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.

The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington - and Hanoi - to bring their husbands home from the jungles of Vietnam. On 12 February, 1973, one hundred and sixteen men who, just six years earlier, had been high flying Navy and Air Force pilots, shuffled, limped, or were carried off a huge military transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested, mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton. Months later, the first Vietnam POWs to return home would learn that their rescuers were their wives, a group of women that included Jane Denton, Sybil Stockdale, Louise Mulligan, Andrea Rander, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. These women, who formed The National League of Families, would never have called themselves 'feminists', but they had become the POW and MIAs most fervent advocates, going to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their husbands' freedom - and to account for missing military men - by relentlessly lobbying government leaders, conducting a savvy media campaign, conducting covert meetings with antiwar activists, and most astonishingly, helping to code secret letters to their imprisoned husbands. In a page-turning work of narrative non-fiction, Heath Hardage Lee tells the story of these remarkable women for the first time. The League of Wives is certain to be on everyone's must-read list.

'Afghanistan is just like Iraq hot, dusty and full of people who want to kill you', SSgt Simon Fuller, Royal Engineer Search Advisor

Bomb Hunters tells the story of the British army's elite bomb disposal experts, men who face death every day in the most dangerous region of the most lethal country on earth Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Bomb Hunters are up against the Improvised Explosive Device the IED the deadly homemade bombs planted by the Taliban. Hard to detect and easy to trigger, an estimated 10 bombs for every one of the 10,000 British troops have been planted in the region. IEDs are now the main killer of British troops in Afghanistan and the ultimate psychological weapon.

Bomb Hunters work in 50-degree heat as they take the 'long walk' into the kill zone, defusing as many as 15 bombs a day. In the past year the casualty rate has soared as the troops have become locked into a deadly game of cat and mouse to locate and deactivate the deadly bombs before they maim and kill soldiers, police and civilians. Skill, cold courage and inevitably pure luck play a huge part in the survival of these men and as the British public have already seen a single lapse of concentration can result in instant death.

Ex-paratrooper, now defence journalist, Sean Rayment, takes the reader on a journey into the heat and dust of Helmand Province as he meets these courageous soldiers while they put their lives at risk to prevent other British troops falling victim to the IED. He interviews the Bomb Hunters as they perform their duties on the frontline and paints a breathtaking picture of what life is like for the men who play poker with their own lives every day, who live knowing the enemy watches their every move, waiting for a weakness to show itself, a pattern in technique to be exploited, or an error to be made that triggers the device itself.

This is as vivid and dramatic as war reporting gets, mixing 'close to the bone' narrative and dead-pan black humour from the Bomb Hunters themselves, some of whom were subsequently killed in action. No punches will be pulled on what these men feel about the war, their place in it, the politicians and generals who send them there, and how they deal with the relentless pressure of the job itself in the heart of the world's most hostile combat environment."

