In the 77 days from 20 January to 18 March of 1968, two divisions of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) surrounded a regiment of U.S. Marines on a mountain plateau in the northwest corner of South Vietnam known as Khe sanh. The episode was no accident; it was in fact a carefully orchestrated meeting in which both sides got what they wanted. The north Vietnamese succeeded in surrounding the Marines in a situation in many ways similar to Dien Bien Phu, and may have been seeking similar tactical, operational, and strategic results. General William C. Westmoreland, the commander of the joint U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV), meanwhile, sought to lure the NVA into the unpopulated terrain around the 26th Marines in order to wage a battle of annihilation with air power. In this respect Khe Sanh has been lauded as a great victory of air power, a military instrument of dubious suitability to much of the Vietnam conflict. The facts support the assessment that air power was the decisive element at Khe Sanh, delivering more than 96 percent of the ordnance used against the NVA. This work focuses mainly on fixed-wing close air support, or the support provided by jet and propeller-driven conventional aircraft, to the general exclusion of rotary-wing aircraft, also known as helicopters. There are several reasons for this, none of which are meant to belittle the contributions or heroism of the Marine, Army, and Air Force helicopter pilots who fought in the hills around Khe Sanh. First, until the arrival of the AH-1G Cobra in April 1969, there was no helicopter designed for dedicated close air support of Marines in Vietnam. The primary gunship during the battle of Khe Sanh was the UH-1E outfitted with machine guns and rocket launchers for the escort of unarmed helicopters. These helicopters were sometimes used for the direct support of ground troops with suppressive fires and were frequently used as forward air controllers, spotting and marking targets for fixed-wing aircraft with heavier ordnance. These roles are appropriately discussed alongside the contributions of the fixed-wing aircraft, but as a general rule, analysis remains focused on the heavier attack aircraft.

Donut Dolly puts you in the Vietnam War face down in the dirt under a sniper attack, inside a helicopter being struck by lightning, at dinner next to a commanding general, and slogging through the mud along a line of foxholes. You see the war through the eyes of one of the first women officially allowed in the combat zone. When Joann Puffer Kotcher left for Vietnam in 1966, she was fresh out of the University of Michigan with a year of teaching, and a year as an American Red Cross Donut Dolly in Korea. All she wanted was to go someplace exciting. In Vietnam, she visited troops from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta, from the South China Sea to the Cambodian border. At four duty stations, she set up recreation centers and made mobile visits wherever commanders requested. That included Special Forces Teams in remote combat zone jungles. She brought reminders of home, thoughts of a sister or the girl next door. Officers asked her to take risks because they believed her visits to the front lines were important to the men. Every Vietnam veteran who meets her thinks of her as a brother-at-arms. Donut Dolly is Kotcher's personal view of the war, recorded in a journal kept during her tour, day by day as she experienced it. It is a faithful representation of the twists and turns of the turbulent, controversial time. While in Vietnam, Kotcher was once abducted; dodged an ambush in the Delta; talked with a true war hero in a hospital who had charged a machine gun; and had a conversation with a prostitute. A rare account of an American Red Cross volunteer in Vietnam, Donut Dolly will appeal to those interested in the Vietnam War, to those who have interest in the military, and to women aspiring to go beyond the ordinary.

An insightful and personal memoir that shares not only the technical aspects of naval service, but also the joys and sorrows, the separations, fears, sacrifices, and the heady feelings of a job well done. Hal Sacks ("Captain Hal" to those of us who served under his command) tells his terrific story beginnning with Officer Candidate School and Korea in 1953, going on to Vietnam in 1968 and beyond. A fabulous read - for lovers of great storytelling along with history buffs and military aficionados.

The Vietnamese stole their land. The NVA raped their daughters. The Green Berets knew them as the most fearless and loyal warriors in the land.... They were the Montagnards, who called themselves "Sons of the Mountains" and always fought to the death. In this incredible memoir of wall-to-wall combat in the jungle near the Laotian border, Special Forces Lieutenant Don Bendell recounts the saga of the A camp of Dak Pek, 242. On those death-strewn hilltops in 1969-70, a handful of Green Berets and an army of 'Yards held off the entire might of North Vietnamese regulars-until even their courage and fighting skill could not staunch the flow of blood and tears.

For the conscripts of who experienced the Vietnam 'police action', the way the world was seen, shaped, and understood was irretrievably changed by war. In his gentle, humorous and moving memoir, Ted George gives voice to the experience that changed the course of his life - and the lives of so many men - forever.

This is the eighth volume of a projected nine-volume history of Marine Corps operations in the Vietnam War. A separate functional series complements the operational histories. This volume details the activities of Marine Corps units after the departure from Vietnam in 1971 of III Marine Amphibious Force, through to the 1973 ceasefire, and includes the return of Marine prisoners of war from North Vietnam. Written from diverse views and sources, the common thread in this narrative is the continued resistance of the South Vietnames Armed Forces, in particular the Vietnamese Marine Corps, to Communist aggression. This book is written from the perspective of the American Marines who assisted them in their efforts. Someday the former South Vietnamese Marines will be able to tell their own story.

This is the eighth volume in a planned 10-volume operational and chronological series covering the Marine Corps' participation in the Vietnam War. A separate topical series will complement the operational histories. This particular volume details the gradual withdrawl in 1970-1971 of Marine combat forces from South Vietnam's northernmost corps area, I Corps, as part of an overall American strategy of turning the ground was against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong over to the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam.