The Vietnam War was predominantly a war of small unit actions. Except for major battles like Hue and Khe Sanh in 1968, most combat actions were fought by US battalions or companies (that is, between eighty and twelve hundred men). In Blackhorse Riders, Philip Keith, a decorated veteran of three tours in Vietnam as a naval aviator, tells the story of an action on 26 March 1970 that involved three company-sized units, two of which prevented the almost certain annihilation of the third;[1] the action never received an official name and for decades was familiar only to its participants.[2]

Keith begins in chapters 1–4 by setting the stage for the battle, identifying which companies were involved and why. A Troop operated exclusively with tracked armored cavalry assault vehicles (ACAVs)[3] and M-551 Sheridan light tanks. An armored cavalry troop also had mortar-equipped M-113s and tracked command-and-control and maintenance vehicles. In short, an armored cavalry troop had tremendous firepower and could often operate independently. A Troop was detached from its parent battalion and placed under the operational control of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, home to Companies A and C. The latter were infantry units that moved on foot, sometimes after being air-assaulted in by helicopters. On 11 February 1970, Company A had linked up with A Troop, whose ACAVs and Sheridans gave the infantry greater mobility; Company A also provided A Troop with additional soldiers for dismounted operations. Designated "Team Alpha," this new, combined unit was commanded by Capt. John Poindexter of A Troop,[4] an experienced combat leader. Poindexter and Team Alpha had already clashed with North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units on 25 February, killing or driving off enemy troops manning a bunker complex. Team Alpha continued to conduct "reconnaissance in force" during February and March, making sporadic contact with enemy forces. On the evening of 25 March, it was in a night defensive position (NDP) in a heavily wooded area of War Zone C, near the Cambodian border.

Company C, commanded by Capt. George Hobson, had seen considerable action and sustained casualties in February and March and was viewed as a hard-luck company. By mid-March, searching for the enemy in heavily forested areas near Fire Support Base (FSB) Illingworth, it found evidence of large NVA units preparing to attack the base, but was ordered to gather more intelligence about the size and composition of the enemy forces. On the evening of 25 March, Company C had stopped for the night in the jungle a couple miles from Team Alpha, but not in direct communication with it.

In chapter 5, Keith concludes his setting of the scene with a disaster that befell Team Alpha around midnight: during "harassing and interdictory" firing by one of A Troop's mortar tracks, an 81mm round exploded prematurely in the tube, destroying the track, killing three crew members, and creating chaos in the NDP, where many at first believed they were under enemy attack. This was a prelude to much worse to come the next day.

Chapters 6–18, the core of the book, describe the events of 26 March, which began with Company C continuing to search the jungle for more signs of the enemy. Around 11:30 a.m., they were ambushed by a large NVA force after entering an enemy bunker complex. They were taking losses and quickly using up available ammunition. Fighting in dense jungle with friendly as well as hostile forces nearby, they could not request artillery fire from FSB Illingworth. Enemy fire and the lack of a landing zone also ruled out evacuation of casualties by air. In short, Company C was in imminent peril of being overwhelmed by the stronger enemy force.

Team Alpha was close enough to hear the firing from the assault, and Captain Poindexter quickly gleaned from radio traffic that his was the only force close enough to save Company C before its annihilation. On his own initiative, he decided to ride to the sound of the guns and try to extract the beleaguered company. Over the next four hours, Team Alpha broke through the dense jungle in three columns with Sheridans leading and made contact with Company C by 4:00 p.m.

Assessing the situation, Poindexter realized the NVA force was too strong and too close for Team Alpha to load up Company C's men on its ACAVs. He would have to drive back the enemy, now estimated at battalion strength, with his troops' superior firepower. He gave a quick "Frag Order"[5] to his platoon leaders to attack; Company A's infantrymen integrated with the crews of the ACAVs. Over the next three hours, the American forces fought it out with a stubborn enemy force whose rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) damaged or destroyed some of the ACAVs and Sheridans. Both sides took significant casualties, and Captain Poindexter was himself badly wounded when an RPG struck his vehicle. Captain Armer directed soldiers to fill gaps in the line until Poindexter could resume control.

By 6:45 p.m., Poindexter realized that the American and NVA forces were at a stalemate. Given the many casualties taken by his own men and those of Company C, he decided to mount up all the troops, including the dead and wounded, and leave the battlefield. Fortunately, the enemy had not blocked his withdrawal route; by 7:30 p.m., well after dark, all the US elements had reached the Team Alpha NDP and began evacuating the wounded. Poindexter himself refused to leave until all the wounded were cared for, finally turning over A Troop to his executive officer, who had flown in around midnight. He and Team Alpha had rescued Company C, but at a high cost in casualties and destroyed or damaged vehicles.

Drawing on interviews with the men who fought, Keith is at his best in conveying their thoughts and actions in the heat of close combat.[6] The confusion and chaos of the engagement is evoked in vivid language.[7] In the following passage, for example, he describes the moment when Sgt. Robert Foreman, the commander of a Sheridan tank was killed:

Chapter 19, "Battle of the Senses," immediately following the battle narration, seems out of place; it focuses on the soldiers' sensory perceptions, even describing, for instance, the various rations they ate and how they tasted. Chapter 20, "Recall," outlines the invasion of Cambodia in May 1970; it also mentions the lamentable loss of all official records of the anonymous battle of 26 March. The "Afterword" discusses the feelings of John Poindexter, when, by then retired, he learned in 1999 that few of the soldiers he had recommended for awards for bravery had ever received them. His subsequent ten-year crusade to get his unit collectively recognized resulted in the Presidential Unit Citation mentioned above.[8]

Philip Keith has done just what he set out to: bring wider recognition to the soldiers of Team Alpha, who rescued a sister unit in a fierce battle still unnamed but no longer forgotten. Although Blackhorse Riders may not have the breadth of some first-person accounts of armored cavalry operations in the Vietnam War,[9] it will have strong appeal for both veterans of the conflict and a much broader readership.