From acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier, this is a highly illustrated survey of the air war over Korea. The Korean War holds a unique place in aviation history. It saw the first large-scale jet-versus-jet combat and it was the first military action of the Cold War, fought by both the newly independent United States Air Force and the recently formed Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force. In a meticulously researched volume, former RAF Tornado pilot Michael Napier unravels the complex narrative of events, describing the course of operations in the air and the major campaigns of the land war. He examines in detail the air power of the major combatants, which included North and South Korea, the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa as well as China, the USA and the USSR. Packed with stunning contemporary images and including first-hand combat reports, Korean Air War is a groundbreaking exploration of a much forgotten conflict, which nevertheless provided lessons about the organization and prosecution of modern aerial warfare that remain relevant through to the present day.

During the Korean War nearly a thousand British servicemen, along with a handful of British civilians, were captured by North Korean and Red Chinese forces. In various camps in the vicinity of Pyongyang and villages along the Yalu River these men found themselves subjected to a prolonged effort by the enemy to undermine their allegiance to the Crown and enlist them in various propaganda campaigns directed against the UN war effort. British Prisoners of the korean War is the first academic study to examine in detail exactly what happened to the major groups of British military and civilian prisoners held in different locations at various junctures between 1950 and 1953. It explores the extent to which factors such as exposure to the actions of the North Koreans as against the Red Chinese, evolving physical conditions, enemy re-education efforts, communist attempts at blackmail, British attitudes towards the Americans, and personal background and leadership qualities among captives themselves influenced the willingness and ability of the British prisoners to collaborate or resist. Thanks to the availability of hitherto classified or underutilized source materials, it is now possible to test the common popular assumption-based on official accounts and memoirs from the 1950s-that, in marked contrast to their American cousins, British captives in the Korean War were pretty much immune to communist efforts at subverting their loyalty. The results suggest that British attitudes and actions while in enemy hands were rather more nuanced and varied than previously assumed.

This volume examines the role played by notions of transcendence in the formation of social and political systems. A primary goal of the work to expand transcendence beyond its religious definition and to promote it as a means of referring to social and political discourses and practices that rely on constructions of the ideal or unattainable."

Exploring the key historical, political, and social underpinnings, James DeFronzo analyzes the impact of this defining war in the Middle East. "The Iraq War" explains the compelling and interrelated sociological and political forces that led to war, accounting for important aspects of the occupation, the development of the resistance, and the conflict's influence on other nations. Beyond a systematic study of the invasion, occupation, and the future of the U.S.-Iraq relationship, DeFronzo also covers the early history of Iraq, the British mandate, the antimonarchy revolution, and the influence of the Saddam Hussein regime and its wars--the Iran-Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf War. "The Iraq War "provides a probing analysis of the underlying factors that devastated Iraq, shook the American political system, and helped shape political developments around the world.

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.

The Vietnam War left wounds that have taken three decades to heal-indeed some scars remain even today. In A Time for Peace, prominent American historian Robert D. Schulzinger sheds light on how deeply etched memories of this devastating conflict have altered America's political, social, and cultural landscape. Schulzinger examines the impact of the war from many angles. He traces the long, twisted, and painful path of reconciliation with Vietnam, the heated controversy over soldiers who were missing in action and how it resulted in years of false hope for military families, and the outcry over Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. In addition, the book examines the influx of over a million Vietnam refugees and Amerasian children into the US and describes the plight of Vietnam veterans, many of whom returned home alienated, unhappy, and unappreciated, though some led productive post-war lives. Schulzinger looks at how the controversies of the war have continued to be fought in books and films, ranging from novels such as Going After Cacciato and Paco's Story to such movies as The Green Berets (directed by and starring John Wayne), The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Rambo. Perhaps most important, the author explores the power of the Vietnam metaphor on foreign policy, particularly in Central America, Somalia, the Gulf War, and the war in Iraq. We see how the "lessons" of the war have been reinterpreted by different ends of the political spectrum.

In Reencounters,Crystal Mun-hye Baik examines what it means to live with and remember an ongoing war when its manifestations-hypervisible and deeply sensed-become everyday formations delinked from militarization. Contemplating beyond notions of inherited trauma and post memory, Baik offers the concept of reencounters to better track the Korean War's illegible entanglements through an interdisciplinary archive of diasporic memory works that includes oral history projects, performances, and video installations rarely examined by Asian American studies scholars. Baik shows how Korean refugee migrations are repackaged into celebrated immigration narratives, how transnational adoptees are reclaimed by the South Korean state as welcomed "returnees," and how militarized colonial outposts such as Jeju Island are recalibrated into desirable tourist destinations. Baik argues that as the works by Korean and Korean/American artists depict this Cold War historiography, they also offer opportunities to remember otherwise the continuing war. Ultimately, Reencounters wrestles with questions of the nature of war, racial and sexual violence, and neoliberal surveillance in the twenty-first century.

