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The area around Tay Ninh was basically flat. Jungle, rubber plantations and rice paddies.

Except for the mountain. Nui Ba Den, translated as The Black Virgin Mountain.

Why it was called that, I never found out, some ancient legend, I suppose.

{Here is one story that Roby Mullen heard from a CIDG at the top of the mountain}: A long time ago (sounds like a good start to a story!) Vietnam was broken into different provinces that were controlled by different lords or landbarons. The Lord of the province in which the mountain was had a daughter who was in love with the son of a nearby province lord. The father of the princess didn't like the prince. (Does this sound familiar or what). So the father of the Princess hired the Prince to lead one of his armies and set it up so that he would be killed in battle. (David and Bathsheba? Uriah was sent by David to die.) The princess was so distraught that she climbed the Tiger infested mountain and was killed and eaten by a Tiger (Romeo and Juliet). So the mountain was given the name Nui Ba Den or Black Virgin Mountain. It became a sacred place and pagodas were built to worship the Virgin

But it was like a great pile of rocks set in the middle of a table. It couldn't have been a mountain made like, say, the Rocky Mountains, more like the ice age had pushed all the rocks from somewhere into the middle of Vietnam.
We, the Americans (pronounced "Good guys"), had a radio station at the top, and a rock quarry at the bottom, and Charlie (pronounced "Bad guys") had everything in between.

May 13, 1968. On this night 20+ U.S. soldiers would die on the mountain.

I watched from the Base camp at Tay Ninh. The top of the mountain was covered in clouds. Once the attack started you could see the flashes of weapons, the flares, explosions. It was....pretty. It was hell for the U.S. soldiers on top of the mountain.

I went to the top a few days later. The soldiers at the top had been extremely lax at security. Smoking in the front line bunkers, playing records. They paid a heavy price for the laxity.

One soldiers story of that night Ted T. "Buck" Buchanan

This is an after action report by the Special Forces Unit at the top of the mountain After Action Report

Here is a list of all that were KIA on 13-May-68. There are 25 names listed here. The least number I have heard KIA has been 19, the most 23. So not all of these died on Nui Ba Den. But we still have yet to determine which of these names belong to the mountain. KIA List

That was 31 years ago.
Here are various pictures of the mountain.
French Fort
This is the only picture I have of the moutain from the ground. It has on the back of it "..from French Fort", that I had written on it to describe the picture. But I can't remember where "French Fort" was, relative to Tay Ninh. Since Vietnam was a French colony, this must be an area that was (or was called) a French Fort. I'm standing on a helicopter pad (the steel 'planks' that most heliports and airfields were made of.) So we must have flown in. But I don't remember exactly where it was.