Depicts the uniforms, insignia, decorations, horse equipment, and weaponry of cavalry regiments against the background of events in American military history.

The story behind the contrast and their relationship with their CIA sponsors is one of courage, villainy, political intrigue, and general craziness.

"No more Vietnams "

Just last year, a quarter century after the war in Vietnam, that battle cry brought a flag-waving nation to its feet and ignited the superpatriotism of the Gulf War era. But hard as we tried--with yellow ribbons and "We Support Our Troops" bumper stickers and Norman Schwarzkopf videos and Olympics-style homecoming celebrations--we couldn't seem to erase the disturbing memory of Vietnam.

Perhaps forgetting is not the answer. Perhaps the healing process begins with remembering. Painful, clear-headed remembering.

Even those who remember best, the men who fought in Vietnam, aren't anxious to recall their experiences--or recount them to an academician. But in Otto Lehrack they found a sympathetic audience. Lehrack is both a historian and a member of the Third Battalion, Third Marines. He fought alongside the men whose voices he recorded here. Into their accounts, Lehrack has woven a narrative that explains the events they describe and places them into both a historical and a political context.

It's a grunt's-eye view of the Vietnam War that emerges in "No Shining Armor"--the war as seen by the PFC's, sergeants, and platoon leaders in the rivers and jungles and trenches. It's the story of teenagers leading squads of men into the jungle on night missions, the story of boredom, confusion, and equipment shortages, of friends suddenly blown away, of disappointing homecomings. It's also the story of young men placed under unbearable strain and asked to do the impossible, who somehow stretched to meet the demands placed upon them, and the story of the friendships they forged in combat-friendships deeper than any these men would be able to form later in civilian life.

This is a study of the African veterans of a European war. It is a story of men from the Cote d'Ivoire, many of whom had seldom traveled more than a few miles from their villages, who served France as tirailleurs (riflemen) during World War II.
Thousands of them took part in the doomed attempt to hold back the armies of the Third Reich in 1940; many were to spend the rest of the war as prisoners in Germany or Occupied France.
Others more fortunate came under the authority of Vichy France, and were deployed in the Defense of the Motherland and its overseas possessions against the threat posed by the Allies. By 1943, the tirailleur regiments had passed into the service of de Gaulle's free French and under Allied command, played a significant role in the liberation of Europe.
In describing these complex events, Dr. Lawler draws upon archives in both France and the Cote d'Ivoire. She also carried out an extensive series of interviews with Ivoirien veterans principally, but not exclusively, from the Korhogo region. The vividness of their testimony gives this study a special character. They talk freely not only of their wartime exploits, but also of their experiences after repatriation.
Lawler allows them to speak for themselves. They express their hatred of forced labor and military conscription, which were features of the colonial system, yet at the same time reveal a pride in having come to the defense of France. They describe their role in the nationalist struggle, as foot soldiers of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, but also convey their sense of having become a lost generation. They recognize that their experiences as French soldiers had become sadly irrelevant in a new nation in quest of its history.

Uncovering the secrets behind the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, this is "a brutal, cautionary tale that serves as a painful reminder of the worst that can happen in war."—Chicago Tribune.

Cinematic representations of unconventional warfare have received sporadic attention to date. However, this pattern has now begun to change with the rise of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing importance of jihadist terrorism in the wake of 9/11. This ground-breaking study provides a much-needed examination of global unconventional warfare in 20th-century filmmaking, with case studies from the United States, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Israel. Paul B. Rich examines Hollywood's treatment of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in the United States; British post-colonial insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya and British special operations in the Second World War; the Irish conflict before and during the Troubles; French filmmaking and the reluctance to deal with the bitter war in Algeria in the 1950s; Italian neorealism and its impact on films dealing with urban insurgency by Roberto Rossellini, Nanni Loy and Gillo Pontecorvo, and Israel and the upsurge of Palestinian terrorism. Whilst only a small number of films on these conflicts have been able to rise above stereotyping insurgents and terrorists - in some cases due to a pattern of screen orientalism - Cinema and Unconventional Warfare in the Twentieth Century stresses the positive political gains to be derived from humanizing terrorists and terrorists movements, especially in the context of modern jihadist terrorism. This is essential reading for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in 20th-century military history, politics and international relations, and film studies.

