Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border in 1967

Military historian Wilkins (Grab Their Belts to Fight Them) recreates a brutal Vietnam War engagement that took place in a rugged, remote valley in the Central Highlands near Cambodia. Never given an official title, the May 1967 fight became known as “the nine days in May border battles.” Troops from three battalions of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade of the Fourth (“Ivy”) Infantry Division faced off against a much larger force of two North Vietnamese Army regiments. The sustained fighting—which included hand-to-hand combat—was some of the most intense of the Vietnam War. The American troops fought “valiantly,” Wilkins says, emerging “battered but unbowed.” Three men received posthumous Medals of Honor. His short introductory analysis of American strategy, however, contains a minor but crucial error: that commanding Gen. William Westmoreland believed that pacification programs—rather than out-and-out combat—“were central” to his Vietnam War strategy. Westmoreland stubbornly advocated deploying increased numbers of combat troops to implement his search-and-destroy, attrition strategy while essentially ignoring hearts-and-minds pacification programs. Making good use of interviews with American veterans, Wilkins delivers this little-known story admirably and it will appeal to those who appreciate carefully dissected analyses of battle action. Illus. (June)