This six-volume collection of essential articles on the American involvement in the Vietnam Wa encompasses the political, social, and military aspects of the war.

Contents:
1. Haines, Harry W Disputing the Wreckage: Ideological Struggle at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Generation 1 [1989]
2. Wagner-Pacifici, Robin and Barry Schwartz The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating A Difficult Past, American Journal of Sociology 97 [1991]
3. Sturken, Marita The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Representations 35 [1991]
4. Jeffords, Susan Women, Gender and the War, Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6 [1989]
5. Smith, Lorrie Back Against the Wall: Anti-Feminist Backlist in Vietnam War Literature, Vietnam Generation 1 [1989]
6. Mithers, Carol Lynn Missing in Action: Women Warriors in Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
7. Marling, Carol Ann The Statute Near the Wall, Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 [1987]
8. Bellhouse, Mary L and Lawrence Litchfield Vietnam and Loss of Innocence: An Analysis of the Political Implications of the Popular Literature of the Vietnam War, Journal of Popular Culture 16 [1982]
9. Uchmanowicz, Pauline Vanishing Vietnam: Whiteness and the Technology of Memory, Literature and Psychology 41 [1995]
10. Charlot, John Vietnamese Cinema: First Views, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 22 [1991]
11. Katzman, Jason From Outcast to Cliche: How Film Shaped, Warped and Developed the Image of the Vietnam Veteran, 1967-1990, Journal of American Culture 16 [1993]
12. Clark, Michael Remembering Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
13. Berg, Rick Losing Vietnam: Covering the War in an Age of Technology, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
14. Rowe, John Carlos From Documentary to Docudrama: Vietnam on Television in the 1980s, Genre 21 [1988]
15. Auster, Albert Reflections of the Way Life Used to Be: Tour of Duty, China Beach, and the memory of the Sixties, Television Quarterly 24 [1990]
16. Ballard-Reisch, Deborah China Beach and Tour of Duty: American Television and Revisionist History of The Vietnam War, Journal of Popular Culture 25 [1991]
17. Jason, Philip K The Noise is Always in My Head: Auditory Images in the Literature of the Vietnam War, Midwest Quarterly 37 [1996]

Did Ajax and Achilles ever suffer from Post-traumatic stress syndrome?

In this absorbing account, Vietnam veteran and classics scholar Lawrence A Tritle offers an incisive analysis of war and its impact upon the soldier and civilian from the classical age to the present day.
Tritle discusses the links between battlefield experiences that affect the participants and victims of war in every age, drawing examples from sources as diverse as the Iliad, Michael Herr's Dispatches, Thucydides' account of the Pelopenesian Wars, and the Oliver Stone film Platoon. Each instance sheds light on some of the most puzzling phemonena of war and shows how the heroes of epic responded to battle with their own forms of "shellshock," battle-madness and bonding. Tritle examines such issues as:

How can ordinarily decent men can commit acts of extraordinary savagery?

Attitudes toward the "enemy"

The impact of war on waiting wives, lovers and civilian bystanders

Remembering the fallen soldier: from the classic Athenian funeral speech to the Vietnam Wall

How veterans live with physical and psychological injury

This memorable book is for readers who wonder about the meaning and experience of battle, about the impact of war and violence on our culture, and for anyone interested in the culture of ancient Greece.

From Melos to My Lai presents an erudite, provocative and moving analysis of the accounts of violence in the literature and history of ancient Greece and in the film literature and veterans' accounts of the Vietnam War. This comparative investigation examines the nature of violence, its impact on society and culture, especially as reflected from the perspective of the survivors. The survivors include not only actual combatants, but those with whom they interact: their comrades, their wives and children, families and society as a whole.
From Melos to My Lai provides a unique contribution to the study of the impact of violence on its participants and its audience which combines an examination of the artistic representations of violence and the real-life accounts of those involved in it.

This book explores the international leadership of the AFL-CIO, the UAW and UAW Local 600, the world's largest union local, and reveals that overall, working-class response to the Vietnam War mirrored that of the American society as a whole.