The advent of war with Spain was a glorious opportunity for forceful leadership not to be missed by the hotheaded young Theodore Roosevelt. He resigned his post as assistant-secretary of the Navy in April, 1898, and, despite the strong disapproval of family and friends, he joined the Army as Lt. Colonel of a regiment to be raised in the territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. He ordered a uniform from Brooks Brothers, a dozen pairs of steel spectacles, a couple of good, stout, quiet horses," and he was off to train his volunteers at San Antonio. The Rough Riders were a most unusual regiment. Informal, independent, made up of ex-cowboys, Western bad men, and Ivy League graduates, Roosevelt's troops made a poor impression on Army regulars but provided excellent copy for the nation's newspapers. On July 22, 1898, this motley cavalry regiment waded ashore in Cuba, and before the summer was over the Rough Riders and their impatient, dynamic leader were familiar to virtually every household in the nation. Roosevelt was being considered for nomination to the governorship of New York, and his march to the Presidency had begun. From the time he left Washington to join his regiment for training in Texas to their triumphant return from Cuba, Roosevelt kept daily records of his thoughts and experiences. These jottings formed the basis of this book, by far the best firsthand story of the Spanish-American War. Published in 1899 to instant acclaim, The Rough Riders is written with Roosevelt's typical gusto. His writing is remarkable for his sure sense of personality and the spontaneity and directness of his prose. Reading the book, it is impossible not to sense the exhilaration of battle, or the moral purpose behind it all. The Rough Riders remains one of the great war stories of our time, and offers an invaluable look at one of the most colourful presidents of the United States.

Throughout an illustrious career that spanned the half-century from the Spanish-American War through World War II, Benjamin O. Davis proved that determination and diplomacy could overcome the barriers raised by racial bigotry. Today there are as many as 10,000 black officers in the army. In Davis's day there weren't more than two or three. As Marvin Fletcher's admiring but balanced portrait shows, this enormous change owes not a little to the persistent efforts and quiet dignity of Benjamin O. Davis. Davis helped "lay the foundation for the integration of the armed forces, the first major break in the wall of segregated America." Born into the black middle class of Washington, D.C., Davis maintained a lifelong love for the military, despite the debilitating effects of the army's segregation policies. Such policies repeatedly denied Davis promotions and meant " safe assignments"--Liberia, Tuskegee Institute, Wilberforce University--designed to keep him from commanding white troops. It took thirty years from his enlistment until his promotion to colonel, and another decade before he became America's first black general Promoted to brigadier general at the start of World War II, Davis headed a special section that monitored black military units at home and overseas, investigated an increasing number of racial disturbances, and bolstered the black soldier's morale. He was largely responsible for persuading the Army to try a limited form of integration. The success of that effort led to a federal mandate for the integration of the entire American armed forces.

By turns shocking, nightmarish, despairing, bitterly ironic, and, in rare instances, full of laughter, the fifty-five oral histories in The Invisible Soldier add a significant chapter to black history. The interviews disclose the brutality of the unseen wars black servicemen fought when confronted with the official army policy of segregation and by attitudes in southern communities, as well as overseas.

"Men of Bronze" takes up one of the most important and fiercely debated subjects in ancient history and classics: how did archaic Greek hoplites fight, and what role, if any, did hoplite warfare play in shaping the Greek polis? In the nineteenth century, George Grote argued that the phalanx battle formation of the hoplite farmer citizen-soldier was the driving force behind a revolution in Greek social, political, and cultural institutions. Throughout the twentieth century scholars developed and refined this grand hoplite narrative with the help of archaeology. But over the past thirty years scholars have criticized nearly every major tenet of this orthodoxy. Indeed, the revisionists have persuaded many specialists that the evidence demands a new interpretation of the hoplite narrative and a rewriting of early Greek history. "Men of Bronze" gathers leading scholars to advance the current debate and bring it to a broader audience of ancient historians, classicists, archaeologists, and general readers.

After explaining the historical context and significance of the hoplite question, the book assesses and pushes forward the debate over the traditional hoplite narrative and demonstrates why it is at a crucial turning point. Instead of reaching a consensus, the contributors have sharpened their differences, providing new evidence, explanations, and theories about the origin, nature, strategy, and tactics of the hoplite phalanx and its effect on Greek culture and the rise of the polis.

The contributors include Paul Cartledge, Lin Foxhall, John Hale, Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan, Peter Krentz, Kurt Raaflaub, Adam Schwartz, Anthony Snodgrass, Hans van Wees, and Gregory Viggiano.

This book is the complete history of the 6th SS Gebirgs (Mountain) Division "Nord" in WWII. Formed in 1941, "Nord" was employed along the Finnish-Lapland front against battle-tested Soviet forces from 1941-44. Following the signing of the armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1944, the division was moved to the western front. "Nord" units took part in Operation "Nordwind," the final German offensive on the western front in late December 1944, where they fought against American units for the first time. Tough defensive fighting along the Moselle and Rhine fronts followed up to the armistice in May 1945. The units of the division fought to the last, always with courage and valor, distinguishing itself as one of the best German units employed on the western front. Detailed operational history, rare combat images, maps, and personality profiles make this book the definitive history of "Nord."

