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.

Poems by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Translated from the Vietnamese by Bruce Weigl and Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Nguyen Phan Que Mai is among the most exciting writers to emerge from post-war Vietnam. Bruce Weigl, driven by his personal experiences as a soldier during the war in Vietnam, has spent the past 20 years translating contemporary Vietnamese poetry. These penetrating poems, published in bilingual English and Vietnamese, build new bridges between two cultures bound together by war and destruction. "The Secret of Hoa Sen," Que Mai's first full-length U.S. publication, shines with craft, art, and deeply felt humanity.

"I cross the Lam River to return to my homeland
where my mother embraces my grandmother's tomb in the rain,
the soil of Nghe An so dry the rice plants cling to rocks.
My mother chews dry corn; hungry, she tries to forget."

This book analyses the problematique of governance and administration of cultural diversity within the modern state of Afghanistan and traces patterns of national integration. It explores state construction in twentieth-century Afghanistan and Afghan nationalism, and explains the shifts in the state's policies and societal responses to different forms of governance of cultural diversity. The book problematizes liberalism, communitarianism, and multiculturalism as approaches to governance of diversity within the nation-state. It suggests that while the western models of multiculturalism have recognized the need to accommodate different cultures, they failed to engage with them through intercultural dialogue. It also elaborates the challenge of intra-group diversity and the problem of accommodating individual choice and freedom while recognising group rights and adoption of multiculturalism. The book develops an alternative approach through synthesising critical multiculturalism and interculturalism as a framework on a democratic and inclusive approach to governance of diversity. A major intervention in understanding a war-torn country through an insider account, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, especially those concerned with multiculturalism, state-building, nationalism, and liberalism, as well as those in cultural studies, history, Afghanistan studies, South Asian studies, Middle East studies, minority studies, and to policymakers.

This invaluable resource offers a comprehensive overview of the Iraq War, with more than 100 in-depth articles by leading scholars on an array of topics and themes and more than a dozen key primary source documents. This book provides everything the reader needs to know about the Iraq War, from the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, through the U.S. troop surge in 2007, to the rise of the Islamic State. It offers insight into the war through the events, organizations, and people who have had a major impact on the conflict. It also explains the inadvertent consequences of the conflict including worsening regional sectarian divisions, the Arab Spring, the increase in Iranian influence in the Middle East, and the expansion of international terrorism. The book begins with a sweeping overview of the Iraq War that provides context for each of the reference entries that follow. The introductory material also includes detailed essays on the causes and consequences of the war. The bulk of the book consists of more than 120 reference entries on such topics as Saddam Hussein, the battles of Fallujah, and private military contractors such as Blackwater and Halliburton. In addition, the book includes more than a dozen curated and contextualized primary source documents along with a comprehensive chronology and extensive bibliography. Explores how the Bush Doctrine was employed to justify the US decision to invade Iraq Illuminates the key leaders and the military strategy they implemented in conducting the Iraq War Explains how a series of flawed military and political decisions created a dysfunctional government in Baghdad Informs readers of the disruptive influence the Iraq War has had on the entire Middle East

This book presents a theory and empirical evidence for how security forces can identify militant suspects during counterinsurgency operations. A major oversight on the part of academics and practitioners has been to ignore the critical antecedent issue common to persuasion and coercion counterinsurgency (COIN) approaches: distinguishing friend from foe. This book proposes that the behaviour of security forces influences the likelihood of militant identification during a COIN campaign, and argues that security forces must respect civilian safety in order to create a credible commitment to facilitate collaboration with a population. This distinction is important as conventional wisdom has wrongly assumed that the presence of security forces confers control over terrain or influence over a population. Collaboration between civilian and government actors is the key observable indicator of support in COIN. Paradoxically, this theory accounts for why and how increased risk to government forces in the short term actually improves civilian security in the long run. Counterinsurgency, Security Forces, and the Identification Problem draws on three case studies: the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines post-World War II; Marines Corps' experiences in Vietnam through the Combined Action Program; and Special Operations activities in Iraq after 2003. For military practitioners, the work illustrates the critical precursor to establishing "security" during counterinsurgency operations. The book also examines the role and limits of modern technology in solving the identification problem. This book will be of interest to students of counterinsurgency, military history, strategic studies, US foreign policy, and security studies in general.

