Offering the widest scope of any study of one of popular music's most important eras, "Songs of the Vietnam Conflict" treats both anti-war and pro-government songs of the 1960s and early 1970s, from widely known selections such as Give Peace a Chance and Blowin' in the Wind to a variety of more obscure works. These are songs that permeated the culture, through both recordings and performances at political gatherings and concerts alike, and James Perone explores the complex relationship between music and the society in which it is written. This music is not merely an indicator of the development of the American popular song; it both reflected and shaped the attitudes of all who were exposed to it.

Whereas in previous wars, musicians rallied behind the government in the way of Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber, the Vietnam conflict provoked anger, frustration, and rage, all of which comes through in the songs of the time. This reference work provides indispensable coverage of this phenomenon, in chapters devoted to Anti-War Songs, Pro-Government Songs, and what might be called Plight-of-the-Soldier (or Veteran) songs. A selected discography guides the reader to the most notable recordings, all of which, together, provide a unique and important perspective on perhaps the 20th century's most contentious time.

The Viet Nam War divided citizens in both the United States and Viet Nam. Profound cultural differences between the nations contributed to the horror of the war. These differences remain today. Helping to demystify the war and educate both students and general readers, this clear historical overview ranges from the events that preceded the war to its end in 1975. The book features a discussion of the Vietnamese and American ways of life in the Viet Nam era, along with a wide assortment of primary documents from a diverse selection of U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. These compelling excerpts are mostly from everyday soldiers' letters to home and from interviews conducted by the author.

Presented chronologically and thematically, the documents move from early motivations and war experiences to the war's end and enduring legacy, fleshing out the meaning of the conflict for Americans and Vietnamese alike. This volume is unique in including many new personal accounts from ordinary Vietnamese, fighting against and for the U.S. cause. A balanced view of the war and its aftermath presents the suffering of all involved. Numerous photos, a glossary, and a timeline enhance the text.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Prologue.

"An exceptionally well written, well documented, fast-moving account."--"Washington Times"

"This is a book written on multiple levels, and well worth reading."--"M.S. Naval Institute Proceedings"

"This book is a welcome addition to the history of naval aviation and fills a much-needed void by detailing the later years of the Vietnam naval air campaign."--"Sea Power"

"Makes for lively, vivid, and informative reading. I would include it...on my list of the top ten books on the air war in Vietnam."
--"Air Power History"

"John Sherwood has done a fine job in giving us a first-rate account of a confusing but critically important period in Naval Aviation history."--"The Hook"

"As a collection of individual studies and 'war stories, ' "Afterburner" should find an interested readership." --"Military History"

"With a 45-degree dive angle set, 450 knots of airspeed building, and my altimeter unwinding like crazy, my scan went rapidly between the bombsight and flight instruments. . . . When I looked over my shoulder at the target, I could see where the bombs had hit and exploded."

Through stories like this diary entry of a fighter pilot, John Darrell Sherwood brings forth the personal accounts of 21 naval and marine aviators in this chronicle of the second half of the Navy's air war over Vietnam.

Despite spending over 200 billion dollars and dropping almost 8 million tons of bombs on Southeast Asia, the U.S. was unable to score a definitive victory in the air war. Afterburner takes us inside the day-to-day operations of the air war, particularly during the most intense year of the campaign: 1972. During that year, North Vietnam launched the first large-scale conventional attacks on strongholds in South Vietnam. Sherwood shows how the U.S. fought back with some of the most innovative air campaigns in its history, including Nixon's Linebacker bombings and the Navy's mining operation in Haiphong Harbor. From duels with enemy MiGs to the experiences of Commander C. Ronald Polfer, who became the voice of reason among American POWs in the Hanoi Hilton's Room 5, the detailed stories in Afterburner make these historical events come to life.

Sherwood compiles and analyzes an incredible breadth of information about the details of each of the Navy's operations during the air war and then relates the key parts of the narrative through the eyes of an pilot or flight officer involved in each action. Through tales of courage and fear, triumph and horror, Sherwood reveals the lives of common aircrews who performed extraordinary service. Their experiences illustrate the personal nature of war--even from the air--and show that the air war in Vietnam may have begun as a slow burn, but by 1972, it was more intense than an F-4 afterburner.