It was an unbelievable mission - to rebuild Iraq while the U.S. military was fighting a raging insurgency. In 2004, the soldiers and civilians of the Gulf Region Division (GRD) answered the call to duty and began the largest and most complex reconstruction project ever undertaken by our nation. They made great personal sacrifices that few of their fellow Americans would dare endure. This book tells the rest of the inspiring story - much of which was ignored by the mainstream media as "not newsworthy" or reduced to mere sound bytes. In the face of imminent danger, the GRD team braved daily car bombs, rocket attacks, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and kidnappings to rebuild thousands of projects throughout a chaotic war zone. These projects spread throughout a hostile country included schools, hospitals, police stations, oil production, electrical power and water treatment plants. Despite the odds, GRD was able to complete its critical strategic mission, and its members were awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation. A few of the amazing stories include: - A massive car bomb on author's first day in Baghdad that leveled a nearby hotel. - High speed "Mad Max" drives through the streets of Baghdad in unarmored SUVs. - The dependence on security contractors who performed with great valor while protecting American civilians. - The perilous war waged on the reconstruction mission that was largely invisible to U.S. combat forces and the American public. - The accidental rescue of an American hostage. - Living and working in Saddam's great palaces. - How a Yahoo email message was used to send an urgent plea for help. - A daring rescue mission in the Tigris River that ended in tragic loss. - The parade of Congressional Delegations that diverted precious combat resources from the war effort. - The unbelievable (but true) story of how a Yahoo email account is used to send an urgent message to the author to "PLEASE SAVE US." About the Author: Kerry Kachejian is one of the nation s most qualified soldiers and engineers, having served in and supported reconstruction operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as relief operations during Hurricane Katrina. A 1982 graduate of the US Military Academy (West Point), Kachejian also holds a Master s Degree in Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces earning a second Master s Degree in National Resource Strategy. Kachejian has numerous military decorations, awards, and qualifications, including the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge. He was presented the Bronze de Fleury Medal by the Army Engineer Association and the Reserve Award for Leadership Excellence a national award presented annually by the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA). He is Airborne and Ranger qualified. Kachejian recently retired from the Army Reserve, holding the rank of Colonel. He currently supports the U.S. defense industry. He has spoken at a number of major conferences and private events on topics, including the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Psychology of Terrorism, Contractors on the Battlefield, and Critical Infrastructure Protection. Kerry, a native of West Chester, Pennsylvania, lives with his wife Alice and three children near Springfield, Virginia.

In Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, accomplished foreign relations historian David F. Shmitz provides students of US history and the Vietnam era with an up-to-date analysis of Nixon's Vietnam policy in a brief and accessible book that addresses the main controversies of the Nixon years. President Richard Nixon's first presidential term oversaw the definitive crucible of the Vietnam War. Nixon came into office seeking the kind of decisive victory that had eluded President Johnson, and went about expanding the war, overtly and covertly, in order to uphold a policy of "containment," protect America's credibility, and defy the left's antiwar movement at home. Tactically, politically, Nixon's moves made sense. However, by 1971 the president was forced to significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat, and a resounding failure of American foreign relations. Schmitz addresses the main controversies of Nixon's Vietnam strategy, and in so doing manages to trace back the ways in which this most calculating and perceptive politician wound up resigning from office a fraud and failure. Finally, the book seeks to place the impact of Nixon's policies and decisions in the larger context of post-World War II American society, and analyzes the full costs of the Vietnam War that the nation feels to this day.

G-DAY, Rendezvous with Eagles is a 20th Anniversary reflection on Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm as seen through the eyes of 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Forward Observer, Stephen Wiehe. G-DAY details the critical missions and movements of the First Battalion of the historic 502nd Infantry Regiment during the Gulf War as well as the soldier 's day-to-day activities. G-DAY, Rendezvous with Eagles has been declared by the Don F. Pratt Museum as the best first person narrative of the Gulf War and has been included in the museum at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

How can the current civil wars in the Middle East be resolved? This volume brings together academics, experts, and practitioners to explore this question. The book covers the history of civil wars in the region during the 20th century, and then examines the specific causes, drivers, and dynamics of the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Updated for a second edition, the book argues that while these are very different cases of civil war, there are patterns that are important to point out at the outset. First, while each of the conflicts appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon, each has a long historical tail. Second, each of the civil wars had deep and complex domestic drivers and dynamics over issues of governance, political identity, and resources; at the same time, all of the conflicts have had deep regional and international components. Finally, all of these civil wars have been affected by the presence or entrance of armed transnational non-state actors, which have had far greater involvement in the Middle Eastern civil wars compared to other regions. The book concludes that these conflicts will require a mixture of local, regional, and international interventions to bring them to an end, but that none of the conflicts are likely to end cleanly through either a negotiated settlement or a clear victory by one party or the other. Despite this pessimistic overall assessment, the book emphasizes that policymakers should use knowledge of civil wars in the Middle East to develop and pursue specific national, regional and global policies. These should be built around mitigating the worst effects of the conflicts and towards ultimate resolution.