Magic was the name given to the American decoding of the secret Japanese codes used in diplomatic communications before and during the Pacific War of 1941-45. Presenting a Japanese perspective, this work argues that, in the final phase of the eight months of US-Japan talks leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor, serious mistranslations in Magic were a significant factor in the cumulative effect of mutual misunderstandings which grew between the two sides over a longer period.

Presented here is the most complete photo collection of U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantoms and F-105 Thunderchiefs credited with aerial victories during the Vietnam era. Of the total one hundred-thirteen individual Phantoms and Thunderchiefs credited with aerial victories, the reader will discover photographs of one hundred and six of these historic aircraft. The reader will discover photographs of the only F-4 Phantom to down six MiGs. The jet flown by Captain Richard Steve Ritchie on 28 August 1972, when he distinguished himself by becoming the first Air Force ACE of the Vietnam War appear here. Also shown are the three Phantoms flown by Colonel Robin Olds in claiming four MiG kills. Accompanying each photograph is detailed information regarding the aircrews, units, call signs of the individual aircraft, primary weapon system used in destruction of the enemy MiG, and a short narrative regarding each air battle.

Throughout the past decade, defenders of the U.S. role in Vietnam have argued that America's defeat was not the result of an illegitimate intervention or military shortcomings, but rather a failure of will because national leaders, principally Lyndon B. Johnson, forced the troops to "fight with one hand tied behind their backs." In this volume, Robert Buzzanco disproves this theory by demonstrating that political leaders, not the military brass, pressed for war; that American policymakers always understood the problems and peril of war in Indochina; and that civil-military acrimony and the political desire to defer responsibility for Vietnam helped lead the United States into the war. For the first time, these crucial issues of military dissent, interservice rivalries, and civil-military relations and politics have been tied together to provide a cogent and comprehensive analysis of the U.S. role in Vietnam.

This is the first history of the legendary US Army's HAWK missile system, the world's first mobile air-defense missile system, which saw service and combat around the world. Designed to counteract the threat posed by advanced 1950s Soviet-built aircraft, the first HAWK unit became operational in 1959. At its peak, it saw frontline service in the Far East, Panama, Europe, and in the Middle East. Units were also used during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War. In the hands of other nations, HAWK proved its efficacy in combat during the Arab-Israeli Wars, Iran-Iraq War, Chadian-Libyan War, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Credited with shooting down more than 100 aircraft during its combat career, the HAWK system was respected for its lethality. Such was Soviet concern, that the USSR developed electronic jammers, anti-radiation missiles, and other countermeasures specifically to degrade its effectiveness. The US retired its HAWK systems soon after the Cold War ended in 1991 when air defense priorities shifted from aircraft to ballistic missile defense, yet a modernized version of the system remains in service to this day in many nations. Packed with archive photos and original artwork, this is the first book about the HAWK system. Featuring research from HAWK technical and field manuals, interviews with HAWK veterans, and detailing the authors' personal experiences with HAWK missile units, it provides a comprehensive study of one of the most lethal and effective air missile systems of all time.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, two titans of the Senate, J. William Fulbright and John C. Stennis, held public hearings to debate the conflict's future. In this intriguing new work, historian Joseph A. Fry provides the first comparative analysis of these inquiries and the senior southern Senators who led them. The Senators' shared aim was to alter the Johnson administration's strategy and bring an end to the war-but from dramatically different perspectives. Fulbright hoped to pressure Johnson to halt escalation and seek a negotiated settlement, while Stennis wanted to prompt the President to bomb North Vietnam more aggressively and secure a victorious end to the war. Publicized and televised, these hearings added fuel to the fire of national debate over Vietnam policy and captured the many arguments of both hawks and doves. Fry details the dramatic confrontations between the Senate committees and the administration spokesmen, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, and he probes the success of congressional efforts to influence Vietnam policy. Ultimately, Fry shows how the Fulbright and Stennis hearings provide vivid insight into the debate over why the United States was involved in Vietnam and how the war should be conducted.