Darkly funny, shockingly honest, Brothers in Arms is an unforgettable account of a soldier's tour of Afghanistan, the brutal reality of war - every scary, exciting moment - and the bonds of friendship that can never be destroyed. 'If you could choose which two limbs got blown off, what would you go for?' Danny said. 'Your arms or your legs?' In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm - Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they'd be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon - a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for. As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior - he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning. 'Jones writes of his brothers and their Afghan experience, from its adrenalin-filled highs to the many lows, with passion and candour.' - Major Adam Jowett, bestselling author of No Way Out 'A gritty, brutal book about men at war. Raw and real. Brilliant.' - Tom Marcus, author of Soldier Spy

The "Silent Majority" Speech treats Richard Nixon's address of November 3, 1969, as a lens through which to examine the latter years of the Vietnam War and their significance to U.S. global power and American domestic life. The book uses Nixon's speech - which introduced the policy of "Vietnamization" and cited the so-called bloodbath theory as a justification for continued U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia - as a fascinating moment around which to build an analysis of the last years of the war. For Nixon's strategy to be successful, he requested the support of what he called the "great silent majority," a term that continues to resonate in American political culture. Scott Laderman moves beyond the war's final years to address the administration's hypocritical exploitation of moral rhetoric and its stoking of social divisiveness to achieve policy aims. Laderman explores the antiwar and pro-war movements, the shattering of the liberal consensus, and the stirrings of the right-wing resurgence that would come to define American politics. Supplemental primary sources make this book an ideal tool for introducing students to historical research. The "Silent Majority" Speech is critical reading for those studying American political history and U.S.-Asian/Southeast Asian relations.

The antiDVietnam War movement marked the first time in American history that record numbers marched and protested to an antiwar tune_on college campuses, in neighborhoods, and in Washington. Although it did not create enough pressure on decision-makers to end U.S. involvement in the war, the movement's impact was monumental. It served as a major constraint on the government's ability to escalate, played a significant role in President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision in 1968 not to seek another term, and was a factor in the Watergate affair that brought down President Richard Nixon.

At last, the story of the entire antiwar movement from its advent to its dissolution is available in Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America's Hearts and Minds . Author Melvin Small describes not only the origins and trajectory of the antiDVietnam War movement in America, but also focuses on the way it affected policy and public opinion and the way it in turn was affected by the government and the media, and, consequently, events in Southeast Asia.

Leading this crusade were outspoken cultural rebels including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, as passionate about the cause as the music that epitomizes the period. But in addition to radical protestors whose actions fueled intense media coverage, Small reveals that the anti-war movement included a diverse cast of ordinary citizens turned war dissenter: housewives, politicians, suburbanites, clergy members, and the elderly.

The antiwar movement comes to life in this compelling new book that is sure to fascinate all those interested in the Vietnam War and the turbulent, tumultuous 1960s.

*NOW UPDATED WITH EXTRA MATERIAL* The boy who fled Afghanistan and endured a terrifying journey in the hands of people smugglers is now a young man intent on changing the world. His story is a deeply harrowing and incredibly inspiring tale of our times. Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan at the age of twelve, after his father was killed in a gun battle with the US Army. He made a twelve-month odyssey across Europe, spending time in prisons, suffering hunger, making a terrifying journey across the Mediterranean in a tiny boat, and enduring a desolate month in the camp at Calais. Somehow he survived, and made it to Britain, where he was fostered, sent to school, and won a place at a top university. He was chosen to carry the Olympic torch in 2012. One boy's experience is the central story of our times. This powerful memoir celebrates the triumph of courage over adversity.

"A wonderfully written book that takes the reader to a strange time and place." --Eric M. Bergerud, author of "Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning"

• Thoughtful, action-packed memoir of one American soldier's combat tour in Vietnam in 1970
• Begins with a tense ambush patrol and doesn't let up through a year of hair-raising night watches, soggy humps through the jungle, and deadly encounters with the North Vietnamese
• Author served as a rifleman--as well as a machine gunner, tunnel rat, and demolitions man--with the U.S. Army's 25th "Tropic Lightning" Infantry Division and 1st Cavalry Division
• Notable events include the Cambodian incursion

That America was drawn into the Vietnam War by the French has been recognized, but rarely explored. This book analyzes the years from 1945 with the French military reconquest of Vietnam until 1963 with the execution of the French-endorsed dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem, demonstrating how the US should not have followed the French into Vietnam. It shows how the Korean War triggered the flow of American military hardware and finances to underpin France's war against the Marxist-oriented Vietnam Republic led by Ho Chi Minh.

This book offers a dispassionate strategic examination of the Vietnam conflict that challenges the conventional wisdom that South Vietnam could not survive as an independent non-communist entity over the long term regardless of how the United States conducted its military- political effort in Indochina.

A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR.

'A compelling, authoritative insight into possibly the most controversial death in Britain this century' Observer.

'Masterful ... This book made me proud of my trade as a journalist' Daily Mail.

'This searing excavation of the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly is investigative journalism at its best. It is brave, relentless, dazzlingly revealing' Peter Oborne.

In March 2003 British forces invaded Iraq after Tony Blair said the country could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice. A few months later, government scientist Dr David Kelly was unmasked by Blair's officials as the assumed source of a BBC news report challenging this claim. Within days, Dr Kelly was found dead in a wood near his home. Blair immediately convened the controversial Hutton Inquiry, which concluded Dr Kelly committed suicide.

Yet key questions remain: could Dr Kelly really have taken his life in the manner declared? And why did Blair's government derail the coroner's inquest into Dr Kelly's death? In this meticulous account, award-winning journalist Miles Goslett shows why we should be sceptical of the official story of what happened in that desperate summer of 2003.

This book investigates the origins of the North Korean garrison state by examining the development of the Korean People's Army and the legacies of the Korean War. Despite its significance, there are very few books on the Korean People's Army with North Korean primary sources being difficult to access. This book, however, draws on North Korean documents and North Korean veterans' testimonies, and demonstrates how the Korean People's Army and the Korean War shaped North Korea into a closed, militarized and xenophobic garrison state and made North Korea seek Juche (Self Reliance) ideology and weapons of mass destruction. This book maintains that the youth and lower classes in North Korea considered the Korean People's Army as a positive opportunity for upward social mobility. As a result, the North Korean regime secured its legitimacy by establishing a new class of social elites wherein they offered career advancements for persons who had little standing and few opportunities under the preceding Japanese dominated regime. These new elites from poor working and peasant families became the core supporters of the North Korean regime today. In addition, this book argues that, in the aftermath of the Korean War, a culture of victimization was established among North Koreans which allowed Kim Il Sung to use this culture of fear to build and maintain the garrison state. Thus, this work illustrates how the North Korean regime has garnered popular support for the continuation of a militarized state, despite the great hardships the people are suffering. This book will be of much interest to students of North Korea, the Korean War, Asian politics, Cold War Studies, military and strategic studies, and international history.

Harold Gibbons, the leader of St. Louis's Teamsters Union, was for years the right-hand man of Jimmy Hoffa, the union's national boss. A progressive himself, Gibbons fought and defeated Communists and mobsters in his own town. He was also instrumental in ending racial discrimination in St. Louis. On the other hand, he was forced to watch helplessly as Hoffa forged an alliance with other mobsters mob to use Teamster money to build-and then steal from-Las Vegas casinos. Gibbons and Hoffa fell out in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Hoffa hated the Kennedys, whereas Gibbons led the union in mourning the president's death. In the end, of course, Hoffa was kidnapped and murdered by the mob. Gibbons's many friends included the singer Frank Sinatra and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. This book reveals for the first time the full story of Gibbons's secret work secretly with Kissinger and Hoffa to bring an end to the Vietnam War.

By January 1968 the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces, announced a new phase of the war in which 'the end begins to come into view.' The North Vietnamese had different ideas. In mid-1967, the leadership in Hanoi had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke. Part military action and part popular uprising, the Tet Offensive included attacks across South Vietnam, but the most dramatic and successful would be the capture of Hue, the country's cultural capital. At 2:30 a.m. on January 31, 10,000 National Liberation Front troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. By morning, all of Hue was in Front hands save for two small military outposts. The commanders in country and politicians in Washington refused to believe the size and scope of the Front's presence. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the U.S. and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple points of view. Played out over twenty-four days of terrible fighting and ultimately costing 10,000 combatant and civilian lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. In Hue 1968, Bowden masterfully reconstructs this pivotal moment in the American war in Vietnam.

At the end of October 1969, 5,000 North Vietnamese Army regulars surrounded a force of 150 American soldiers and their South Vietnamese allies at a firebase in a far-flung corner of Vietnam. The situation was desperate and, despite initial attempts to resupply the base, soon became untenable. It was fight on and meet near-certain death or capture--or attempt an escape. Led by a pair of no-nonsense Special Forces soldiers, the Americans and their allies chose escape, which was a harrowing five-hour experience conducted across two and a half miles of enemy-infested ground in the dark of night. This story of against-all-odds bravery is also a cautionary tale about the perils of Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization, which produced the precarious situation at Fire Support Base Kate.

