Overview

In the fall of 1965, the North Vietnamese Army launched its first major campaign against American forces, targeting, with 4,000 men, the U.S. Special Forces camp at Plei Me in the Central Highlands, where about a dozen green berets were training a few hundred South Vietnamese troops. In response, the U.S. choppered in a relief force of elite soldiers from Project Delta under legendary Chargin’ Charlie Beckwith and dropped an unprecedented million pounds of munitions just yards from the camp’s perimeter. The camp held out, but operations in the area continued. Within weeks, the Battle of Ia Drang broke out, the first major battle between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese regulars. Based on archival research and interviews with veterans, Saliba covers the battle for Plei Me camp in close, vivid, and very human detail. He also gives careful attention to the strategic picture and shows how this clash laid the groundwork for the Battle of Ia Drang.

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9780811738811

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Reviews

Finally, here it is: a detailed, carefully researched book about the siege at Plei Me Camp in October of 1965--the real beginning of America's war in Vietnam. A full regiment of North Vietnamese Army regulars had the 12 American Green Berets and their Montagnard allies in a death grip. This story has it all: the bravery and suffering of men in extreme peril and how they lived and died. Plei Me was the prelude to the bloody battles of the 1st Cavalry Division troopers in the nearby Ia Drang Valley just weeks later. Keith Saliba has done them all proud.--Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, We Are Soldiers Still, and Triumph Without Victory: A History of the Persian Gulf War

Author Information

J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Jacksonville University, with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida. Beginning with the publication of his master’s thesis, which dealt with Esquire magazine’s coverage of the Vietnam War, Saliba has published and presented numerous peer-reviewed articles and conference papers on the war. He has presented his research on the psychological effects of the 1968 Tet Offensive at the Vietnam Center and Archive’s national conference at Texas Tech University. Saliba is currently guest editor for the e-publication Vietnam Veterans for Factual History magazine. He works closely with members of the Special Forces Association. Before entering academia, Saliba was a reporter and columnist for two daily newspapers, at which he reported on military affairs. While at the Albany (Georgia) Herald, he won a Georgia Associated Press award for his story on one of the last living survivors of World War II’s Bataan Death March. He lives near Jacksonville, Florida.

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