The Battle of An Loc was one of the bloodiest battles in the Vietnam War and a defining moment in the history of the Republic of South Vietnam. A few square blocks tucked among vast rubber tree plantations, the provincial town was thought to be of little strategic value to the North Vietnamese. Yet for 66 days in 1972, it was the scene of savage house-to-house street fighting as artillery and mortar fire pounded the town daily until almost nothing was left standing. Facing three North Vietnamese infantry divisions, General Le Van Hyng defended the town with 7,500 men, vowing to "die with An Loc". A decisive victory for the South Vietnamese, the battle came at a time when the United States had begun pulling out of Vietnam and few American troops were on the ground. No foreign reporters were on hand and the action was ignored or misreported by the world press. This book tells the story of An Loc from the unique perspective of an officer who shared a bunker with the general during the fight.

Britain's peacekeeping role in Southeast Asia after World War II was clear enough but the Commonwealth's purpose in the region later became shadowy. British involvement in the wars fought in Vietnam between 1946 and 1975 has been the subject of a number of books-most of which focus on the sometimes clandestine activities of politicians-and unsubstantiated claims about British support for the United States' war effort have gained acceptance. Drawing on previously undiscovered information from Britain's National Archives, this book discusses the conduct of the wars in Vietnam and the political ramifications of UK involvement, and describes Britain's actual role in these conflicts: supplying troops, weapons and intelligence to the French and U.S. governments while they were engaged in combat with Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnamese.

Peace in the Mountains analyzes student activism at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio University, and West Virginia University during the Vietnam War era. Drawing from a wide variety of sources including memoirs, periodicals, archival manuscript collections, and college newspapers such as The Pitt News, author Thomas Weyant tracks the dynamics of a student-led campus response to the war in real time and outside the purview of the national media. Along the way, he musters evidence for an emerging social and political conscience among the student bodies of northern Appalachia, citing politics on campus, visions of patriotism and dissent, campus citizenship, antiwar activism and draft resistance, campus issues, and civil rights as major sites of contention and exploration.Through this regional chronicle of student activism during the Vietnam War era, Weyant holds to one reoccurring and unifying theme: citizenship. His account shows that political activism and civic engagement were by no means reserved to students at elite colleges; on the contrary, Appalachian youth were giving voice to the most vexing questions of local and national responsibility, student and citizen identity, and the role of the university in civil society. Rich in primary source material from student op-eds to administrative documents, Peace in the Mountains draws a new map of student activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. Weyant's study is a thoughtful and engaging addition to both Appalachian studies and the historiography of the Vietnam War era and is sure to appeal not only to specialists-Appalachian scholars, political historians, political scientists, and sociologists-but to college students and general readers as well.

Since its dedication in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become an American cultural icon symbolizing the war in Vietnam--the defining experience of the Baby Boom generation. The black granite wall of names is one of the most familiar media images associated with the war, and after three decades the memorial remains one of the nation's most visited monuments. While the memorial has enjoyed broad acceptance by the American public, its origins were both humble and contentious. A grassroots effort launched by veterans with no funds, the project was completed in just three and a half years. But an emotional debate about aesthetics and the interpretation of heroism, patriotism and history nearly doomed the project. Written from an insider's perspective, this book tells the complete story of the memorial's creation amid Washington politics, a nationwide design competition and the heated controversy over the winning design and its creator.

Professor Havens analyzes the efforts of Japanese antiwar organizations to portray the war as much more than a fire across the sea" and to create new forms of activism in a country where individuals have traditionally left public issues to the authorities. This path-breaking study examines not only the methods of the protesters but the tightrope dance performed by Japanese officials forced to balance outspoken antiwar sentiment with treaty obligations to the U.S.

Originally published in 1987.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

'My fingers close around the trigger. I pause for a split second to think about the bullets I am about to spray across the ground. After today, I'll no longer be the new girl.' Captain Charlotte Madison is blonde, beautiful and flies Apache helicopters for a living. She has completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan and is currently fighting on the frontline in her third. DRESSED TO KILL shows us what life is like for a girl in a resolutely male-dominated environment. But she isn't just a woman in a man's world, she's a woman women aspire to be - glamorous as well as brave, and beating the men at their own game. Only a tiny percentage of people can multi-task to the extreme level the aircraft demands, and most airmen who try to qualify as an Apache pilot fail. Full of the exciting, adrenaline-filled action that has made other military memoirs so successful, DRESSED TO KILL is also unique. A highly intelligent and brilliant young woman, Charlotte is Britain's first female Apache pilot, and the first British female pilot to kill in an Apache. We have, quite simply, never seen the landscape of 21st-century frontline conflict from a perspective like hers. DRESSED TO KILL will appeal to anyone interested in current affairs, but it will also speak to a whole generation of young women who will relate to 27-year-old Charlotte in a way they never imagined possible.

