China is modernizing her military very rapidly and as her economy strengthens, the pace of military modernization is going to touch higher trajectories. This modernization would impact and alter the existing strategic environment in the world. In the region the impact will be more profound and will force her neighbors to rework their own military modernization programs, war fighting doctrines and their present position on relations with China and other regional powers and the US. Today, in addition to issues relating to human resource development, the biggest impediment is the availability of technology to develop new modern weapon systems and equipment. Will the drivers and trends of Chinese military modernization continue to be same or will there be changes? How will the modernization impact the PLA behavior, especially in its neighborhood? How will the neighbors react to this stupendous pace of militarization in the East Asia? What will be the role of Japan, Vietnam, India, Russia and US? How will china's restive periphery and PLA respond to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism? To correctly appreciate these changes, an in-depth understanding of Chinese military modernization is essential. This book is an effort in this direction and attempts to find some answers to the questions posed. The trends of modernization of the four services of the PLA have been analyzed and a capability suggested that the PLA is likely to have by 2025.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Peter Hart, then a young oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, conducted 183 interviews with British World War I veterans. After the death of the last veteran in 2009, these interviews have become a rare and invaluable record of the Great War, as remembered by the men who experienced it. The men spoke to Hart of the familiar horrors of the war-poison gas, lice, muddy trenches, newly minted tanks, and sinking ships-enriching each memory with personal anecdote, shedding light on war's effect on soldiers both in wartime and during the years that followed. Hart now returns to these interviews in Voices from the Front. His new book not only provides a narrative timeline of the events of 1914 to 1918, but restores individuality and humanity to the men who were often treated like expendable resources. Hart uses the transcripts of these conversations as a framework on which to build a unique depiction of Britain's experience of the war-one separated from the boastful exaggerations or, alternatively, the underplaying euphemisms often found in letters mailed home or to fellow soldiers. By including the testimonies of men such as William Holbrook, who was just 15 when he enlisted, as well as Harold Bing, an anti-war demonstrator, Hart breathes new life into the experiences of both young soldiers and those who morally opposed the war. The result is history as both narrative and recollection; war experienced first-hand but looked at now from a great distance. Here is an intimate and humanized account of the first great cataclysm of the twentieth century, one endured by the men whose voices we hear in this book, and whose legacies are with us still.

In the decades since the Vietnam War, veteran memoirs have influenced Americans' understanding of the conflict. Yet few historians or literary scholars have scrutinized how the genre has shaped the nation's collective memory of the war and its aftermath. Instead, veterans' accounts are mined for colorful quotes and then dropped from public discourse; are accepted as factual sources with little attention to how memory, no matter how authentic, can diverge from events; or are not contextualized in terms of the race, gender, or class of the narrators. Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War is a landmark study of the cultural heritage of the war in Vietnam as presented through the experience of its American participants. Crossing disciplinary borders in ways rarely attempted by historians, John A. Wood unearths truths embedded in the memoirists' treatments of combat, the Vietnamese people, race relations in the United States military, male-female relationships in the war zone, and veterans' postwar troubles. He also examines the publishing industry's influence on collective memory, discussing, for example, the tendency of publishers and reviewers to privilege memoirs critical of the war. Veteran Narratives is a significant and original addition to the literature on Vietnam veterans and the conflict as a whole.

When the U.S. military repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," its official policy on homosexuality in the services, Captain Stephen Snyder-Hill was serving in Iraq. After years enduring the culture of fear and secrecy for gay soldiers, Snyder-Hill submitted a video to a Republican primary debate, asking the participants' whether, if elected, they would extend spousal benefits to legally married gay and lesbian soldiers. His video was booed by the audience on national television. Snyder Hill's story riveted the nation's attention from national news shows to an episode of HBO's "The Newsroom" to comments by President Obama. Soldier of Change not only captures the media frenzy as Snyder-Hill took his place at the forefront of this modern civil rights movement, but also documents his twenty-year journey as a gay man in the army which culminated in the most important battle of his life: defending the disenfranchised.