Whether World War II made or merely marked the transition of the USA from a major world power to a superpower, the fact remains that America's role in the world around it had undergone a dramatic change. Other nations had long recognized the potential of the USA. They had seen its power exercized regularly in economics, if only sporadically in politics. But World War II, and the landscape it left behind, prompted American leaders and the Congress to conclude that they had to use the nation's strength to protect and advance its interests. The end of the Cold War will not end the debate over the structural reasons for that transformation of American attitudes and actions. The essays in this book reflect a variety of views on the question of causation. The group of contributors provide many varied insights into this crucial change and make this book an important contribution to the history of this period.

The Vietnam War was one of the most heavily documented conflicts of the twentieth century. Although the events themselves recede further into history every year, the political and cultural changes the war brought about continue to resonate, even as a new generation of Americans grapples with its own divisive conflict.

America and the Vietnam War: Re-examining the Culture and History of a Generation reconsiders the social and cultural aspects of the conflict that helped to fundamentally change the nation. With chapters written by subject area specialists, America and the Vietnam War takes on subjects such as women's role in the war, the music and the films of the time, the Vietnamese perspective, race and the war, and veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder. Features include:

• chapter summaries
• timelines
• discussion questions
• guides to further reading
• a companion website with primary source documents and tools (such as music and movie playlists) for both instructors and students.

Heavily illustrated and welcoming to students and scholars of this infamous and pivotal time, America and the Vietnam War is a perfect companion to any course on the Vietnam War Era.

David W. Powell enlisted for a tour of duty in April 1966 with the US Marines after receiving an imminent draft notice. Believing he would be able to leverage his existing skills as a computer programmer, he never thought all they would see on his resume was his Karate expertise. Even less that he would wind up serving as a Rocket man in the jungles of Da Nang and Chu Lai for a 13 month tour in hell.

David's journey from naive civilian to battle-hardened combat veteran shows us all how fragile our humanity really is. In addition to killing the enemy on the field of battle, he was witness to countless cruelties including murder both cold-blooded and casual, cowardice under fire, and a callous disregard for life beyond most people's imagination. With each new insult, he lost a little bit of his soul, clinging to his Bible as his only solace while equally certain of his own imminent demise. Upon returning to civilian life after a two year enlistment, he found himself with nightmares during sleep, intrusive thoughts while awake, a hypervigilant stance combined with an exaggerated startle reaction, and a seeming inability to control basic emotions like anger and sadness.

The price he paid for what would only be diagnosed decades later as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was broken marriages and relationships, inability to hold down jobs leading to bankruptcy, alcohol abuse, and having to hide the service he willingly gave to his own country.

In 1989, David eventually recovered through a simple but powerful technique known as Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) and is now symptom-free. Not just for veterans, TIR has since been successfully applied to crime and motor vehicle accident victims, domestic violence survivors, and even children. His story shows what is possible for anyone who has suffered traumatic stress and that hope, healing, and recovery can be theirs too.

""His autobiographical work is a must read for veterans who remain stuck between two worlds. Healing is not forgetting; healing is making sense of the past in order to live life in the present with a restored hope for the future. Powell articulates this process very well and has given a tremendous gift to the combat veteran community of any generation."
- Father Philip G. Salois, M.S., National Chaplain, Vietnam Veterans of America

"The connection of David's problems in his current life and his Viet Nam experiences is one of the clearest descriptions of how trauma affects our lives I have ever read. My Tour in Hell is a tribute to David's unwillingness to give up on himself in the face of great unhappiness."
-Laura W. Groshong, LICSW (Seattle, WA)

"Years in combat zones, group psychotherapy with combat vets diagnosed with PTSD and TIR training qualifies me to recommend this book. My Tour in Hell attests to David's journey from the boundary of a Marine grunt's PTSD despair to the horizon of integration, risk, and new meaning. Those in the helping professions will learn how the negative emotional 'charge' of trauma can be partially or totally eliminated through the adept facilitation of Traumatic Incident Reduction."
-Sister Kateri Koverman, LISW, ICDC