Drawing on more than a half-century of research and teaching, Dennis Showalter presents a fresh perspective on the German Army during World War I. Showalter surveys an army at the heart of a national identity, driven by - yet also defeated by - warfare in the modern age, which struggled to capitalize on its victories and ultimately forgot the lessons of its defeat.

Exploring the internal dynamics of the German Army and detailing how the soldiers coped with the many new forms of warfare, Showalter shows how the army's institutions responded to, and how Germany itself was changed by war. Detailing the major campaigns on the Western and Eastern fronts and the forgotten war fought in the Middle East and Africa, this comprehensive volume, now publishing in paperback, examines the army's operational strategy, the complexities of campaigns of movement versus static trench warfare, and the effects of changes in warfare.

In 1979 the Soviet Union moved from military `help' to active intervention in Afghanistan. Four-fifths of the Afghan National Army deserted in the first year of the war, which, compounded with the spread and intensification of the rebellion led by the formidable guerrilla fighters of the Mujahideen, forced the Soviets to intensify their involvement. The Soviet army was in generally poor condition when the war started, but the troops of the airborne and air assault units were better trained and equipped. As a result they developed aggressive, sometimes effective tactics against an enemy that refused to behave the way most Soviet commanders wished him to. Featuring specially commissioned artwork, this absorbing study examines the origins, combat role and battlefield performance of the Soviet Union's paratroopers and their Mujahideen adversaries during the long and bloody Soviet involvement in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The M24 Chaffee was the finest light tank developed by the US during WWII. This tank was developed by Cadillac, which, along with farm equipment manufacturer Massey-Harris, produced the vehicles. These tanks were used by the US during WWII and Korea and, during the post-WWII era, were supplied to numerous allied nations. This book chronicles the development and use of the vehicle from concept to combat. Through dozens of archival photos, many never before published, as well as detailed photographs of some of the finest existent examples of these vehicles, this iconic tank hunter is explored and its history is explained.

Ranging from war journalism to crime stories to profiles on influential leaders to pieces on sports, gambling and the impending impact of supercomputers on the practice of medicine, this collection is Bowden at his best. Pieces that will appear in the collection include, "The Three Battles of Wanat", which tells the story of a bloody engagement in Afghanistan and the extraordinary years-long fallout within the US military, "The Drone Warrior," in which Bowden examines the strategic, legal and moral issues surrounding armed drones, and "The Case of the Vanishing Blonde," which first appeared in Vanity Fair and recounts the chilling story of a woman who went missing from a Florida hotel only to turn up near the Everglades, brutally beaten, raped and still alive. Also included are profiles on a diverse range of notable and influential people such as Joe Biden, Kim Jong-un, Judy Clarke who is well known for defending America's worst serial killers and David Simon, the creator of the successful HBO series The Wire.

The German Panzerjager, or Panzerjagertruppe, was one of the most innovative fighting arms of World War II and its story has never properly been told. Many books have focused on an element of the story - the Hetzer, Jagdpanzer, Jagdpanther - but this is the first time that the whole story of the development and organization of Nazi Germany's anti-tank force will have been covered, from its earliest origins in World War I, through its development in the interwar period, and its baptism of fire in the early days of World War II. This is the first of two volumes that will trace the story through the glory years of Blitzkrieg and the improvements that were made when Soviet tanks were first encountered, leading to new weapons, tactics and organization. It is packed with previously unpublished wartime photographs, combat reports, and detailed charts and statistics to give an unparalleled account of this unique arm of the Wehrmacht.

When the Civil War began in 1861, the men of the Cumberland Mountain districts of Tennessee and Kentucky chose sides and pursued a private war with each other. Often motivated by vengeance and vendetta, their armed bands had only irregular connections with either the Union or Confederate armies. Their fighting was deadly, with little regard for rules of engagement and with little quarter given.

The most infamous of their number was Champ Ferguson, whose guerilla exploits were interspersed with periods of service as a scout for Morgan's Men and as a member of Joe Wheeler's cavalry. By the end of the Civil War, Ferguson was accused of personally killing fifty-three people, including children, the elderly and wounded soldiers in their hospital beds. In this classic study, first published in 1942, Thurman Sensing provides the only available book-length account of Champ Ferguson's brutal deeds, his capture, his trial and his execution (or according to one version, the ruse by which he escaped hanging) at the end of the war.

