunker reading, "Season's Greetings."

The banner had a post script: "2nd Battalion, 1st Marines — a great place to visit, but we wouldn't want to live here."

But for the U.S. Marines facing three of Ho Chi Minh's crack Red regiments across the DMZ, theree was an unaccustomed peace and an eerie silence. Communist heavy guns that had hammered the outpost for months were quiet, and the American guns that had answered them were also idle.

Peace on earth began here at precisely two minutes before six p.m. Christmas Eve. Maj. Chuck Daughterty, operations officer on the three muddy hills that form the outpost, reported that a Marine barrage triggered a heavy secondary explosion five minutes before the truce began. Leatherneck gunners then threw in 30 more rounds for good measure. The guns have been quiet since.

A burst of Communist machine-gun fire directed at the Marine perimeter on Christmas Eve was not returned.

U.S. reconnaissance Christmas morning disclosed Red troop movements in and around the trenches that encircle Con Thien, but again, the Marines held their fire.