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.

#1 New Release in Military & Wars Follow the Coming of Age Adventures of a U.S. Military Brat During the Early Vietnam War Years in Saigon.The early Vietnam war years through the eyes of a U.S. military brat: In May of 1962, Naval Chief Petty Officer Bryant Arbuckle flew to Saigon to establish a new Armed Forces radio station. Next to follow were his wife and three boys, Leslie among them. Saigon Kids is the candid, recondite slice of fourteen-year-old military brat Les Arbuckle's experience at the American Community School (ACS) during the critical months of the Vietnam War when events would, quite literally, ignite in downtown Saigon. In 1963, Saigon was beautiful, violent, and dirty and the most exciting place a fourteen-year-old American boy could live. Saigon offered a rich array of activities, and much to the consternation of their parents and teachers, Les and his fellow military brats explored the dangers with reckless abandon running from machine gun fire, watching a Buddhist monk burn to death, visiting brothels late at night or, trading currency on the black market. Coming of age in the streets of Vietnam War torn Saigon: When Les first arrives in Vietnam, he is a stranger in a strange land, expecting boredom in a country he doesn't know. But the American social scene is more vibrant than he expected. The American Community School is a blend of kids from all over the globe who arrived in Saigon as the fuse on Saigon was about to ignite. As the ACS students continue their American lifestyle behind barbed wire, Saigon unravels in chaos and destruction. In spite of this ugliness an ever-present feature of everyday life Les tells his story of teenage angst with humor and precocity. Coming of age tale with a twist: The events leading up to the Vietnam War provide an unusual backdrop for this coming-of-age tale with a twist. Saigon Kids will also make a perfect companion to the documentary film (sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts) currently in production. The film chronicles the lives of "military brats" living in Saigon in the volatile years from 1958 to 1964.

This book offers the first detailed English-language examination of the Great Vietnamese Famine of 1945, which left at least a million dead, and links it persuasively to the largely unexpected Viet Minh seizure of power only months later. Drawing on extensive research in French archives, Geoffrey C. Gunn offers an important new interpretation of Japanese-Vichy French wartime economic exploitation of Vietnam's agricultural potential. He analyzes successes and failures of French colonial rice programs and policies from the early 1900s to 1945, drawing clear connections between colonialism and agrarian unrest in the 1930s and the rise of the Viet Minh in the 1940s. Gunn asks whether the famine signaled a loss of the French administration's "mandate of heaven," or whether the overall dire human condition was the determining factor in facilitating communist victory in August 1945. In the broader sweep of Vietnamese history, including the rise of the communist party, the picture that emerges is not only one of local victimhood at the hands of outsiders-French and, in turn, Japanese- but the enormous agency on the part of the Vietnamese themselves to achieve moral victory over injustice against all odds, no matter how controversial, tragic, and contested the outcome. As the author clearly demonstrates, colonial-era development strategies and contests also had their postwar sequels in the "American war," just as land, land reform, and subsistence-sustainable development issues persist into the present.

"Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refuge(es)" examines how the Vietnam War has continued to serve as a stage for the shoring up of American imperialist adventure and for the (re)production of American and Vietnamese American identities. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, this book retheorizes the connections among history, memory, and power and refashions the fields of American studies, Asian American studies, and refugee studies not around the narratives of American exceptionalism, immigration, and transnationalism but around the crucial issues of war, race, and violence--and the history and memories that are forged in the aftermath of war. At the same time, the book moves decisively away from the "damage-centered" approach that pathologizes loss and trauma by detailing how first- and second-generation Vietnamese have created alternative memories and epistemologies that challenge the established public narratives of the Vietnam War and Vietnamese people. Explicitly interdisciplinary, "Body Counts" moves between the humanities and social sciences, drawing on historical, ethnographic, cultural, and virtual evidence in order to illuminate the places where Vietnamese refugees have managed to conjure up social, public, and collective remembering.

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.

