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Books > Humanities > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900
"I looked around my cell and saw the sheet of paper taped to the
door at chest height. It listed everything in the room, chair, bed,
soldier box . For a moment I thought it meant the cell itself; a
box to put soldiers in."When the War on Terror began, Briton Joe
Glenton felt compelled to serve his nation. He passed through basic
training and deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. What he saw overseas
left him disillusioned, and he returned home increasingly political
and manifesting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. When he
refused to return for a second tour, he was denied his right to
object and called "a coward and a malingerer." He went absent
without leave and left the country, returning later to the UK
voluntarily to campaign against the wars. The military accused him
of desertion and threatened years in prison. Soldier Box tells the
story of Glenton's extraordinary journey from a promising soldier
to a rebel against what he came to see as unjustified military
action.
The indistinct status of the Zainichi has meant that, since the
late 1940s, two ethnic Korean associations, the Chongryun
(pro-North) and the Mindan (pro-South) have been vying for
political loyalty from the Zainichi, with both groups initially
opposing their assimilation in Japan. Unlike the Korean diasporas
living in Russia, China or the US, the Zainichi have become sharply
divided along political lines as a result. Myung Ja Kim examines
Japan's changing national policies towards the Zainichi in order to
understand why this group has not been fully integrated into Japan.
Through the prism of this ethnically Korean community, the book
reveals the dynamics of alliances and alignments in East Asia,
including the rise of China as an economic superpower, the security
threat posed by North Korea and the diminishing alliance between
Japan and the US. Taking a post-war historical perspective, the
research reveals why the Zainichi are vital to Japan's state policy
revisionist aims to increase its power internationally and how they
were used to increase the country's geopolitical leverage.With a
focus on International Relations, this book provides an important
analysis of the mechanisms that lie behind nation-building policy,
showing the conditions controlling a host state's treatment of
diasporic groups.
DON'T MISS OLLIE OLLERTON'S EXPLOSIVE FOLLOW UP TO SCAR TISSUE, THE
NEW THRILLER ALL OR NOTHING! PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY NOW. OLLIE
OLLERTON CO-HOSTS SAS: WHO DARES WINS ALONGSIDE ANT MIDDLETON,
JASON FOX and MARK BILLINGHAM. THIS IS HIS INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY
Where is your break point? Is it here? Facing the gruelling SAS
selection process on one leg, with a busted ankle and the finish
line nowhere in sight? Or here? Under heavy fire from armed
kidnappers while protecting journalists en route to Baghdad. Or is
it here? At the bottom of a bottle, with a family in pieces, unable
to adapt to a civilian lifestyle, yearning for a warzone?
Ex-Special Forces soldier and star of TV's SAS: Who Dares Wins,
Ollie Ollerton has faced many break points in his life and now he
tells us the vital lessons he has learnt. His incredible story
features hardened criminals, high-speed car chases,
counter-terrorism and humanitarian heroics - freeing children from
a trafficking ring in Thailand. Ollie has faced break points in his
personal life too, surviving a freak childhood attack, run-ins with
the law as a teenager rebelling against a broken home, his
self-destructive battles with alcohol and drug addiction, and his
struggles with anxiety and depression. His final redemption as an
entrepreneur and mental health charity ambassador has seen him
overcome adversity to build a new and better life. 'Everyone has
the capacity for incredible achievement, because it's only when
it's crunch time, when you're down to your last bullet - when
you're at break point - that you find out who you really are.'
'A fast-paced, thrilling account of British heroism, brave men
surrounded and fighting against overwhelming odds. This is the
real, sometimes shocking, and deeply personal story of modern
warfare and PTSD.' Andy McNab 'This hugely timely book reveals in
gripping detail the personal stories of its hidden victims - lest
we forget.' Damien Lewis Trapped in an isolated outpost on the edge
of the Helmand desert, a small force of British and Afghan soldiers
is holding out against hundreds of Taliban fighters. Under brutal
siege conditions, running low on food and ammunition, he
experiences the full horror of combat. As the casualties begin to
mount and the enemy closes in, Evans finds both his leadership and
his belief in the war severely tested. Returning home, he is
haunted by the memories of Afghanistan. He can't move on and his
life begins to spin out of control. Under the Bearskin was
previously published as Code Black.
