In the decades since the "forgotten war" in Korea, conventional wisdom has held that the Eighth Army consisted largely of poorly trained, undisciplined troops who fled in terror from the onslaught of the Communist forces. Now, military historian Thomas E. Hanson argues that the generalizations historians and fellow soldiers have used regarding these troops do little justice to the tens of thousands of soldiers who worked to make themselves and their army ready for war.
In Hanson's careful study of combat preparedness in the Eighth Army from 1949 to the outbreak of hostilities in 1950, he concedes that the U.S. soldiers sent to Korea suffered gaps in their professional preparation, from missing and broken equipment to unevenly trained leaders at every level of command. But after a year of progressive, focused, and developmental collective training--based largely on the lessons of combat in World War II--these soldiers expected to defeat the Communist enemy.
By recognizing the constraints under which the Eighth Army operated, Hanson asserts that scholars and soldiers will be able to discard what Douglas Macarthur called the "pernicious myth" of the Eighth Army's professional, physical, and moral ineffectiveness.

What is Leadership? Dr. Richard Berry presents a thought-provoking depiction of current leadership theories as myths because of the effort to exclude or conceal the meaning and value of emotion. This would suggest that current leadership theory is incomplete due not only to the absence of emotions but independent thought and intuition as well. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West-a husband, father of two, and a military officer with an impeccable service record including a previous award for valor-had his military career ended prematurely when he undertook extraordinary measures to protect the lives of his men. He was serving in Tikrit, Iraq, the home of the late Sadaam Hussein and dead center of what we all know today as the Sunni Triangle. He was not wounded, killed in action, or taken prisoner, but instead charged with felony offenses by the United States Army for mistreating an Iraqi detainee, who was believed to have information that was going to kill American soldiers. This book documents what the effects of leadership can be when the power of the human spirit is allowed to flourish at the individual, group and organizational levels.

A history of Japan, this work draws on a range of Japanese sources to offer an analysis of how shattering defeat in World War II, followed by over six years of military occupation by the USA, affected every level of Japanese society - in ways that neither the victor nor the vanquished could anticipate. Here is the history of an extraordinary moment in the history of Japanese culture, when new values warred with old, and when early ideals of "peace and democracy" were soon challenged by the "reverse course" decision to incorporate Japan into the Cold War Pax Americana. The work chronicles not only the material and psychological impact of utter defeat but also the early emergence of dynamic countercultures that gave primacy to the private as opposed to public spheres - in short, a liberation from totalitarian wartime control. John Dower shows how the tangled legacies of this intense, turbulent and unprecedented interplay of conqueror and conquered, West and East, wrought the utterly foreign and strangely familiar Japan of today.

Veterans in rural communities face unique challenges, who will step up to help?
Beginning with a brief scenario of a more gentle view of rural life, the book moves through learned information about families, children, and our returning National Guard and Reserve civilian military members. Return experiences will necessarily be different in rural and frontier settings than they are in suburban and urban environments. Our rural and frontier areas, especially in Western states with more isolated communities, less developed communication and limited access to medical, psychological and social services remain an important concern. This book helps provide some informed direction in working toward improving these as a general guide for mental health professionals working with Guard and Reserve members and families in rural/frontier settings. An appendix provides an in-depth list of online references for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Specific areas of concern include: Morale, deployment abroad, and stress factors Effects of terrorism on children and families at home Understanding survivor guilt Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide Preventing secondary traumatization Resiliency among refugee populations and military families Adjustment and re-integration following the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Vicarious trauma and its effects on children and adults How rural and remote communities differ from more urban ones following war experiences in readjusting military members Characteristics important in therapists/counselors working with returning military
Doherty's second volume in this new series "Crisis in the American Heartland" explores these and many other issues. Each volume available in trade paper, hardcover, and eBook formats.
Learn more at www.RMRInstitute.org
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
SOC026020 Social Science: Sociology - Rural
HIS027190 History: Military - Afghan War (2001-)

• Now available in paperback
• Winner of the 2007 American Authors Association Golden Quill Award
• Winner of the 2007 Military Writers Society of America Founder's Award

In Iraq, the front lines are everywhere - and everywhere in Iraq, no matter what their job descriptions say, women in the U.S. military are fighting--more than 155,000 of them. A critical and commercial success in hardcover, "Band of Sisters" presents a dozen groundbreaking and often heart-wrenching stories of American women in combat in Iraq, such as the U.S.'s first female pilot to be shot down and survive, the military's first black female pilot in combat, a young turret gunner defending convoys, and a nurse struggling to save lives, including her own.