When John F. Kennedy was shot, millions were left to wonder how America, and the world, would have been different had he lived to fulfill the enormous promise of his presidency. For many historians and political observers, what Kennedy would and would not have done in Vietnam has been a source of enduring controversy.
Now, based on convincing new evidence--including a startling revelation about the Kennedy administration's involvement in the assassination of Premier Diem--Howard Jones argues that Kennedy intended to withdraw the great bulk of American soldiers and pursue a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Vietnam.
Drawing upon recently declassified hearings by the Church Committee on the U.S. role in assassinations, newly released tapes of Kennedy White House discussions, and interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, and others from the president's inner circle, Jones shows that Kennedy firmly believed that the outcome of the war depended on the South Vietnamese. In the spring of 1962, he instructed Secretary of Defense McNamara to draft a withdrawal plan aimed at having all special military forces home by the end of 1965. The "Comprehensive Plan for South Vietnam" was ready for approval in early May 1963, but then the Buddhist revolt erupted and postponed the program. Convinced that the war was not winnable under Diem's leadership, President Kennedy made his most critical mistake--promoting a coup as a means for facilitating a U.S. withdrawal. In the cruelest of ironies, the coup resulted in Diem's death followed by a state of turmoil in Vietnam that further obstructed disengagement. Still, these events only confirmed Kennedy's view about South Vietnam's inability to win the war and therefore did not lessen his resolve to reduce the U.S. commitment. By the end of November, however, the president was dead and Lyndon Johnson began his campaign of escalation. Jones argues forcefully that if Kennedy had not been assassinated, his withdrawal plan would have spared the lives of 58,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese.
Written with vivid immediacy, supported with authoritative research, Death of a Generation answers one of the most profoundly important questions left hanging in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's death.
Death of a Generation was a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2003.

On the ground, in the air, and behind the lines, grunts made life-and-death decisions every day--and endured the worst stress of their young lives.
It was the tumultuous year 1968, and Robert Tonsetic was Rifle Company commander of the 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry in Vietnam. He took over a group of grunts demoralized by defeat but determined to get even. Through the legendary Tet and May Offensives, he led, trained, and risked his life with these brave men, and this is the thrilling, brutal, and honest story of his tour of duty. Tonsetic tells of leading a seriously undermanned ready-reaction force into a fierce, three-day battle with a ruthless enemy battalion; conducting surreal night airmobile assaults and treks through fetid, pitch-black jungles; and relieving combat stress by fishing with hand grenades and taking secret joyrides in Hueys.
During that fateful year, as unrest erupted at home and politicians groped for a way out of the war, Tonsetic and his men did their job as soldiers and earned the title "Warriors."

* Insider account of long range reconnaissance missions of 101st Airborne *Vivid depiction of fighting in the jungles of Vietnam Combat veteran Larry Chambers'timeless story of LRRPs in Vietnam is an unforgettable account of what it took it took to survive Long Range Patrol missions in jungles that the NVA considered their own. Now with a new introduction from the author, Recondo, vividly describes the guts and determination it took to pass the tough volunteer-only training program in Nha Trang and the hair-raising graduation mission to scout, locate, and out-guerrilla the NVA.

Based on extensive research in the Russian archives, this book examines the Soviet approach to the Vietnam conflict between the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina and late 1963, when the overthrow of the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and the assassination of John F. Kennedy radically transformed the conflict.
The author finds that the USSR attributed no geostrategic importance to Indochina and did not want the crisis there to disrupt detente. The Russians had high hopes that the Geneva accords would bring years of peace in the region. Gradually disillusioned, they tried to strengthen North Vietnam, but would not support unification of North and South. By the early 1960s, however, they felt obliged to counter the American embrace of an aggressively anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam and the hostility of its former ally, the People's Republic of China. Finally, Moscow decided to disengage from Vietnam, disappointed that its efforts to avert an international crisis there had failed.

In this new collection of essays on the Vietnam War, eminent scholars of the Second Indochina conflict consider several key factors that led to the defeat of the United States and its allies. The book adopts a candid and critical look at the U.S.’s stance and policies in Vietnam, and refuses to condemn, excuse, or apologize for America’s actions in the conflict. Rather, the contributors think widely and creatively about the varied reasons that may have accounted for the U.S.’s failure to defeat the North Vietnamese Army, such as role played by economics in America’s defeat. Other fresh perspectives on the topic include American intelligence failure in Vietnam, the international dimensions of America’s defeat in Vietnam, and the foreign policy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Drafted in October 1968, John A. Nesser left behind his wife and young son to fight in the controversial Vietnam War. Like many in his generation, he was deeply at odds with himself over the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, instilled with a strong sense of duty to his country but uncertain about its mission and his role in it. Nesser was deployed to the Ashau Valley, site of some of the war's heaviest fighting, and served eight months as an infantry rifleman before transferring to become a door gunner for a Chinook helicopter. In this stirring memoir, he recalls in detail the exhausting missions in the mountainous jungle, the terror of walking into an ambush, the dull-edged anxiety that filled quiet days, and the steady fear of being shot out of the sky. The accounts are richly illustrated with Nesser's own photographs of the military firebases and aircraft, the landscapes, and the people he encountered.