"Powell presents a brutally honest and riveting account of one man's descent into the dehumanizing realities of war. However, the journey is worth it to relive his dramatic ascension and redemption from the abyss through the life changing, powerful, and therapeutic techniques of Traumatic Incident Reduction."
- Rev. James W. Clifton, LCSW, PhD

Imagine growing up in a land where your government proudly tricks and imprisons its own citizens ... where city officers rob and confiscate their citizens' houses out of greed-legally ... where the local authorities monitor not only how much food each family can eat, but what they will eat. After four years of living under the brutal Vietnamese Communist government, one brave young girl has had enough. At fifteen, she sets out for the most unforgettable journey of her life, all alone and with only three sets of clothes to her name. Her faith, optimism, and humor give her the strength to fight for her freedom. Generous strangers step up to help her through the many dangers she faces, both from the elements and other people who do not want to see her escape. For one courageous young Vietnamese woman, hers is the adventure of a "new" lifetime.

From the streets of America, youths were drafted and sent to war in Vietnam. Inner city youths and farm boys were thrown into a master plan only the American Military could have created. Never having driven a car, John Montgomery became a mechanic. Greg Foster became a Combat Medic. They trained and lived during interesting times. They witnessed the American response to poverty and civil rights, assassins, corrupt politicians, and other maladies of the American condition. Youth In Asia follows the personal growth of its characters through illusions and disillusionment, through love and hate, and shows how the experience of Vietnam left its mark, often hidden just below the surface in many fine Americans who will never forget how it happened.

Henry Kissinger dominated American foreign relations like no other figure in recent history. He negotiated an end to American involvement in the Vietnam War, opened relations with Communist China, and orchestrated detente with the Soviet Union. Yet he is also the man behind the secret bombing of Cambodia and policies leading to the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende. Which is more accurate, the picture of Kissinger the skilled diplomat or Kissinger the war criminal?
In The Flawed Architect, the first major reassessment of Kissinger in over a decade, historian Jussi Hanhimaki paints a subtle, carefully composed portrait of America's most famous and infamous statesman. Drawing on extensive research from newly declassified files, the author follows Kissinger from his beginnings in the Nixon administration up to the current controversy fed by Christopher Hitchens over whether Kissinger is a war criminal. Hanhimaki guides the reader through White House power struggles and debates behind the Cambodia and Laos invasions, the search for a strategy in Vietnam, the breakthrough with China, and the unfolding of Soviet-American detente. Here, too, are many other international crises of the period--the Indo-Pakistani War, the Yom Kippur War, the Angolan civil war--all set against the backdrop of Watergate. Along the way, Hanhimaki sheds light on Kissinger's personal flaws--he was obsessed with secrecy and bureaucratic infighting in an administration that self-destructed in its abuse of power--as well as his great strengths as a diplomat. We see Kissinger negotiating, threatening and joking with virtually all of the key foreign leaders of the 1970s, from Mao to Brezhnev and Anwar Sadat to Golda Meir.
This well researched account brings to life the complex nature of American foreign policymaking during the Kissinger years. It will be the standard work on Kissinger for years to come."

Often portrayed as an inept and stubborn tyrant, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem has long been the subject of much derision but little understanding. Philip Catton's penetrating study provides a much more complex portrait of Diem as both a devout patriot and a failed architect of modernization. In doing so, it sheds new light on a controversial regime.

Catton treats the Diem government on its own terms rather than as an appendage of American policy. Focusing on the decade from Dien Bien Phu to Diem's assassination in 1963, he examines the Vietnamese leader's nation-building and reform efforts-particularly his Strategic Hamlet Program, which sought to separate guerrilla insurgents from the peasantry and build grassroots support for his regime. Catton's evaluation of the collapse of that program offers fresh insights into both Diem's limitations as a leader and the ideological and organizational weaknesses of his government, while his assessment of the evolution of Washington's relations with Saigon provides new insight into America's growing involvement in the Vietnamese civil war.