Who was most responsible for the Vietnam War? Did President Lyndon Johnson simply continue the policies of his predecessors, Eisenhower and Kennedy, or was he the principal architect? What responsibility did Congress share? Was the Senate a coequal partner in creating the Vietnam policy or a secondary player? Focusing on the U.S. Senate's role in the war, this history records the various senators' views in their own words. The author demonstrates that during the 20-year conflict-as throughout American history-the president was the principal formulator of policy on war and peace, including during the more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Extraordinary Valor is the true story of American Special Forces officer John Duffy, and South Vietnamese paratrooper, Le Van Me, as they fight to defend Charlie Hill, a key to holding Vietnam's Central Highlands during North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive. John Joseph Duffy was born in Brooklyn, New York; Le Van Me in a small village outside the old imperial capital of Hue in South Vietnam. Living on opposite sides of the globe, they come together in the heat of war in Southeast Asia when Major Duffy is assigned as the American advisor to the elite South Vietnamese 11th Airborne Battalion where Me is second in command. The battalion receives the order to "Fight to the death" on Charlie Hill. After two weeks of intense combat, hundreds lay dead and those still standing are out of food, water, and medical supplies. Their ammunition is nearly gone. Duffy and Me draw on their bond of friendship and trust to make a selfless two-man last stand against the final North Vietnamese human wave assault. Both are badly wounded, Duffy multiple times. Their heroic action allows 36 members of the 471-man battalion to escape and be rescued. The rest are killed, captured, or missing in action. This is their story.

The book chronicles the Navy Medical Department's participation in Vietnam, beginning with the Navy's rescue of the French survivors of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and ending with the Navy's rescue of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. When American involvement reached its peak in 1968, the 750-bed Naval Support Activity Hospital Danang (NSAH) was in full operation, and two hospital ships-the USS Repose and the USS Sanctuary-cruised offshore. Whether the situation called for saving the lives of injured sailors aboard a burning aircraft carrier or treating a critically wounded Marine for shock in the rubble-strewn streets of Hue, Navy medical personnel were in Vietnam from the beginning of American involvement to the very end, saving thousands of lives. This book tells the story of the Navy Medical Department's involvement through stark and gripping first-person accounts by patients and the Navy physicians, dentists, nurses, and hospital corpsmen who treated them. More than 50 historic photos document their work.

In 1973, the signing of the Paris Peace Accords signified the end of the Vietnam War. It meant the return of American personnel and the release of 591 American prisoners of war held captive in North Vietnam. It did not, however, mean was the return of all Americans. At the war's end, at least 2,646 individuals had not yet come home. They were missing in action. During the war, their names appeared on bracelets that were distributed across the country. After the war, their names were inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, their "missing" status indicated by a small plus. In 1995, 37 names appeared on a motorcycle placed at the Wall in recognition of the 37 MIAs from the state of Wisconsin. It remains the largest object ever left at the memorial. In this book are the stories of those 37, told by those who knew them best. Over 200 family members, friends, and fellow servicemen have recounted the childhoods, military service, and sacrifices of Wisconsin's 37 MIAs. The memories give life to the names on the bracelets and the Wall and the bike, and prove that the best way to honor them is to remember them.

'A fast-paced, thrilling account of British heroism, brave men surrounded and fighting against overwhelming odds. This is the real, sometimes shocking, and deeply personal story of modern warfare and PTSD.' Andy McNab 'This hugely timely book reveals in gripping detail the personal stories of its hidden victims - lest we forget.' Damien Lewis Trapped in an isolated outpost on the edge of the Helmand desert, a small force of British and Afghan soldiers is holding out against hundreds of Taliban fighters. Under brutal siege conditions, running low on food and ammunition, he experiences the full horror of combat. As the casualties begin to mount and the enemy closes in, Evans finds both his leadership and his belief in the war severely tested. Returning home, he is haunted by the memories of Afghanistan. He can't move on and his life begins to spin out of control. Under the Bearskin was previously published as Code Black.

When US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, they occupied a country that had been at war for 23 years. Yet in their attempts to understand Iraqi society and history, few policy makers, analysts and journalists took into account the profound impact that Iraq's long engagement with war had on the Iraqis' everyday engagement with politics, the business of managing their daily lives, and their cultural imagination. Drawing on government documents and interviews, Dina Rizk Khoury traces the political, social and cultural processes of the normalization of war in Iraq during the last twenty-three years of Ba'thist rule. Khoury argues that war was a form of everyday bureaucratic governance and examines the Iraqi government's policies of creating consent, managing resistance and religious diversity, and shaping public culture. Coming on the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, this book tells a multilayered story of a society in which war has become the norm.