The Viet Cong have long remained a mystery even to those who fought against them during America's longest and most divisive war. They have been given many acronyms and slang names by the American fighting men; included among them are V.C., Charlie and other less complimentary terms. They have been portrayed in many guises by the American press and popular Hollywood films. None, however, have really addressed the Viet Cong in human terms. This work will strip away the myth and mystery which surrounds the Viet Cong and, through the medium of their own candid photography, present them in human terms. They were everything we were - resourceful, cunning, adaptable, and most of all, human. As did our own American soldiers, they endured life in some of the harshest, most inhospitable terrain on earth. In doing so, they exhibited the will to sacrifice and be sacrificed for the collective goal of unification. Little did they know that we were serving the hidden agenda of the Politburo in Hanoi. In the end, they, like many of our soldiers, were betrayed and abandoned. This book portrays the Viet Cong as seen through their own photography. A cultural obsession, photographs were taken wherever and whenever possible. On many occasions, Allied forces were able to capture such photos. It is from such sources that these photographs are made available, most for the first time ever, to the general public.

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939-40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot "Minnie" Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers. These men endured nearly three years of grueling training in the Colorado Rockies and in the process set new standards for both soldiering and mountaineering. The newly forged 10th Mountain Division finally faced combat in the winter of 1945, in Italy's Apennine Mountains, against the seemingly unbreakable German fortifications north of the Gothic Line. There, they planned and executed what is still regarded as the most daring series of nighttime mountain attacks in U.S. military history, taking Mount Belvedere and the sheer, treacherous face of Riva Ridge to smash the linchpin of the German army's lines.
Drawing on unique cooperation from veterans of the 10th Mountain Division and a vast archive of unpublished letters and documents, The Last Ridge is written with enormous warmth, energy, and honesty. This is one of the most captivating stories of World War II, a blend of Band of Brothers and Into Thin Air. It is a story of young men asked to do the impossible, and succeeding.

"From the Hardcover edition.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, two titans of the Senate, J. William Fulbright and John C. Stennis, held public hearings to debate the conflict's future. In this intriguing new work, historian Joseph A. Fry provides the first comparative analysis of these inquiries and the senior southern Senators who led them. The Senators' shared aim was to alter the Johnson administration's strategy and bring an end to the war-but from dramatically different perspectives. Fulbright hoped to pressure Johnson to halt escalation and seek a negotiated settlement, while Stennis wanted to prompt the President to bomb North Vietnam more aggressively and secure a victorious end to the war. Publicized and televised, these hearings added fuel to the fire of national debate over Vietnam policy and captured the many arguments of both hawks and doves. Fry details the dramatic confrontations between the Senate committees and the administration spokesmen, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, and he probes the success of congressional efforts to influence Vietnam policy. Ultimately, Fry shows how the Fulbright and Stennis hearings provide vivid insight into the debate over why the United States was involved in Vietnam and how the war should be conducted.

In this fully illustrated introduction, leading Vietnam War historian Dr Andrew Wiest provides a concise overview of America's most divisive war. America entered the Vietnam War certain of its Cold War doctrines and convinced of its moral mission to save the world from the advance of communism. However, the war was not at all what the United States expected. Dr Andrew Wiest examines how, outnumbered and outgunned, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces resorted to a guerrilla war based on the theories of Mao Zedong of China, while the US responded with firepower and overwhelming force. Drawing on the latest research for this new edition, Wiest examines the brutal and prolonged resultant conflict, and how its consequences would change America forever, leaving the country battered and unsure as it sought to face the challenges of the final acts of the Cold War. As for Vietnam, the conflict would continue long after the US had exited its military adventure in Southeast Asia. Updated and revised, with full-colour maps and new images throughout, this is an accessible introduction to the most important event of the "American Century."

In this book James E. Westheider explores the social and professional paradoxes facing African-American soldiers in Vietnam. Service in the military started as a demonstration of the merits of integration as blacks competed with whites on a near equal basis for the first time. Military service, especially service in Vietnam, helped shape modern black culture and fostered a sense of black solidarity in the Armed Forces. But as the war progressed, racial violence became a major problem for the Armed Forces as they failed to keep pace with the sweeping changes in civilian society. Despite the boasts of the Department of Defense, personal and institutional racism remained endemic to the system. Westheider tells this story expertly and accessibly by providing the history and background of African American participation in the U.S. Armed Forces then following all the way through to the experience of African Americans returning home from the Vietnam war.