From master storyteller Andy McNab, this is the opening book in an adventure-filled and action-packed new series telling, for the first time ever, the true stories of Special Forces missions. 'McNab's first major non-autobiographical work of non-fiction ... The operation is told like a novel [...] and it is as refreshingly informal and compellingly immediate as his other books' Daily Express 'Part history lesson, part military manual, part fixed-bayonets thriller. A must for Special Forces fans' The Sun It is the early 2000s and 9/11 is fresh in the world's memory. The Taliban have taken over Afghanistan, and armed militants and explosive devices are terrorising the people. And now a new threat is emerging in the country: suicide bombings, ordered by military commander of the Taliban, Mullah Dadullah. Special Forces are sent in to stop him. The Hunt is the thrilling story of the secret mission to catch Dadullah, one of the most dangerous men alive. Using classified sources and his unique insight into the way the SAS works, Andy McNab gives a page-turning account of what it took the Special Forces to find their target and what they would have to do to take him down. An explosive story of hostage negotiations, undercovers missions and a final, epic assault on Dadullah's compound that could leave only one side alive, The Hunt is a powerful retelling of a real-life Special Forces mission.

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A Companion to the Vietnam War "contains twenty-four definitive essays on America's longest and most divisive foreign conflict. It represents the best current scholarship on this controversial and influential episode in modern American history.
Highlights issues of nationalism, culture, gender, and race.
Covers the breadth of Vietnam War history, including American war policies, the Vietnamese perspective, the antiwar movement, and the American home front.
Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every important era and topic.
Includes a select bibliography to guide further research.

This book presents oral histories from the last surviving UK veterans of the Korean War. With the help of the UK National Army Museum and the British Korean Society, this book collects nearly twenty testimonials of UK veterans of the Korean War. Many only teenagers when mobilized, these veterans attempt to put words to the violence and trauma they experienced. They recall the landscape and people of Korea, the political backdrop, and touching moments in unlikely situations. Like other oral histories of war, their stories recount friendship, hardship, the loss of innocence, and the perseverance of humanity in the face of cruelty. The testimonies were taken by academics and students from the University of Roehampton, and supported by the National Army Museum and the British Korean Society. Through their memories we learn a great deal about the conflict in macro and micro scales.

He was Born in New Jersey in 1933 and only dreamed of being a military man. Marrying shortly after high school, he joined the army in 1956 and was dispatched to Vietnam in 1963 when America still seemed innocent. Jim Thompson would have led a perfectly ordinary, undistinguished life had he not been captured four months later, becoming the first American prisoner in Vietnam and, ultimately, the longest-held prisoner of war in American history. Forgotten Soldier is Thompson's epic story, a remarkable reconstruction of one man's life and a searing account that questions who is a real American hero. Examining the lives of Thompson's family on the home front, as well as his brutal treatment and five escape attempts in Vietnam, military journalist Tom Philpott weaves an extraordinary tale, showing how the American government intentionally suppressed Thompson's story.

Pat Tillman was well-known to American sports fans: a chisel-jawed and talented young professional football star, he was on the brink of signing a million dollar contract when, in 2001, al-Qaeda launched terrorist attacks against his country. Driven by deeply felt moral patriotism, he walked away from fame and money to enlist in the United States Special Operations Forces. A year later he was killed - apparently in the line of fire - on a desolate hillside near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan. News of Tillman's death shocked America. But even as the public mourned his loss, the US Army aggressively maneuvered to conceal the truth: that it was a ranger in Tillman's own platoon who had fired the fatal shots. In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer reveals how an entire country was deliberately deceived by those at the very highest levels of the US army and government. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer's storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war.

In ""The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning"", one of our most distinguished military historians argued that the conflict on the Korean peninsula in the middle of the twentieth century was first and foremost a war between Koreans that began in 1948. In the second volume of a monumental trilogy, Allan R. Millett now shifts his focus to the twelve-month period from North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, through the end of June 1951 - the most active phase of the internationalized 'Korean War'. Moving deftly between the battlefield and the halls of power, Millett weaves together military operations and tactics without losing sight of Cold War geopolitics, strategy, and civil-military relations. Filled with new insights on the conflict, his book is the first to give combined arms its due, looking at the contributions and challenges of integrating naval and air power with the ground forces of United Nations Command and showing the importance of Korean support services. He also provides the most complete, and sympathetic, account of the role of South Korea's armed forces, drawing heavily on ROK and Korea Military Advisory Group sources. Millett integrates non-American perspectives into the narrative - especially those of Mao Zedong, Chinese military commander Peng Dehuai, Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung, and Syngman Rhee. And he portrays Walton Walker and Matthew Ridgway as the heroes of Korea, both of whom had a more profound understanding of the situation than Douglas MacArthur, whose greatest flaw was not his politics but his strategic and operational incompetence. Researched in South Korean, Chinese, and Soviet as well as American and UN sources, Millett has exploited previously ignored or neglected oral history collections - including interviews with American and South Korean officers - and has made extensive use of reports based on interrogations of North Korean and Chinese POWs. The end result is masterful work that provides both a gripping narrative and a greater understanding of this key conflict in international and American history.

Martin Bowman's revealing narrative of the aerial conflict in South-East Asia, 1965-1972, which had its beginnings in 1 November 1955, engulfed Vi tnam, Laos, and Cambodia and only ended with the fall of S ig n on 30 April 1975 has resulted from decades of painstaking fact-finding as well as detailed correspondence with surviving aircrew incorporating a wealth of first-hand accounts, some never told before, supported by dozens of rare and unusual photographs. Together they describe in adrenalin-pumping accuracy the furious aerial battles of a long suffering and bitter war in South-East Asia and in particular the frontline action in the skies over Vietnam that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. They too will find a new and useful perspective on a conflict that cost the Americans 58,022 dead and brought the USA worldwide condemnation for its role in Southeast Asia. Nearly 2,500 Americans remained missing'. This work serves as a tribute to the courageous pilots who flew the F-104 Starfighter in the Widowmakers' war and B-52 bomber crews on Arc Light' Linebacker II' strikes and the eleven days of Christmas which ultimately ended the aerial campaign against North Vi tnam. And as well, strike aircraft such as the USAF F-4 Phantom and the F-105 Thud' and the US Navy carrier-borne jet and propeller-driven strike aircraft and the Americans' sworn enemy, the North Vi?tnamese MiG fighters, feature large, from Rolling Thunder' onwards. Equally, the Hueys and Chinooks and other notable work horses that participated on combat assaults or Ash & Trash missions and transports like the C-130 Herky-Bird', C-123 Provider, Caribou and Vi tnamese C-47 - the Haulers On Call' - that performed sterling service during the gruelling air campaign are not forgotten either. Here, at first hand, are their stories which also include some of the less publicised American forces like the pilots and crewmen who flew the Bird Dogs and all manner of helicopters as well as the largely forgotten Australian and New Zealand Air Force units and the Anzac Battalions whose valuable contributions are too often overlooked. So too is the cost in human misery, death and destruction.

Featured in Stylist's guide to 2019's best non-fiction books The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington - and Hanoi - to bring their husbands home from the jungles of Vietnam. On 12 February, 1973, one hundred and sixteen men who, just six years earlier, had been high flying Navy and Air Force pilots, shuffled, limped, or were carried off a huge military transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested, mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton. Months later, the first Vietnam POWs to return home would learn that their rescuers were their wives, a group of women that included Jane Denton, Sybil Stockdale, Louise Mulligan, Andrea Rander, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. These women, who formed The National League of Families, would never have called themselves 'feminists', but they had become the POW and MIAs most fervent advocates, going to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their husbands' freedom - and to account for missing military men - by relentlessly lobbying government leaders, conducting a savvy media campaign, conducting covert meetings with antiwar activists, and most astonishingly, helping to code secret letters to their imprisoned husbands. In a page-turning work of narrative non-fiction, Heath Hardage Lee tells the story of these remarkable women for the first time. The League of Wives is certain to be on everyone's must-read list.