Lee Kuan Yew is one of the most influential leaders in Asia. In this illuminating account, Lee writes frankly about his disapproving approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy, and inherited intelligence, aiming always “to be correct, not politically correct.”Since it’s independence in 1965, tiny Singapore – once a poor and decrepit colony – has risen to become a rich and thriving Asian metropolis.From Third World to First is a fascinating and insightful account of Singapore’s survival from a history of oppressive colonialism, the Second World War and major poverty and disorder.Lee also uses previously unpublished official government reports and papers to explain how he led a tiny country into becoming a prosperous and secure modern society, amid the constant hostility of world politics.Today Singapore boasts not only to have the busiest port of trade, best airport with the world’s number one airline, but also the world’s fourth-highest per capita real income? An Island hailed as the city of the future, Singapore’s miraculous history is dramatically recounted by the man who not only lived through it all but fearlessly forged ahead and brought about most of the changes.Lee highlights is relationships with his political peers from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to George Bush and poetry-spouting Jiang Zemin. Also a father of three Lee writes warmly of his family life.From Third World to First offers readers a compelling glimpse not only into the heart but also the mind of an incredibly influential man who is impossible to ignore in Asian and international politics.

Colonel Stuart Tootal is the first senior commander to provide an account of the fighting in Afghanistan. A gritty portrayal of unforgiving conflict, Danger Close captures the essence of combat, the risks involved and the aftermath. 3 PARA was the first unit into Helmand in 2006. Sent on a peace mission, it became engaged in a level of combat that has not been experienced by the British Army since the end of the Korean War. Undermanned and suffering from equipment shortages, 3 PARA fought doggedly to win the break in battle. Numerous gallantry decorations were awarded, but they were not without cost. On returning from Afghanistan, Tootal fought to get proper treatment for his wounded and feeling frustrated with the Government's treatment of its soldiers, he resigned from the Army. This is a dramatic, and often moving insight into the leadership of soldiers and the sharp end of war.

Although the Paris Peace Accords ended direct United States military involvement in Vietnam on January 27, 1973, the process of withdrawal lasted over three years. This illuminating volume chronicles this withdrawal, its background, and its impact through a combination of official history and first-person accounts from key players at every level. Brief historical narratives join recollections from U.S. servicemen and support staff, North and South Vietnamese soldiers, and such notable figures as Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Richard Nixon to reveal the human story behind the history. With a biographical dictionary summarising the lives of important individuals mentioned in the text, a glossary of unusual terms and acronyms, and an analysis of the war casualties under each U.S. president, this volume provides a singular perspective on the Vietnam War's denouement.

No Wider War is the second volume of a two-part exploration of America's involvement in Indochina from the end of World War II to the Fall of Saigon. Following on from the first volume, In Good Faith, which told the story from the Japanese surrender in 1945 through America's involvement in the French Indochina War and the initial advisory missions that followed, it traces the story of America's involvement in the Vietnam War from the first Marines landing at Da Nang in 1965, through the traumatic Tet Offensive of 1968 and the gradual Vietnamisation of the war that followed, to the withdrawal of American forces and the final loss of the South in 1975. Drawing on the latest research, unavailable to the authors of the classic Vietnam histories, including recently declassified top secret National Security Agency material, Sergio Miller examines in depth both the events and the key figures of the conflict to present a masterful narrative of America's most divisive war.

Using archival photographs sourced directly from Vietnam, specially commissioned diagrams and combat accounts from veterans, István Toperczer reveals how the MiG-21 defended Vietnam between 1966 and 1968. One of the most successful communist jet fighters ever built, the MiG-21 "Fishbed" was involved in a series of deadly duels with American fighters over North Vietnam as the USAF and US Navy ramped up strike missions during Operation Rolling Thunder, culminating in the destruction of over 70 US aircraft for the loss of 35 "Fishbeds." Having honed their skills on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnam People's Air Force received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile-equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the American crews striking at targets deep into communist territory. Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter’s air search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills. The best fighter then available to the VPAF, more than 200 MiG-21s (of various sub-types) were supplied to the North Vietnamese. In this study, leading VPAF authority István Toperczer analyzes the tactics used by the MiG-21 pilots over the bitter fighting in North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. The highspeed ‘hit and run’ attacks employed by the communist pilots proved to be very successful, with both R-3S air-to-air missiles and heavy-caliber cannon inflicting a rising toll on American jets. Using first-hand accounts from MiG-21 pilots, battlescene artwork, combat ribbon diagrams, and armament views, the author details the important role played by the "Fishbed" in the defense of North Vietnam.