Military logistics is a relatively new word to describe a very old practice; the supply, movement and maintenance of an armed force both in peace time and under operational conditions. Logistic considerations are generally built into battle plans at an early stage. Without logistics, tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, aircraft are just numbers on a table of organization and equipment.Through this book an endeavor has been made to understand the logistics of People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China. An introduction to the theory of supply chain management and logistics of foreign Armies is discussed. Today 'Revolution in Military Logistics' (RML) is taking place in the People's Liberation Army. An attempt has been made to study this evolution, development and rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army logistics.

Mental health providers are essential to the Department of Defense's (DOD) delivery of health care to servicemembers and other beneficiaries. DOD's need for these providers has grown as increasing numbers of servicemembers experience life-threatening combat situations. This led to congressional attentionsuch as the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2010, which included provisions to help DOD increase the number of mental health providers it employs. This book examines how staffing levels changed in response to congressional direction; and how DOD and the military services assess current and future needs for mental health providers. Furthermore, this book reviews the extent to which Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers (VAMC) have implemented the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) nurse staffing methodology; and VHA oversees VAMCs' implementation and ongoing administration of the methodology.

"They were killing my friends." That was how Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy justified his heroic actions in World War II. As long as there have been wars, men and women in the military have watched their friends die. Experts warn that delaying our grief will complicate our lives. But what about those who have no choice but to delay it until the battle is over? In "Friend Grief and The Military: Band of Friends" you'll meet military and non-combatants who struggle with the grief and guilt of losing their friends. You'll learn, too, in the amazing ways they help each other, that "leave no one behind" is a life-long commitment.

In 1966, nine young men left the Arizona desert mining camp of Morenci to serve their country in the far-flung jungles of Vietnam, in danger zones from Hue to Khe Sanh. Ultimately, only three survived. Each battled survivor's guilt, difficult re-entries into civilian life, and traumas from personally experiencing war-and losing close friends along the way. Such stories recurred throughout America, but the Morenci Marines stood out. ABC News and Time magazine recounted their moving tale during the war, and, in 2007, the Arizona Republic selected the ""Morenci Nine"" as the most important veterans' story in state history. Returning to the soldiers' Morenci roots, Kyle Longley's account presents their story as unique by setting and circumstance, yet typical of the sacrifices borne by small towns all across America. His narrative spotlights a generation of young people who joined the military during the tumultuous 1960s and informs a later generation of the hard choices made, many with long-term consequences. The story of the Morenci Marines also reflects that of their hometown: a company town dominated by the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, where the company controlled lives and the labor strife was legendary. The town's patriotic citizens saw Vietnam as a just cause, moving Clive Garcia's mother to say, ""He died for this cause of freedom."" Yet while their sons fought and sent home their paychecks, Phelps Dodge sought to destroy the union that kept families afloat, pushing the government to end a strike that it said undermined the war effort. Morenci was also a place where cultures intermingled, and the nine friends included three Mexican Americans and one Native American. Longley reveals how their backgrounds affected their decisions to join and also helped the survivors cope, with Mike Cranford racing his Harley on back roads at high speeds while Joe Sorrelman tried to deal with demons of war through Navajo rituals. Drawing on personal interviews and correspondence that sheds new light on the Morenci Nine, Longley has written a book as much about loss, grief, and guilt as about the battlefield. It makes compelling reading for anyone who lived in that era-and for anyone still seeing family members go off to fight in controversial wars.

