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Books > Humanities > History > American history > From 1900
In That Time tells the story of the American experience in Vietnam
through the life of Michael O'Donnell, a promising young poet who
became a soldier and helicopter pilot in Vietnam. O'Donnell wrote
with great sensitivity and poetic force about his world and
especially the war that was slowly engulfing him and his most
well-known poem is still frequently cited and reproduced. Nominated
for the Congressional Medal of Honour, O'Donnell never fired a shot
in Vietnam. During an ill-fated attempt to rescue fellow soldiers,
O'Donnell's helicopter was shot down in the jungles of Cambodia
where he and his crew remained missing for almost 30 years. In
telling O'Donnell's story, In That Time also tells the stories of
those around him, both famous and ordinary, who helped to shape the
events of the time and who were themselves shaped by them. The book
is both a powerful personal story and a compelling, universal one
about how America lost its way in the 1960s.
The spectre of Simon Bolivar hovers once again over Latin America
as the aims and ambitions of the Liberator are taken up by
Comandante Hugo Chavez, the charismatic and controversial President
of Venezuela. Welcomed by the inhabitants of the teeming shanty
towns of Caracas as their potential saviour, and greeted by
Washington with considerable alarm, this former
golpista-turned-democrat has already begun the most wide-ranging
transformation of oil-rich Venezuela for 500 years, and has
dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin
America. In a first-hand report from Venezuela, correspondent
Richard Gott places the Comandante in historical perspective, and
examines his plans and programmes. He describes the support and
opposition that these attract, and argues that this experiment may
prove a new way forward for Latin America.
At Easter 1972, North Vietnam invaded the South, and there were almost no US ground troops left to stop it. But air power reinforcements could be rushed to the theater. Operation Linebacker's objective was to destroy the invading forces from the air and cut North Vietnam's supply routes – and luckily in 1972, American air power was beginning a revolution in both technology and tactics.
Most crucial was the introduction of the first effective laser-guided bombs, but the campaign also involved the fearsome AC-130 gunship and saw the debut of helicopter-mounted TOW missiles. Thanks to the new Top Gun fighter school, US naval aviators now also had a real advantage over the MiGs.
This is the fascinating story of arguably the world's first “modern” air campaign. It explains how this complex operation – involving tactical aircraft, strategic bombers, close air support and airlift – defeated the invasion. It also explains the shortcomings of the campaign, the contrasting approaches of the USAF and Navy, and the impact that Linebacker had on modern air warfare.
This new, extensively researched volume (volume two in the series)
is a comprehensive guide to the history, development, wear, and use
of uniforms and equipment during American military advisors
involvement in the Vietnam War. Included are insignia, headgear,
camouflage uniforms, modified items, Flak vests, boots, clothing
accessories, paper items and personal items from the years
1957-1972, all examined in great detail. Using re-constructed and
period photos, the author presents the look and appearance of
American Army, Navy, and Marine Corps advisors in Vietnam. ARVN
Ranger, Airborne, and ARVN infantry advisors, all have their own
chapter, along with Junk Force, RAG Force, and South Vietnamese
Naval and Marine Corps advisors.
In late March 1975, as the Vietnam War raged, an Australian
voluntary aid worker named Rosemary Taylor approached the
Australian Embassy seeking assistance to fly 600 orphans out of
Saigon to safety. Rosemary and Margaret Moses, two former nuns from
Adelaide, had spent eight years in Vietnam during the war, building
up a complex of nurseries to house war orphans and street waifs as
the organisation that built up around them facilitated
international adoptions for the children. As the North Vietnamese
forces closed in on their nurseries, they needed a plan to evacuate
the children, or all their work might count for little ... Based on
extensive archival and historical research, and interviews of some
of those directly involved in the events described, Operation
Babylift details the last month of the Vietnam War from the
perspective of the most vulnerable victims of that war: the orphans
it created. Through the story of the attempt to save 600 children,
we see how a small group of determined women refused to play
political games as they tried to remake the lives of a forgotten
generation, one child at a time.
Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War opens in 1954 with the signing of
the Geneva accords that ended the eight-year-long
Franco-Indochinese War and created two Vietnams. In agreeing to the
accords, Ho Chi Minh and other leaders of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam anticipated a new period of peace leading to national
reunification under their rule; they never imagined that within a
decade they would be engaged in an even bigger feud with the United
States. Basing his work on new and largely inaccessible Vietnamese
materials as well as French, British, Canadian, and American
documents, Pierre Asselin explores the communist path to war.
Specifically, he examines the internal debates and other elements
that shaped Hanoi's revolutionary strategy in the decade preceding
U.S. military intervention, and resulting domestic and foreign
programs. Without exonerating Washington for its role in the advent
of hostilities in 1965, Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War
demonstrates that those who directed the effort against the United
States and its allies in Saigon were at least equally responsible
for creating the circumstances that culminated in arguably the most
tragic conflict of the Cold War era.
Published for the fortieth anniversary of the final days of the
Vietnam War, this is the suspenseful and moving tale of how John
Riordan, an assistant manager of Citibank's Saigon branch, devised
a daring plan to save 106 Vietnamese from the dangers of the
Communist takeover.Riordan,who had served in the US Army after the
Tet Offensive and had left the military behind for a career in
international banking,was not the type to take dramatic action, but
once the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon in April 1975
and it was clear that Riordan's Vietnamese colleagues and their
families would be stranded in a city teetering on total collapse,
he knew he could not leave them behind. Defying the objections of
his superiors and going against the official policy of the United
States, Riordan went back into Saigon to save them.In fifteen
harrowing trips to Saigon's airport, he maneuvered through the
bureaucratic shambles, claiming that the Vietnamese were his wife
and scores of children. It was a ruse that, at times, veered close
to failure, yet against all odds, the improbable plan succeeded. At
great risk, the Vietnamese left their lives behind to start anew in
the United States, and now John is known to his grateful Vietnamese
colleagues and hundreds of their American descendants as Papa. They
Are All My Family is a vivid narrative of one man's ingenious
strategy which transformed a time of enormous peril into a display
of extraordinary courage. Reflecting on those fateful days in this
account, John Riordan's modest heroism provides a striking contrast
to America's ignominious retreat from the decade of conflict.
Rethinking Camelot is a thorough analysis of John F. Kennedy's role
in the U/S. invasion of Vietnam and a probing reflection on the
elite political culture that allowed and encouraged the Cold War.
In it, Chomsky dismisses effort to resurrect Camelot--an attractive
American myth portraying JFK as a shining knight promising peace,
fooled only by assassins bent on stopping this lone hero who wold
have unilaterally withdraws from Vietnam had he lived. Chomsky
argues that U.S. institutions and political culture, not individual
presidents, are the key to understanding U.S. behavior during
Vietnam.
Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern spent more than seven years
traveling in Laos, talking to farmers, scrap-metal hunters, people
who make and use tools from UXO, people who hunt for death beneath
the earth and render it harmless. With their words and photographs,
they reveal the beauty of Laos, the strength of Laotians, and the
commitment of bomb-disposal teams. People take precedence in this
account, which is deeply personal without ever becoming a polemic.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was the first new agency
established by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara after he
assumed office in 1961. The ambitious McNamara intended to
reformulate U.S. strategic nuclear policy and reduce inefficiencies
that had developed in the Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1950s.