As long as there have been wars, victors have written the prevailing histories of the world's conflicts. An army that loses -- and especially one that is destroyed or disbanded -- is often forgotten. Nevertheless, the experiences of defeated forces can provide important insights, lessons, and perspectives not always apparent to the winning side. In Wars of Modern Babylon, Pesach Malovany provides a comprehensive and detailed history of the Iraqi military from its formation in 1921 to its collapse in 2003. Malovany analyzes Iraqi participation in the 1948, 1967, and 1973 Arab wars against Israel as well as Iraq's wars with the Kurds during the twentieth century. His primary focus, however, is the era of Saddam Hussein (1979--2003), who implemented rapid and significant military growth and fought three major wars: against Iran from 1980 to 1988, and against coalition forces led by the United States in 1991 and 2003. He examines the Iraqi military at the strategic, operative, and tactical levels; explains its forces and branches; and investigates its use of both conventional and unconventional weapons. The first study to offer a portrait of an Arab army from its own point of view, Wars of Modern Babylon features interviews with and personal accounts from officers at various levels, as well as press accounts covering the politics and conflicts of the period. Malovany also analyzes books written by key figures in the Iraqi government and the army high command. His definitive chronicle offers English speakers new and overlooked perspectives on critical developments in twentieth-century history. The book won the Israel Yitzhak Sade Award for Military Literature in 2010.

December 1967: Richard Burns had just arrived in Vietnam as part of the fourteen-man 101st Pathfinder Detachment. Within just one month, during a holiday called Tet, the Communists would launch the largest single attack of the war--and he would be right in the thick of it. . . .

In Vietnam, Richard Burns operated in live-or-die situations, risking his life so that other men could keep theirs. As a Pathfinder--all too often alone in the middle of a hot LZ--he guided in helicopters disembarking troops, directed medevacs to retrieve the wounded, and organized extractions. As well as parachuting into areas and supervising the clearing of landing zones, Pathfinders acted as air-traffic controllers, keeping call signs, frequencies, and aircraft locations in their heads as they orchestrated takeoffs and landings, often under heavy enemy fire.

From Bien Hoa to Song Be to the deadly A Shau Valley, Burns recounts the battles that won him the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and numerous other decorations. This is the first and only book by a Pathfinder in Vietnam . . . or anywhere else.

This reference work provides information on all known military operations carried out under United Nations command as part of the Korean War, from June 1950 through 22 July 1954.

Following an introductory history of the Korean War and a precise chronology of all Korean War operations, entries are arranged by operation name in five sections: primarily ground operations, primarily air operations, primarily sea operations, specialized operations, and covert and clandestine operations.

For each operation, information includes dates, objectives, units involved, place within the greater strategy of the war, and outcome.

Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan has been the longest war in American history. Even after the drawdown of NATO/ISAF forces it has cast a shadow over Afghanistan's future and highlighted the U.S. failure to gradually wind down the conflict. Today, the resurgent Taliban hold more Afghan territory than before, the civilian toll is at a record high and Afghan military casualties are rising. From sanctuaries in Pakistan and from the Afghan areas they hold, the Taliban are carrying out increasingly daring attacks, including in the capital Kabul. In declaring war in Afghanistan,in 2001, after the world's worst terrorist attack in modern history, U.S. President George W. Bush had the sympathy and support of the world. Yet before he could accomplish his war objectives in Afghanistan, he invaded and occupied Iraq. The course of the war, in Afghanistan, is explained in great detail in this book. The changes of strategies, force levels and the circumstances which brought them about bear description as the U.S. searched for a viable strategy. President Barack Obama thought that he could end the war simply by declaring it over and by making the Afghan people responsible for their own security. The role of Pakistan in this conflict also merits a detailed explanation. The continuing conflict poses a threat to regional peace. This book will be of interest to military professionals as well as the lay reader. It describes an important era of the history of South Asia.

A gripping true account of leadership in combat, focusing on Capt. George Paccerelli as he molded the men of the Army's Air Cavalry LRRP company into a successful reconnaissance unit
-- Hot combat
-- Jorgenson is one of Ballantine's most prolific and successful military authors, and books on Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols are among the most popular Vietnam titles.
-- The author served in Vietnam both as a soldier and as a journalist and spent over seven years in the military.