A German Shepard bares its teeth during Schutzhund attack dog training at Witmer-Tyson Imports February 14, 2002 in Newark, CA. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Yotaka Iwabuchi from Japan dressed as Santa's reindeer poses for a portrait at the opening of the 39th World Santa Claus Congress July 22, 2002 in Copenhagen, Denmark. (Photo by Sion Touhig/Getty Images)

A lighting bolt flashes in the sky as U.S. Army M1A1 Abram tanks roll through the desert December 9, 2002 near the Iraqi border in Kuwait. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In the spring of 1965, within weeks of 3,500 American Marines arriving in Vietnam, a 39-year-old Briton named Larry Burrows began work on a feature for LIFE magazine, chronicling the day-to-day experience of U.S. troops on the ground – and in the air – in the midst of the rapidly widening war. The photographs in this gallery focus on a calamitous March 31, 1965, helicopter mission; Burrows’ “report from Da Nang”, featuring his pictures and his personal account of the harrowing operation, was published two weeks later as a now-famous cover story in the April 16, 1965, issue of LIFE.

Photo: Man your battle stations: The crew chief of helicopter Yankee Papa 13, lance corporal James C. Farley, mans an M-60 machine gun during a mission near Da Nang, Vietnam on March 31, 1965. (Photo by Larry Burrows/Time & Life Pictures)

Ultra- trailers compete at sunrise on September 2, 2017 in Courmayeur, Italy, during the 15 th edition of the Mount Blanc Ultra Trail (UTMB), a 170 km race around the Mont Blanc crossing France, Italy and Switzerland. The 15 th Ultra- Trail du Mont- Blanc (UTMB) is a mountain ultramarathon with numerous passages in high altitude (>2500 m) and in difficult weather conditions (night, wind, cold, rain or snow). (Photo by Jeff Pachoud/AFP Photo)

“HA Schult, born Hans-Jürgen Schult on June 24, 1939 in Parchim, Mecklenburg is a German installation, happening and conceptual artist known primarily for his object and performance art and more specifically his work with garbage”. – Wikipedia

Photo: German artist Ha Schult stands with his “trash people” below the pyramids May 15, 2002 in Giza, Egypt. Inspired by the statues of the terracotta army of Chinese Emperor Quin Shi Huangdi (247–206 B.C.), the thousand piece sulpture has stood in Red Square in Moscow, La Defense in Paris and the Great Wall in China. Schult, born in 1939 wants to bring the “trash war” to the world's attention beause trash is the greatest battle facing mankind. (Photo by Norbert Schiller/Getty Images)

Talini (R), a 9-month old 160-pound polar bear cub, swims with her mother Barle at the Detroit Zoo's Artic Ring of Life exhibit August 25, 2005 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Talini's birth was the first polar bear birth at the Detroit Zoo in fifteen years. Her mother Barle was wild born and was rescued by the Detroit Zoo from a circus in Puerto Rico in 2002. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)