Learn more now at Author Kirsten Holmstedt's website.

This book explores the important role that the Korean War played in Turkish culture and society in the 1950s. Despite the fact that fewer than 15,000 Turkish soldiers served in Korea, this study shows that the Turkish public was exposed to the war in an unprecedented manner, considering the relatively small size of the country's military contribution. It examines how the Turkish people understood the war and its causes, how propaganda was used to 'sell' the war to the public, and the impact of these messages on the Turkish public. Drawing on literary and visual sources, including archival documents, newspapers, protocols of parliamentary sessions, books, poems, plays, memoirs, cartoons and films, the book shows how the propaganda employed by the state and other influential civic groups in Turkey aimed to shape public opinion regarding the Korean War. It explores why this mattered to Turkish politicians, viewing this as instrumental in achieving the country's admission to NATO, and why it mattered to Turkish people more widely, seeing instead a war in the name of universal ideas of freedom, humanity and justice, and comparing the Turkish case to other states that participated in the war.

Military cemeteries are one of the most prominent cultural landscapes of Israel. Their story reflects largely the main social processes that Israeli society has been undergoing since the War of Independence (1948) until today. Until the end of the 1970s, the military tombstones and their surroundings were uniform and equal, according to rules set by the State. However, since the 1980s families of the fallen soldiers started to add on the tombstone personal expressions, as well as personal objects, photographs, military artifacts etc. Thus the military tombstone and the Israeli military cemetery became one of the expressions of the dramatic transformation, from a society which emphasized the importance of the collective, to a society which intensifies the significance of the individual. The book is based on many archival documents, as well as interviews and photographs, all of which shed light on one of the most sensitive issues in Israeli society and express its importance as a central component of Israeli identity.

Charts the incredible rise of South Korea, from colonisation and civil war to today's thriving nation. South Korea has a remarkable history. Born from the ashes of imperial domination, partition and a devastating war, back in the 1950s there were real doubts about its survival as an independent state. Yet South Korea endures: today it is a boisterous democracy, a vibrant market economy, a tech powerhouse, and home to the coolest of cultures. In just seventy years, this society has grown from a shrimp into a whale. What explains this extraordinary transformation? For some, it was individual South Koreans who fought to change their country, and still strive to shape it. For others, it was forward-looking political and business leaders with a vision. Either way, it's clear that this is the story of a people who dreamt big, and whose dreams came true. Shrimp to Whale is a lively history of South Korea, from its millennia-old roots, through the division of the Peninsula, dictatorship and economic growth, to today's global powerhouse.

'Soft' Counterinsurgency reviews the promise and actual achievement of Human Terrain Teams, the small groups of social scientists that were eventually embedded in every combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book, based on interviews with both HTT personnel and their military commanders, examines the military's need for sociocultural information, the ethical issues surrounding research carried out in combat zones, and the tensions between military and social science organizational cultures. The account provides a close, detailed account of HTT activities, a critical reflection on the possibilities of creating a 'softer, ' less violent counterinsurgency, and the difficulty of attempting to make war more 'intelligent' and discriminating.

War has changed over the past centuries. The war on terror and the hopes to change nations to democratic policies is an uphill and dangerous battle.

The Bush administration was remarkably successful in dominating the debate over why we had to go to war with Iraq, but it would soon be faced with the more daunting task of winning the monumental rhetorical struggle over how to write the script of the Iraq War endgame. We examine the twists and turns of the discursive battle over the war's denouement as it played out against the backdrop of the war on terror, and we conclude that while Bush failed to win the argument that Iraq was one with our fight against terrorism, his underlying worldview that we must confront terrorist evil through global military engagement remains an important component of Obama adminstration rhetoric.

Behind-enemy-lines stories of elite Marines in Vietnam Force Recon companies were the eyes and ears of the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Classified as special operations capable, Force Recon Marines ventured into the enemy's backyard to conduct reconnaissance and launched deliberate strikes against the enemy. Lanning and Stubbe blend analysis and you-are-there stories of Force Recon in action to create the definitive account of Recon Marines.

Since World War II "victim consciousness" (higaisha ishiki) has been an essential component of Japanese pacifist national identity. In his meticulously crafted narrative and analysis, James Orr reveals how postwar Japanese elites and American occupying authorities collaborated to structure the parameters of remembrance of the war, including the notion that the emperor and his people had been betrayed and duped by militarists. Fluently written and flawlessly executed, The Victim as Hero will contribute greatly to the discourses on nationalism and war responsibility in Japan.