Deborah L. Jaramillo investigates cable news' presentation of the Iraq War in relation to "high concept" filmmaking. High concept films can be reduced to single-sentence summaries and feature pre-sold elements; they were considered financially safe projects that would sustain consumer interest beyond their initial theatrical run. Using high concept as a framework for the analysis of the 2003 coverage of the Iraq War paying close attention to how Fox News and CNN packaged and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq Ugly War, Pretty Package offers a new paradigm for understanding how television news reporting shapes our perceptions of events."

This is a study of the Korean War of 1950-1953 from the inside--the nuts and bolts of armed conflict. The perspective is American, with the principal focus on the relationships of the people involved: Koreans versus Koreans, Americans and Koreans, Americans and Chinese, and the U.S. and its allies. The lives of ordinary soldiers are examined--U.S. forces, with attention paid to the other side as well. A major development in American ranks was the effective elimination of racial segregation. At home, there were surveys of Americans' opinions about the war. The book examines such important aspects of military operations as supplies, equipment and weapons, tactics and strategy, intelligence, and psychological warfare. Also studied is the vexing matter of prisoners of war--on both sides. Finally, there is an effort to fit Korea into the generalities of American military experience in Asia, from the war with Japan to Vietnam.

In the decades after World War II, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian contractors across Asia and the Pacific found work through the U.S. military. Recently liberated from colonial rule, these workers were drawn to the opportunities the military offered and became active participants of the U.S. empire, most centrally during the U.S. war in Vietnam. Simeon Man uncovers the little-known histories of Filipinos, South Koreans, and Asian Americans who fought in Vietnam, revealing how U.S. empire was sustained through overlapping projects of colonialism and race making. Through their military deployments, Man argues, these soldiers took part in the making of a new Pacific world-a decolonizing Pacific-in which the imperatives of U.S. empire collided with insurgent calls for decolonization, producing often surprising political alliances, imperial tactics of suppression, and new visions of radical democracy.

An expertly written, illustrated new analysis of the Desert Storm air campaign fought against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which shattered the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in just 39 days, and revolutionized the world's ideas about modern air power. Operation Desert Storm took just over six weeks to destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine: a 39-day air campaign followed by a four-day ground assault. It shattered what had been the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force, and overturned conventional military assumptions about the effectiveness and value of air power. In this book, Richard P. Hallion, one of the world's foremost experts on air warfare, explains why Desert Storm was a revolutionary victory, a war won with no single climatic battle. Instead, victory came thanks largely to a rigorously planned air campaign. It began with an opening night that smashed Iraq's advanced air defense system, and allowed systematic follow-on strikes to savage its military infrastructure and field capabilities. When the Coalition tanks finally rolled into Iraq, it was less an assault than an occupation. The rapid victory in Desert Storm, which surprised many observers, led to widespread military reform as the world saw the new capabilities of precision air power, and it ushered in today's era of high-tech air warfare.

This absorbing study casts light on the tactics, weapons and combat effectiveness of the US Marines and North Korean soldiers who fought one another in August and September 1950. Equipped with Soviet tanks and bolstered by a cadre of combat veterans returning from the Chinese Civil War, North Korea's army launched its surprise offensive against the Republic of Korea on 25 June 1950; within days Seoul had fallen and the majority of South Korea's divisions had been shattered. American ground troops rushed to Korea also seemed incapable of stopping the rapidly advancing North Koreans. By August, the remnants of the South Korean and US Army divisions had been pushed into a small corner around the port of Pusan, their backs to the sea. Time was also running out for the North Koreans; virtually all of their planning and preparations were based on a two-month campaign. Although the North Korean People's Army had enjoyed an impressive string of victories, its losses were no longer being replaced in the needed quantity or quality. It was truly a do-or-die moment for both sides. In the wake of World War II, the United States Marine Corps had shrunk from 473,000 men in 1945 to only 70,000 in 1950. Despite its heavily slashed budget and manpower, the Marine Corps responded swiftly and decisively. Active-duty Marines from all over the globe gathered and for once the Marine Corps even received some of the latest American military equipment; it was the Marines' esprit de corps that made the real difference, however. Using first-hand accounts and specially commissioned artwork, this study assesses the KPA and US Marine Corps troops participating in three crucial battles - Hill 342, the Obong-Ni Ridge and the Second Battle of Seoul - to reveal the tactics, weapons and combat effectiveness of both sides' fighting men in Korea in 1950.

Now in its second edition, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam provides a fresh approach to understanding the American combat soldier's experience in Vietnam by focusing on the day-to-day experiences of front-line troops. The book delves into the Vietnam combat soldier's experience, from the decision to join the army, life in training and combat, and readjusting to civilian life with memories of war. By utilizing letters, oral histories, and memoirs of actual veterans, Kyle Longley and Jacqueline Whitt offer a powerful insight into the minds and lives of the 870,000 "grunts" who endured the controversial war. Important topics such as class, race, and gender are examined, enabling students to better analyze the social dynamics during this divisive period of American history. In addition to an updated introduction and epilogue, the new edition includes expanded sections on military chaplains, medics, and the moral injury of war. A new timeline provides details of major events leading up to, during, and after the war. A truly comprehensive picture of the Vietnam experience for soldiers, this volume is a valuable and unique addition to military history courses and classes on the Vietnam War and 1960s America.