Wars are not fought by politicians and generals--they are fought by
soldiers. Written by a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, Not a
Gentleman's War is about such soldiers--a gritty, against-the-grain
defense of the much-maligned junior officer. Conventional wisdom
holds that the junior officer in Vietnam was a no-talent, poorly
trained, unmotivated soldier typified by Lt. William Calley of My
Lai infamy. Drawing on oral histories, after-action reports,
diaries, letters, and other archival sources, Ron Milam debunks
this view, demonstrating that most of the lieutenants who served in
combat performed their duties well and effectively, serving with
great skill, dedication, and commitment to the men they led.
Milam's narrative provides a vivid, on-the-ground portrait of what
the platoon leader faced: training his men, keeping racial tensions
at bay, and preventing alcohol and drug abuse, all in a war without
fronts. Yet despite these obstacles, junior officers performed
admirably, as documented by field reports and evaluations of their
superior officers. More than 5,000 junior officers died in Vietnam;
all of them had volunteered to lead men in battle. Based on
meticulous and wide-ranging research, this book provides a
much-needed serious treatment of these men--the only such study in
print--shedding new light on the longest war in American history.
During the Vietnam war 3500 officers and men served in the Swift
Boat program in a fleet of 130 boats with no armor plating. The
boats patrolled the coast and rivers of South Vietnam, with the
average age of the crew being twenty-four. Their days consisted of
deadly combat, intense lightning firefights, storms and many hidden
dangers. This action-packed story of combat written by Dan Daly, a
Vietnam combat veteran who was the Officer in Charge of PCF 76
makes you part of the Swift Boat crew. The six man crew of PCF 76
were volunteers from all over the United States, eager to serve
their country in a highly unique type of duty not seen since the PT
boats of WWII. This inexperienced and disparate group of men would
meld into a combat team - a team that formed an unbreakable,
lifelong bond. After training they were plunged into a 12 month
tour of duty. Combat took place in the closest confines imaginable,
where the enemy were hidden behind a passing sand dune or a single
sniper could be concealed in an onshore bunker, mines might be
submerged at every fork in the river. The enemy was all around you,
hiding, waiting, while your fifty-foot Swift Boat works its way
upriver. In many cases the rivers became so narrow there was barely
room to maneuver or turn around. The only way out might be into a
deadly ambush. Humor and a touch of romance relieve the tension in
this thrilling ride with America's finest.
During the four years General Creighton W. Abrams was commander in
Vietnam, he and his staff made more than 455 tape recordings of
briefings and meetings. In 1994, with government approval, Lewis
Sorley began transcribing and analyzing the tapes. Sorley's
laborious, time-consuming effort has produced a picture of the
senior US commander in Vietnam and his associates working to
prosecute a complex and challenging military campaign in an equally
complex and difficult political context. The concept of the nature
of the war and the way it was conducted changed during Abrams's
command. The progressive buildup of US forces was reversed, and
Abrams became responsible for turning the war back to the South
Vietnamese. The edited transcriptions in this volume clearly
reflect those changes in policy and strategy. They include
briefings called the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates as well
as meetings with such visitors as the secretary of defense, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking
officials. The 2005 winner of the Army Historical Foundation's
Trefry Award, Vietnam Chronicles reveals, for the first time, the
difficult task that Creighton Abrams accomplished with tact and
skill.
Operating from a clandestine camp on an island off western North
Korea, Army lieutenant Ben Malcom coordinated the intelligence
activities of eleven partisan battalions, including the famous
White Tigers. With Malcom's experiences as its focus, White Tigers
examines all aspects of guerrilla activities in Korea. This
exciting memoir makes an important contribution to the history of
special operations.
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