A major revision of our understanding of JFK's commitment to Vietnam, revealing that his administration's plan to withdraw was a political device, the effect of which was to manage public opinion while preserving US military assistance. In October 1963, the White House publicly proposed the removal of US troops from Vietnam, earning President Kennedy an enduring reputation as a skeptic on the war. In fact, Kennedy was ambivalent about withdrawal and was largely detached from its planning. Drawing on secret presidential tapes, Marc J. Selverstone reveals that the withdrawal statement gave Kennedy political cover, allowing him to sustain support for US military assistance. Its details were the handiwork of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, whose ownership of the plan distanced it from the president. Selverstone's use of the presidential tapes, alongside declassified documents, memoirs, and oral histories, lifts the veil on this legend of Camelot. Withdrawal planning was never just about Vietnam as it evolved over the course of fifteen months. For McNamara, it injected greater discipline into the US assistance program. For others, it was a form of leverage over South Vietnam. For the military, it was largely an unwelcome exercise. And for JFK, it allowed him to preserve the US commitment while ostensibly limiting it. The Kennedy Withdrawal offers an inside look at presidential decisionmaking in this liminal period of the Vietnam War and makes clear that portrayals of Kennedy as a dove are overdrawn. His proposed withdrawal was in fact a cagey strategy for keeping the United States involved in the fight-a strategy the country adopted decades later in Afghanistan.

The Vietnam War is anything but a forgotten war. Even today, the strategies that led to an unexpected American defeat are hotly debated, and much remains controversial and unclear, which is not surprising given the nature of the combat in which the Vietnamese guerrilla warfare eventually won out over high-tech weaponry. The task of clarifying the issues without oversimplifying this complex war that impacted the world is undertaken by The A to Z of the Vietnam War: first in its chronology, then in its introduction, but mainly in a substantial dictionary section including hundreds of entries on significant persons (military and political), places, events, armed units, battles and lesser engagements, and weapons. And for those seeking further information, an extensive bibliography is included.

It took courage and a certain sense of wild adventure to be a combat medic during the Vietnam War, and William 'Doc' Osgood exemplified their daring attitude. Serving in the 101st Airborne Division, Osgood would see combat in the deadly A Shau Valley and all along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Hawk Recon is a story of what arguably was the most dangerous job in the deadliest part of Vietnam as told by a US Special Forces Green Beret. This is the tale of paratrooper combat medics of the 101st Airborne Air Cavalry fighting in the largest NVA base camp in South Vietnam-the A Shau Valley. Their war was was fought mostly in the mountains and on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Vietnam War on Film illustrates how to employ film as a teaching tool. It also stands on its own as an account of the war and the major films that have depicted it. Even for many people who experienced the Vietnam War first hand, memories of that conflict have often been shaped by the popular films that depicted it: The Quiet American, The Green Berets, The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now, among others. Vietnam War on Film examines how the war is portrayed through a selection of ten iconic films that represent the war through dramatization and storytelling as opposed to through documentary footage. The book includes an introduction to the war's history and a timeline of events, followed by ten chapters, each of which focuses on a specific Vietnam War movie. Chapters offer a uniquely detailed level of historical context for the films, weighing their depiction of events against the historical record and evaluating how well or how poorly those films reflected the truth and shaped public memory and discourse over the war. A final section of "Resources" provides a comprehensive annotated bibliography of print and electronic sources to aid students and teachers in further research. Provides a unique guide to the Vietnam War experience for film history buffs, students and scholars of history, and fans of the cinema Offers equal emphasis on the films themselves and the historical events depicted Presents carefully researched and highly informative coverage Stimulates debate over the various ways the war was interpreted and experienced

This book explores the international leadership of the AFL-CIO, the UAW and UAW Local 600, the world's largest union local, and reveals that overall, working-class response to the Vietnam War mirrored that of the American society as a whole.

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 Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America's greatest secret and our worst military disaster. Drawing on twenty years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents, Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. By showing that ample warning of the attack was on FDR's desk and, furthermore, that a plan to push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant events in American history.

First published in 1978. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.