Initially, the author intended to write a book entitled "Alleviating Stress of the Soldier". However, after going through the extensive literature and recalling his childhood memories of war times, he decided to write "Alleviating Stress of the Soldier and Civilian". Sufficient historical evidence indicates that both soldiers as well as civilians have faced the war and tolerated its deleterious consequences simultaneously. However, a soldier and his/her family face unexpected and unpredictable stresses requiring: physical and mental fitness, character, dedication, commitment, communication, mutual understanding, adjustment, discipline, tolerance, patience, isolation, resilience, hyper-vigilance, minimum vulnerability, sanitation, nutritional stress, sleep deprivation, patriotism, and sacrifice. This book (i) confers basic knowledge of diversified stresses; (ii) prepares readers to face stresses with patience, endurance, and resilience; (iii) and presents novel strategies of alleviating physical, psychological, and physiological stresses of war-wounded soldiers, prisoners of war (POWs), and veterans. The book guides the soldiers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, SEALS (sea, air, and land), POWs, and civilians to handle their professional and family stresses without having to suffer from Combat Stress Reaction (CSR) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before, during, and/or after the war or conflict. It also guides those who experienced early childhood neglect, physical and/or sexual abuse, and other stresses of diversified origin. It is envisaged that this timely released book will be particularly of great interest to the soldier's family members, their spouses, children, parents, relatives, and friends because of its motivational messages, immediate demand, and versatility. The author hopes that this unique manuscript will encourage, motivate, excite, and guide young soldiers, civilians, and their families to tackle stresses with courage, patience, and resilience to successfully accomplish their trainings, adventurous professional career, and married life.

One of the most important public figures in antebellum America, Winfield Scott is known today more for his swagger than his sword. ""Old Fuss-and-Feathers"" was a brilliant military commander whose tactics and strategy were innovative adaptations from European military theory; yet he was often under appreciated by his contemporaries and until recently overlooked by historians. While John Eisenhower's Agent of Destiny provides a solid summary of Scott's remarkable life, Timothy D. Johnson's much deeper critical exploration of this flawed genius should become the standard work. Thoroughly grounded in an essential understanding of nineteenth-century military professionalism, it draws extensively on unpublished sources in order to reveal neglected aspects of Scott's life, present a more complete view of his career, and accurately balance criticism and praise. Johnson dramatically relates the key features of Scott's career: how he led troops to victory in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, fought against the Seminoles and Creeks, and was instrumental in professionalizing the U.S. Army, which he commanded for two decades. He also tells how Scott tried to introduce French methods into army tactical manuals, and how he applied his study of the Napoleonic Wars during the Mexico City Campaign but found European strategy of little use against Indians. Johnson further suggests that Scott's creation of an officer corps that boasted Grant, Lee, McClellan and other veterans of the Mexican War raises important questions about his influence on Civil War generalship. More than a military history, this book tells how Scott's aristocratic pretensions placed him at odds with emerging notions of equality in Jacksonian America and made him an unappealing politician in his bid for the presidency. Johnson not only recounts the facets of Scott's personality that alienated nearly everyone who knew him but also reveals the unsavory methods he used to promote his career and the scandalous ways he attempted to relieve his lifelong financial troubles. Although his legendary vanity has tarnished his place among American military leaders, Scott is shown to have possessed great talent and courage. Johnson's biography offers the most balanced portrait available of Scott by never losing sight of the whole man.

In 1965, the first incidents of armed resistance occurred in South West Africa. The military wing of SWAPO, called the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), established a base at Ongulumbashe, in northern South West Africa, from where they intended to launch their armed struggle. However, the South African Police were quick to attack the base successfully.

This set the stage for a war that would continue over the next thirty years. The Army was involved soon, and when the Portuguese left Angola in 1975, it created a vacuum which saw an entirely different situation arising. The Cubans rushed to Angola in aid of the newly established MPLA Government, while the South African Defence Force, at the request of the United States, invaded southern Angola to counter the Cuban threat, as well as establish Jonas Savimbi's Unita Party.

Over the next months and years the war escalated to new heights. There was a sudden demand for more and better arms and an even bigger demand for specialist groups within the existing military. This was quickly changed from a conventional to a counter-insurgency force. In 1968, a Special Forces group was born with the first "unconventional warfare" course. In 1969, Captain Jan Breytenbach and General Fritz Loots were the first commanders of this group. These two gentlemen are considered the fathers of the South African Special Forces.

The first group was 1 Reconnaissance Commando, followed by 4 Reconnaissance Commando. Later it was changed to Reconnaissance Regiments, and referred to as the Recces, with 1 Recce in Durban, 4 Recce in Langebaan, 5 Recce in Phalaborwa. 2 Recce were members of the civilian force, and 3 Recce was disbanded. The brave and daring exploits of the Recces became legendary, and was rated at the time on the same operational levels as the SAS, SBS, the Marines, the Seals and the Green Berets. As the war on the border between South West Africa and Angola developed, it became known as the Bush War, or Border War, a war mainly fought between South Africa and the Russian backed Cuban forces.