DIA was the lynchpin to both efforts. In the early and middle
1960s, McNamara and his subordinates, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Roswell Gilpatric and new DIA Director Lieutenant General Joseph
Carroll (USAF), worked hard to establish the Agency, but their
efforts were delayed or stymied by intransigent and parochial
military leadership who objected to the creation of DIA because
they feared a loss of both battlefield effectiveness and political
influence in Washington, D.C.1 The work of building the DIA was
made all the more urgent by the deteriorating situation in
Southeast Asia. By the early 1960s, millions of dollars and
hundreds of advisory personnel sent by the U.S. were having a
negligible impact on the anti-communist campaign there. As the U.S.
continued to commit more resources to the ill-fated government in
Saigon, the country found itself drawn deeper and deeper into the
maelstrom. For DIA, the looming war in Southeast Asia would expose
major problems in its organization and performance. Especially in
the period from 1961 to 1969, DIA, either because of structural
weaknesses or leadership failures, often failed to energetically
seize opportunities to assert itself in the major intelligence
questions involving the conflict there. This tendency was
exacerbated by national military leadership's predilection for
ignoring or undercutting the Agency's authority. In turn, this
opened up DIA to severe criticism by Congress and other national
policymakers, some of whom even considered abolishing the Agency.
During the war, McNamara's great hope for reforming military
intelligence would be swept up in quarrels between powerful
domestic adversaries, and DIA's performance left the Secretary of
Defense deeply embittered toward his creation. It was only at the
end of the war that DIA assumed a more influential role in
Southeast Asia. Until then, however, the Agency was consigned to
the wilderness when it came to questions about the Vietnam
conflict.
On the last hot day of summer in 1992, gunfire cracked over a rocky knob in northern Idaho, just south of the Canadian border. By the next day three people were dead, and a small war was joined, pitting the full might of federal law enforcement against one well-armed family. Drawing on extensive interviews with Randy Weaver's family, government insiders, and others, Jess Walter traces the paths that led the Weavers to their confrontation with federal agents and led the government to treat a family like a gang of criminals. This is the story of what happened on Ruby Ridge: the tragic and unlikely series of events that destroyed a family, brought down the number-two man in the FBI, and left in its wake a nation increasingly attuned to the dangers of unchecked federal power.
The mission:
Become the most skilled, highly-trained, and deadliest
fighter pilots in the world.
The place: TOP GUN
In the darkest days of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy's kill ratio
had fallen to 2:1 -- a deadly decline in pilot combat
effectiveness. To improve the odds, a corps of hardened fighter
pilots founded the Fighter Weapons School, a.k.a. TOP GUN.
Utilizing actual enemy fighter planes in brutally realistic
dogfights, the Top Gun instructors dueled their students and each
other to achieve a lethal new level of fighting expertise. The
training paid off. Combining the latest weaponry and technology,
mental endurance, and razor-sharp instincts, the Top Gunners drove
the Navy's kill ratio up to an astounding 12:1, dominating the
skies over Vietnam.
This gripping account takes you inside the cockpit for an
adventure more explosive than any fiction -- in a dramatic true
story of the legendary military school that has created the most
dangerous fighter pilots the world has ever seen.
19: I never had a birthday in Vietnam was written to show how the
guys out in the field lived from day to day and not knowing if it
was going to be their last day. There's some laughter, sorrow,
feeling so down that taking a bullet to end it didn't seem so bad.
Guys are guys and the nineteen to twenty four year olds that were
in Vietnam were a little more intense than most. Living with death
day to day is something only another combat soldier would
understand. This was written to get the reader to understand that.
Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were contacted by
the US Government to perform a covert mission? First Light is a
story about Curt Gray, an ex-Vietnam helicopter pilot, who is
suddenly thrust into a secretive mission to help locate American
POWs. Problem is Curt has buried his memories of the war into the
dark recesses of his mind. His first thoughts are to refuse the
mission, but his loyalty and patriotism will not allow him such
luxury. As the mission unfolds, Curt finds himself entangled in a
dark web of deception and emotional mayhem. Review: "Chuck Gross
continues to capture the Vietnam experience, just like he did in
Rattler One-Seven, in a way that takes me back to my own months in
the jungle. After the authenticity of Rattler One Seven, Chuck, in
his new novel, weaves reality into a story that will leave the
reader wondering is it fiction or reality? My bet is on . . ." --
Barry Rice, President of the Tennessee State Council, Vietnam
Veterans of America
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