On 25 June 1950 the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.

Max Hastings drew on first-hand accounts of those who fought on both sides to produce this vivid and incisive reassessment of the Korean War, bringing the military and human dimensions into sharp focus. Critically acclaimed on publication, with a brand new introduction, The Korean War remains the best narrative history of this conflict.

In January 1966, navy nurse Lieutenant Kay Bauer stepped off a pan am airliner into the stifling heat of Saigon and was issued a camouflage uniform, boots, and a rifle. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she said of the weapon. "I'm a nurse."

Bauer was one of approximately six thousand military nurses who served in Vietnam. Historian Kim Heikkila here delves into the experiences of fifteen nurse veterans from Minnesota, exploring what drove them to enlist, what happened to them in-country, and how the war changed their lives.

Like Bauer, these women saw themselves as nurses first and foremost: their job was to heal rather than to kill. after the war, however, the very professional selflessness that had made them such committed military nurses also made it more difficult for them to address their own needs as veterans. Reaching out to each other, they began healing from the wounds of war, and they turned their energies to a new purpose: this group of Minnesotans launched the campaign to build the Vietnam Women's Memorial. In the process, a collection of individuals became a tight-knit group of veterans who share the bonds of a sisterhood forged in war.

Kim Heikkila is an adjunct instructor in the history department at St. Catherine University, where she teaches courses on U.S. history, U.S. women's history, the Vietnam War, and the 1960s.

Bringing together both contemporary and historical just war concepts, Peter Lee shows that Blair's illusion of morality evaporated quickly and irretrievably after the 2003 Iraqinvasion because the ideas Blair relied upon were taken out of their historical context and applied in a global political system where they no longer hold sway.

The U.S. Navy SEALs have long been considered among the finest, most courageous, and professional soldiers in American military history--an elite fighting force trained as parachutists, frogmen, demolition experts, and guerrilla warriors ready for sea, air, and land combat. Born out of a proud naval tradition dating back to World War II, the first SEAL teams were commissioned in the early 1960s. Vietnam was their proving ground.

In this remarkable volume, fifteen former SEALs--most of them original founding team members, or "plankowners"--share their vivid first-person remembrances of action in Vietnam. Here are honest, brutal, and relentlessly thrilling stories of covert missions, ferocious firefights, and red-hot chopper insertions and extractions, revealing astonishing little-known truths that will only add strength to the enduring SEAL legend.

NEW PAPERBACK EDITION ' Salmon' s vivid use of recollections and dramatic quotes brings alive an unjustly forgotten conflict' Time Out With even World War II now just on the edges of living memory, and with British forces now engaged in a lengthy, brutal and attritional old-fashioned war in Afghanistan, historical attention is starting to turn to the Korean War of the early 1950s. And remarkably, the most notorious and celebrated battle in that conflict, from a British point of view, has never previously been written about at length. Andrew Salmon' s book, which has garnered excellent reviews and sold out two hardback printings already, has filled that gap. This is the story of the Battle of the Imjin River, when the British 29th Infantry Brigade, and above all the " Glorious Glosters" of the Gloster Regiment, fought an epic last stand against the largest communist offensive of the war. It lasted three days, of bitter hand-to-hand combat. By the end of it one battalion of the Glosters - some 750 men - had been reduced to just 50 survivors. Andrew Salmon' s definitive history, which gained excellent reviews in hardback and sold very steadily, is very much in the Antony Beevor mould: accessible, pacy, narrative, and painting a moving and exciting picture through the extensive use of eyewitness accounts of veterans, of whom he has tracked down and interviewed dozens. Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based journalist who writes for The Times, The Washington Times, and Forbes magazine. He first became fascinated by the battle in 2001 when he met British veterans returning to the Imjin River to mark the 50th anniversary.

A new collection of Bill Ehrhart's essays, 25 of them written between 2002 and 2011 on subjects ranging from the failures of American policymakers during the Vietnam War to life in 21st century Vietnam, from the trenches of the Western Front to the crossing of the Rhine to the mountains of Korea to the sands of Iraq, from the value of one's name to the cowardice of Congress, from mountain gorillas in Rwanda to the National Book Award-winning journalist Gloria Emerson, from teaching poetry to teenagers to luxuriating in a Japanese hot spring spa, on the famous (Wilfred Owen) and the obscure (Robert James Elliott), these essays explore the fallacies of history, the madness of war, the craft of poetry, the profession of teaching, and the art of living.