<P> From spring through the fall of 1967, the U.S. Command in Saigon was perplexed by a series of actions initiated by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in the border regions . On 24 April a U.S. Marine Corps patrol prematurely triggered a North Vietnamese offensive aimed at taking the airstrip and combat base at Khe Sanh, the western anchor of the Marines' defensive positions in Quảng Trị Province . By the time the action there had ended in May, 940 North Vietnamese troops and 155 Marines had been killed . For 49 days during early September and lasting into October, the North Vietnamese began shelling the U.S. Marine outpost of Con Thien, just south of the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ . The intense shelling (100--150 rounds per day) prompted Westmoreland to launch Operation Neutralize, an intense aerial bombardment campaign of 4,000 sorties into and just north of the demarcation line . </P> <P> On 27 October, an ARVN battalion at Sông Bé, the capital of Phước Long Province, came under attack by an entire North Vietnamese regiment . Two days later, another North Vietnamese Regiment attacked a U.S. Special Forces border outpost at Lộc Ninh, in Bình Long Province . This attack sparked a ten - day battle that drew in elements of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and the ARVN 18th Division and left 800 North Vietnamese troops dead at its conclusion . </P> <P> The most severe of what came to be known as "the Border Battles" erupted during October and November around Dak To, another border outpost in Kon Tum Province . The clashes there between the four regiments of the 1st North Vietnamese Division, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade, and ARVN infantry and Airborne elements, lasted for 22 days . By the time the fighting was over, between 1,200 and 1,600 North Vietnamese and 262 U.S. troops had lost their lives . MACV intelligence was confused by the possible motives of the North Vietnamese in prompting such large - scale actions in remote regions where U.S. artillery and aerial firepower could be applied indiscriminately, which meant that tactically and strategically, these operations made no sense . What the North Vietnamese had done was carry out the first stage of their plan: to fix the attention of the U.S. Command on the borders and draw the bulk of U.S. forces away from the heavily populated coastal lowlands and cities . </P> <P> Westmoreland was more concerned with the situation at Khe Sanh, where, on 21 January, a force estimated at 20,000--40,000 North Vietnamese troops had besieged the U.S. Marine garrison . MACV was convinced that the North Vietnamese planned to stage an attack and overrun the base as a prelude to an all - out effort to seize the two northernmost provinces of South Vietnam . To deter any such possibility, he deployed 250,000 men, including half of MACV's U.S. maneuver battalions, to the I Corps Tactical Zone . </P>

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