Though there is little that is admirable in Champ Ferguson's story, this fascinating account of his life, long regarded as a collector's item by Civil War buffs, adds a unique dimension to our understanding of the horrors of America's Civil War.

Despite being the inventor of the tank and responsible for campaign-winning tactics, by the start of the Second World War the United Kingdom had fallen well behind other nations in the design and build of armoured vehicles. Here, William Suttie uncovers the history of tank design from a government perspective and the decisions and failures that led to that state of affairs, and details the formation of the Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment at Chertsey. Known as the Tank Factory, the Chertsey establishment sought to ensure that the United Kingdom became world-leading in the field of military vehicle research and design, and that the British Army would never be underprotected or outgunned again. Drawing on unpublished sources and photographs, this fascinating book reveals the establishment's history, its groundbreaking research and its inventions and designs, including first-hand insights from those who worked there.

In a rousing account of one of the critical turning points in American history, "Through the Perilous Fight" tells the gripping story of the burning of Washington and the improbable last stand at Baltimore that helped save the nation and inspired its National Anthem.
In the summer of 1814, the United States of America teetered on the brink of disaster. The war it had declared against Great Britain two years earlier appeared headed toward inglorious American defeat. The young nation's most implacable nemesis, the ruthless British Admiral George Cockburn, launched an invasion of Washington in a daring attempt to decapitate the government and crush the American spirit. The British succeeded spectacularly, burning down most of the city's landmarks--including the White House and the Capitol--and driving President James Madison from the area. As looters ransacked federal buildings and panic gripped the citizens of Washington, beleaguered American forces were forced to regroup for a last-ditch defense of Baltimore. The outcome of that "perilous fight" would help change the outcome of the war--and with it, the fate of the fledgling American republic.
In a fast-paced, character-driven narrative, Steve Vogel tells the story of this titanic struggle from the perspective of both sides. Like an epic novel, "Through the Perilous Fight" abounds with heroes, villains, and astounding feats of derring-do. The vindictive Cockburn emerges from these pages as a pioneer in the art of total warfare, ordering his men to "knock down, burn, and destroy" everything in their path. While President Madison dithers on how to protect the capital, Secretary of State James Monroe personally organizes the American defenses, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, a prominent Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key embarks on a mission of mercy to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. His journey will place him with the British fleet during the climactic Battle for Baltimore, and culminate in the creation of one of the most enduring compositions in the annals of patriotic song: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the burning of Washington was a devastating national tragedy that ultimately united America and renewed its sense of purpose. "Through the Perilous Fight" combines bravura storytelling with brilliantly rendered character sketches to recreate the thrilling six-week period when Americans rallied from the ashes to overcome their oldest adversary--and win themselves a new birth of freedom.
Praise for "Through the Perilous Fight
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"Very fine storytelling, impeccably researched . . . brings to life the fraught events of 1814 with compelling and convincing vigor."--Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "An Army at Dawn"
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"Probably the best piece of military history that I have read or reviewed in the past five years. . . . This well-researched and superbly written history has all the trappings of a good novel. . . . No one who hears the national anthem at a ballgame will ever think of it the same way after reading this book."--Gary Anderson, "The Washington Times"
" Steve] Vogel does a superb job. . . . A] fast-paced narrative with lively vignettes."--Joyce Appleby, "The Washington Post"
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"Before 9/11 was 1814, the year the enemy burned the nation's capital. . . . A splendid account of the uncertainty, the peril, and the valor of those days."--Richard Brookhiser, author of" James Madison"
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"A swift, vibrant account of the accidents, intricacies and insanities of war."--"Kirkus Reviews"

"From the Hardcover edition."

