(Bob Cutts/Stars and Stripes)

Saigon, December 1965: A truck bomb that heavily damaged the Metropole Hotel, a bachelor enlisted men’s quarters for the U.S. military in downtown Saigon, left an eerie footnote in the sign of the Bombay tailor shop. Eight Vietnamese, one U.S. Marine and a soldier from New Zealand were killed in the early morning blast that also injured more than 175 people, including 72 Americans.