Focusing on the Strategic Hamlet Program in Binh Duong province as an exemplar of Diem's efforts, Catton paints the Vietnamese leader as a progressive thinker trying to simultaneously defeat the communists and modernize his nation. He draws on a wealth of Vietnamese language sources to argue that Diem possessed a firm vision of nation-building and sought to overcome the debilitating dependence that reliance on American support threatened to foster. As Catton shows, however, Diem's plans for South Vietnam clashed with those of the United States and proved no match for the Vietnamese communists.

Catton analyzes the mutually frustrating interactions between Diem and the administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy, highlighting personality and cultural clashes, as well as specific disagreements within the American government over how to deal with Diem's programs and his hostility toward American goals. Revealing patterns in this uneasy alliance that have eluded other observers, he also clarifies many of the problems, setbacks, and miscalculations experienced by the communist movement during that era.

Neither an American puppet, as communist propaganda claimed, nor a backward-looking mandarin, according to Western accounts, Catton's Diem is a tragic figure who finally ran out of time, just a few weeks before JFK's assassination and at a moment when it still seemed possible for America to avoid war.

In 1916 a group of German saboteurs blew up Black Tom Island, a spit of land in New York Harbour. The brazen attack destroyed the harbour and the ammunition housed there - and the subsequent hail of missiles and gunpowder devastated much of lower Manhattan. The attack - so massive that as far away as Maryland people could feel the ground shake - had been shockingly easy. America was littered with networks of German agents plotting further, more deadly, attacks. Twenty years later the German government had still managed to evade responsibility for the crime - and probably would have continued to, were it not for the determination of three lawyers named McCloy, Peaslee, and Martin. These men made it their mission to solve a mystery that began during the first World War and barely ended before the second. They were litigators, spies, historians and, ultimately, defenders of the truth. THE DETONATORS is a fascinating portrait of these men and their time; the dramatic love story of John and Ellen McCloy; and the first full accounting of a crime and a cover-up that resonates strongly in a post-9/11 America.

Nearly 50 years after Japan's attack, this text takes a fresh look at the air raid that plunged America into World War II. Michael Slackman scrutinizes the decisions and attitudes that prompted the attack and left the US unprepared to mount a successful defence.

In November 1963, the president of South Vietnam and his brother were brutally executed in a coup that was sanctioned and supported by the American government. President Kennedy later explained to his close friend Paul "Red" Fay that the reason the United States made the fateful decision to get rid of the Ngos was in no small part because of South Vietnam's first lady, Madame Nhu. "That goddamn bitch," Fay remembers President Kennedy saying, "She's responsible ... that bitch stuck her nose in and boiled up the whole situation down there."
The coup marked the collapse of the Diem government and became the US entry point for a decade-long conflict in Vietnam. Kennedy's death and the atrocities of the ensuing war eclipsed the memory of Madame Nhu--with her daunting mixture of fierceness and beauty. But at the time, to David Halberstam, she was "the beautiful but diabolic sex dictatress," and Malcolm Browne called her "the most dangerous enemy a man can have."
By 1987, the once-glamorous celebrity had retreated into exile and seclusion, and remained there until young American Monique Demery tracked her down in Paris thirty years later. Finding the Dragon Lady is Demery's story of her improbable relationship with Madame Nhu, and--having ultimately been entrusted with Madame Nhu's unpublished memoirs and her diary from the years leading up to the coup--the first full history of the Dragon Lady herself, a woman who was feared and fantasized over in her time, and who singlehandedly frustrated the government of one of the world's superpowers.

The Vietnam War was a thirty-year conflict that actually included several wars, cost billions of dollars, resulted in thousands of Vietnamese, French, and American deaths, and reverberated throughout the international community. Now in this new concise overview David Anderson lays out the origins, course, and historical legacies of the war for students. The text discusses the French colonial war and the Vietnamese phase of the conflict to 1975, but the primary focus of the text is on the American war in Vietnam. The author examines military, political, diplomatic, social and economic issues, both in Vietnam and the United States. With its brevity, readability, and authoritative overview, this is an ideal text for beginning or advanced undergraduate students.

