When a Communist-led insurgency supported by North Vietnam threatened to overthrow the South Vietnamese government in early 1965, the United States committed ground troops to hold the line. The decision to intervene represented an admission that ten years of U.S. advice and support policy had failed. Now, acting according to an aggressive strategy and backed by an abundance of mobility and firepower, American soldiers would accomplish what the South Vietnamese could not.
This book focuses on the first eighteen months of combat in Vietnam. It describes how the U.S. Army entered the war and fought its first battles north of Saigon and in the Central Highlands, The results of these engagements convinced General William C. Westmoreland that he had stemmed the tide of the Communist offensive. In 1966 he altered tactics, taking the fight to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in a series of high-tempo spoiling attacks throughout the country. The campaign was successful, buying time to complete a troop ad logistical buildup that permitted the Army to go on the offensive in 1967.