William Brown's autobiography is a unique historical document, since he is the only memoirist to have come to light from the ranks of the 45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot for the period of the Peninsula War - a regiment that was one of Wellington's longest-serving and most valiant in that turbulent era, a proud member of Sir Thomas Picton's 'Fighting' Third Division. William was born in Kilmarnock in 1788, the son of a poor cobbler, but seems to have been given a good education since the narrative is clear and lively, with many learned literary references. Like many young men, William Brown originally volunteered into the militia, Britain's second-line army intended for home defence only. And like a goodly percentage of these young men, he found that the life more-or-less agreed with him, and willingly took the bounty on offer to volunteer into the regular army a few weeks after Wellington's victory at Talavera. In the next five years he served at Busaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Madrid, Vittoria, Orthez, and Toulouse, and his descriptions of these actions provide worthy additions to our knowledge of these great battles. William seems to have been generally a reliable soldier, often 'on command' doing ancillary regimental service involving a degree of trust, including service as an officer's batman. His outrage at the antics of his fellow-soldiers in the sack of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz is palpable. Nonetheless, he occasionally seems to have slipped into questionable behaviour and comes across in the text as a bit of a 'likeable rogue'. His romantic pursuits also get plenty of coverage in the text. William's pen-portraits of commanders such as Picton, Kempt, Pakenham, and Brisbane are revealing, and he was not slow in criticising his senior battalion officers or their actions; nor indeed is the Duke of Wellington above William's barbed criticism. Maps are provided to allow the reader to understand the route travelled within Portugal and Spain by William and the 45th Regiment in those turbulent years, and the whole text is annotated by historian Steve Brown, an expert on the 45th and its deeds in the Napoleonic era.

Cady Hoyte, like many other young lads of his generation, proudly joined the army in 1915 to fight for his King and Country. From the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton, he joined the Warwickshire Yeomanry as a gunner in the Machine Gun Corps and quickly found that army life made no concessions for an eager young 19 year old. Never having ridden a horse before, he develops a relationship with the horses, which made it all the harder when he had to say farewell and leave them behind to sail aboard the stricken ship, the Leasowe Castle, to fight in the trenches of France. Written with humour, Cady's diary gives a detailed account of the daily struggles and constant dangers of army life in the First World War without ever losing sight of his respect for human life.

Military historian and museum curator Daniel Peterson has been active in the field of 'living history' for may years, and has marched and ridden hundreds of miles across Europe to recreate the day-to-day experiences of the Roman soldiers of 2,000 years ago. In this book the 500-year story of the evolution of the Roman legionary, his armour and equipment is told by means of vivid colour photographs of authentic reconstructions.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Britain's manpower crisis forced them to turn to a previously untapped resource: women. For years it was thought women would be incapable of serving in uniform, but the ATS was to prove everyone wrong. Formed in 1938, the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service was a remarkable legion of women; this is their story. They took over many roles, releasing servicemen for front-line duties. ATS members worked alongside anti-aircraft gunners as 'gunner-girls', maintained vehicles, drove supply trucks, operated as telephonists in France, re-fused live ammunition, provided logistical support in army supply depots and employed specialist skills from Bletchley to General Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims. They were even among the last military personnel to be evacuated from Dunkirk. They grasped their new-found opportunities for education, higher wages, skilled employment and a different future from the domestic role of their mothers. They earned the respect and admiration of their male counterparts and carved out a new future for women in Britain. They showed great skill and courage, with famous members including the young Princess Elizabeth (now about to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee as Britain's Queen) and Mary Churchill, Sir Winston's daughter. Girls in Khaki reveals their extraordinary achievements, romances, heartbreaks and determination through their own words and never-before published photographs.

It was on 14 June 1944, D+8, that the tanks of the 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps began to disembark on Gold Beach during the Normandy landings. Delayed in going ashore, the regiment's tanks had been sorely missed by the infantry - and consequently the men of the 144th soon found themselves in action. It was the start of a long and bitter campaign that would take them across North West Europe into the heart of Germany. During that advance the regiment took part in a number of important actions. These included Operation Pomegranate (July 1944), Operation Totalize, an innovative night attack which was one of the final steps to breaking out of the Caen bridgehead (7/8 August 1944), the siege and capture of Le Havre, the fighting in Holland during late 1944, the crossing of the Rhine (by which time the regiment had been equipped with amphibious Buffaloes and during which it carried the flag which accompanied the first British tanks to cross the Rhine after the end of the First World War), and the capture of Bremen just before the end of the war in Europe. The author began to investigate the regiment's service through his late father-in-law, Captain R.W. Thorne, who had been officer in it during the war. As well as extensive interviews with him about the regiment and the campaign, this book draws on a variety of contemporary sources - not least of which are the archives of fellow officer Marcus Cunliffe. Cunliffe, who went on to become a distinguished British scholar and author who specialized in American Studies after the war (particularly military and cultural history), had kept a detailed and graphic diary and written a number of lively and informative accounts - all of which are now in the George Washington University in Washington DC. Unsurprisingly, Cunliffe's work features heavily in this publication. Arromanches to the Elbe is a serious contribution to the history of the Second World War. As well as exploring all aspects of army life, such as training and what might be called the social history of an active service unit, this book will appeal to those interested in the campaign in Europe as a whole, the use of tanks and armoured warfare in general, and, of course, the final battles to defeat Hitler's Third Reich.