The rough-and-tumble life of Special Forces vet and Sixties pop star Barry Sadler The top Billboard Hot 100 single of 1966 wasn't The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" or the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"--it was "The Ballad of the Green Berets," a hyper-patriotic tribute to the men of the Special Forces by Vietnam veteran, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler. But Sadler's clean-cut, all-American image hid a darker side, a Hunter Thompson-esque life of booze, girls, and guns. Unable to score another hit song, he wrote a string of popular pulp fiction paperbacks that made "Rambo look like a stroll through Disneyland." He killed a lover's ex-boyfriend in Tennessee. Settling in Central America, Sadler ran guns, allegedly trained guerrillas, provided medical care to residents, and caroused at his villa. In 1988 he was shot in the head in Guatemala and died a year later. This life-and-times biography of an American pop culture phenomenon recounts the sensational details of Sadler's life vividly but soberly, setting his meteoric rise and tragic fall against the big picture of American society and culture during and after the Vietnam War.

In 1960 millions of Japanese citizens took to the streets for months of protest against the U.S. -- Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) and its forcible ratification by the Kishi government. In the decades that followed, the Anpo era citizens' movements exerted a major influence on the organization and political philosophies of the anti - Vietnam War effort, local residents' environmental movements, alternative lifestyle groups, and consumer movements. Organizing the Spontaneous departs from previous scholarship by focusing on the significance of the Anpo protests on the citizens' drive to transform Japanese society rather than on international diplomacy. It shows that the movement against Anpo comprised diverse, at times conflicting, groups of politically conscious actors attempting to reshape the body politic.

Fusing perspectives from politics, media studies and cultural studies, and focusing on Iraq, this title offers detailed insights into the impact of different media forms. Fusing perspectives from politics, media studies and cultural studies, "Sousveillance, Media and Strategic Political Communication" offers insights into impacts on strategic political communication of the emergence of web-based participatory media ('Web 2.0') across the first decade of the 21st century. Countering the control engendered in strategic political communication, Steve Mann's concepts of hierarchical sousveillance (politically motivated watching of the institutional watchers) and personal sousveillance (apolitical, human-centred life-sharing) is applied to web 2.0. Focusing on interplays of user-generated and mainstream media about, and from, Iraq, detailed case studies explore different levels of control over strategic political communication during key moments, including the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, and Saddam Hussein's execution in 2006. These are contextualized by overviews of political and media environments from 2001-09. Dr Bakir outlines broader implications of sousveillant web-based participatory media for strategic political communication, exploring issues of agenda-building, control, and the cycle of emergence, resistance and reincorporation of web 2.0. Sousveillance cultures are explored, delineating issues of anonymity, semi-permanence, instanteneity resistance and social change.

'An Intimate War' tells the story of the last thirty-four years of conflict in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of the Helmandis. In the West, this period is often defined through different lenses -- the Soviet intervention, the civil war, the Taliban, and the post-2001 nation-building era. Yet, as experienced by local inhabitants, the Helmand conflict is a perennial one, involving the same individuals, families and groups, and driven by the same arguments over land, water and power. This book -- based on both military and research experience in Helmand and 150 interviews in Pashto -- offers a very different view of Helmand from those in the media. It demonstrates how outsiders have most often misunderstood the ongoing struggle in Helmand and how, in doing so, they have exacerbated the conflict, perpetuated it and made it more violent -- precisely the opposite of what was intended when their interventions were launched. Mike Martin's oral history of Helmand underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the highly local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in much of the 'third' world.