And here is my story. The story that was my life. The story which I have written to the best of my recollection and experience. This book was not written to discuss the technical and/or tactical aspects of Operation Argon, but to give the reader an inside glimpse into a part of my life that determined the remaining part of it. The psychological effects of these two and a half years have been huge, and I am still experiencing the effects today, thirty years later. And it will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life.

With the production and release of the documentary Plot for Peace, I realised that the time has come to write this book, to take the reader on an intriguing journey behind the scenes that few people knew about. This is where the quote from Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade: "Yours is not to reason why, Yours is but to do or die..." is so superbly depicted in a true life story. My own, in Judas Goat. My life and the lives of Corporal Rowland Liebenberg and Corporal Louis van Breda. I acknowledge the role that my fellow operators played.

This story is not about your selfless service, it's not about your respective heroics, that is why I did not elaborate your roles in Operation Argon, but rather concentrated on my own emotions, how I experienced it, and where my weaknesses and strengths were highlighted. A large part of my story cannot give documentary proof. It is based on my experience and the information conveyed to me by many sources, with whom I physically came into contact over the course of many years.

Everything in this book reflects my perception of the truth, and what had actually happened. In the end it is for the reader to decide what is truth and what is not.

After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Kenneth Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of ""later enlisters."" He offers a nuanced view of men who have often been cast as less patriotic and less committed to the cause, rekindling the debate over who these later enlistees were, why they joined, and why they stayed and fought. Noe refutes the claim that later enlisters were more likely to desert or perform poorly in battle and reassesses the argument that they were less ideologically savvy than their counterparts who enlisted early in the conflict. He argues that kinship and neighborhood, not conscription, compelled these men to fight: they were determined to protect their families and property and were fueled by resentment over emancipation and pillaging and destruction by Union forces. But their age often combined with their duties to wear them down more quickly than younger men, making them less effective soldiers for a Confederate nation that desperately needed every able-bodied man it could muster. Reluctant Rebels places the stories of individual soldiers in the larger context of the Confederate war effort and follows them from the initial optimism of enlistment through the weariness of battle and defeat.

The books title has an apparent misnomer-boots were not used in early armies, at least as apparent from temple sculptures which depict bare-bodied and barefooted soldiers. But is it likely to have been true? Or social reasons led to suppression of footgear on temple walls? The book explores these and myriad other questions on the military experience of South Asia, hoping to construct a picture of how men, animals, and equipment were used on South Asian battlefields from the end of the Paleolithic till the dawn of our era. Further, as all that happens on battlefields is no more than the tip of the proverbial iceberg whose submarine mass conceals many cause-effect relationships in a wide variety of fields, the author, adopting a wide fronted approach, examines the evidence of anthropology, literature, mythology, folklore, technology, archaeology, and architecture, to reconstructs the military atmosphere of South Asia beyond the battlefield, which is the aim of this book.

The Civil War in New Mexico began in 1861 with the Confederate invasion and occupation of the Mesilla Valley. At the same time, small villages and towns in New Mexico Territory faced raids from Navajos and Apaches. In response the commander of the Department of New Mexico Colonel Edward Canby and Governor Henry Connelly recruited what became the First and Second New Mexico Volunteer Infantry. In this book leading Civil War historian Jerry Thompson tells their story for the first time, along with the history of a third regiment of Mounted Infantry and several companies in a fourth regiment. Thompson's focus is on the Confederate invasion of 1861-1862 and its effects, especially the bloody Battle of Valverde. The emphasis is on how the volunteer companies were raised; who led them; how they were organized, armed, and equipped; what they endured off the battlefield; how they adapted to military life; and their interactions with New Mexico citizens and various hostile Indian groups, including raiding by deserters and outlaws. Thompson draws on service records and numerous other archival sources that few earlier scholars have seen. His thorough accounting will be a gold mine for historians and genealogists, especially the appendix, which lists the names of all volunteers and militia men.