Code-named the Studies and Observations Group, SOG was the most secret elite U.S. military unit to serve in the Vietnam War-its very existence denied by the government. Composed entirely of volunteers from such ace fighting units as the Army Green Berets, Air Force Air Commandos, and Navy SEALs, SOG took on the most dangerous covert assignments, in the deadliest and most forbidding theaters of operation.
John L. Plaster, a three-tour SOG veteran, shares the gripping account of SOG's stunning operations behind enemy lines-penetrating heavily- defended North Vietnamese military facilities, holding off mass enemy attacks, and launching daring missions to rescue downed U.S. pilots. From sabotage to espionage to hand-to-hand combat, these are some of the most extraordinary true stories of honor and heroism in the history of the U.S. military.

Originally issued in 1981 by the U.S. Office of Air Force History. Profusely illustrated with maps, charts and photographs throughout. An innovative adaptation of existing aircraft, the gunship was used to interdict enemy reinforcements and protect friendly villages, bases, and forces, especially at night. Ballard's book describes how the fixed-wing gunship evolved from a modified cargo aircraft to a sophisticated weapons system with considerable firepower. The author highlights the tactics, key decisions, and the constant need for adaptation.

The legacy and memory of wartime South Vietnam through the eyes of Vietnamese refugees In 1975, South Vietnam fell to communism, marking a stunning conclusion to the Vietnam War. Although this former ally of the United States has vanished from the world map, Long T. Bui maintains that its memory endures for refugees with a strong attachment to this ghost country. Blending ethnography with oral history, archival research, and cultural analysis, Returns of War considers Returns of War argues that Vietnamization--as Richard Nixon termed it in 1969--and the end of South Vietnam signals more than an example of flawed American military strategy, but a larger allegory of power, providing cover for U.S. imperial losses while denoting the inability of the (South) Vietnamese and other colonized nations to become independent, modern liberal subjects. Bui argues that the collapse of South Vietnam under Vietnamization complicates the already difficult memory of the Vietnam War, pushing for a critical understanding of South Vietnamese agency beyond their status as the war's ultimate "losers." Examining the lasting impact of Cold War military policy and culture upon the "Vietnamized" afterlife of war, this book weaves questions of national identity, sovereignty, and self-determination to consider the generative possibilities of theorizing South Vietnam as an incomplete, ongoing search for political and personal freedom.

SELECTED BY MILITARY TIMES AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * SELECTED BY THE SOCIETY OF MIDLAND AUTHORS' AS THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR The New York Times bestselling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers shares the powerful account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War in "an important book....not just a battle story--it's also about the home front" (The Today show). On January 31, 1968, as many as 100,000 guerilla fighters and soldiers in the North Vietnamese Army attacked thirty-six cities throughout South Vietnam, hoping to dislodge American forces during one of the vital turning points of the Vietnam War. Alongside other young American soldiers in an Army reconnaissance platoon (Echo Company, 1/501) of the 101st Airborne Division, Stanley Parker, the nineteen-year-old son of a Texan ironworker, was suddenly thrust into savage combat, having been in-country only a few weeks. As Stan and his platoon-mates, many of whom had enlisted in the Army, eager to become paratroopers, moved from hot zone to hot zone, the extreme physical and mental stresses of Echo Company's day-to-day existence, involving ambushes and attacks, grueling machine-gun battles, and impossibly dangerous rescues of wounded comrades, pushed them all to their limits and forged them into a lifelong brotherhood. The war became their fight for survival. When they came home, some encountered a bitterly divided country that didn't understand what they had survived. Returning to the small farms, beach towns, and big cities where they grew up, many of the men in the platoon fell silent, knowing that few of their countrymen wanted to hear the stories they lived to tell--until now. Based on interviews, personal letters, and Army after-action reports, The Odyssey of Echo Company recounts the searing tale of wartime service and homecoming of ordinary young American men in an extraordinary time and confirms Doug Stanton's prominence as an unparalleled storyteller of our age.