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Books > Humanities > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
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.
This controversial and timely book about the American experience in
Vietnam provides the first full exploration of the perspectives of
the North Vietnamese leadership before, during, and after the war.
Herbert Y. Schandler offers unique insights into the mindsets of
the North Vietnamese and their response to diplomatic and military
actions of the Americans, laying out the full scale of the
disastrous U.S. political and military misunderstandings of
Vietnamese history and motivations. Including frank quotes from
Vietnamese leaders, the book offers important new knowledge that
allows us to learn invaluable lessons from the perspective of a
victorious enemy. Unlike most military officers who served in
Vietnam, Schandler is convinced the war was unwinnable, no matter
how long America stayed the course or how many resources were
devoted to it. He is remarkably qualified to make these judgments
as an infantry commander during the Vietnam War, a Pentagon
policymaker, and a scholar who taught at West Point and National
Defense University. His extensive personal interviews with North
Vietnamese are drawn from his many trips to Hanoi after the war.
Schandler provides not only a definitive analysis of the American
failure in Vietnam but a crucial foundation for exploring the
potential for success in the current guerrilla wars the United
States is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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.
This book contains descriptions of all of the naval and riverine
weapons used by both sides during the Vietnam War. It also includes
the dates that most major weapons were involved.
Conventional wisdom holds that the US Army in Vietnam, thrust into
an unconventional war where occupying terrain was a meaningless
measure of success, depended on body counts as its sole measure of
military progress. In No Sure Victory, Army officer and historian
Gregory Daddis looks far deeper into the Army's techniques for
measuring military success and presents a much more complicated-and
disturbing-account of the American misadventure in Indochina.
Daddis shows how the US Army, which confronted an unfamiliar enemy
and an even more unfamiliar form of warfare, adopted a massive, and
eventually unmanageable, system of measurements and formulas to
track the progress of military operations that ranged from
pacification efforts to search-and-destroy missions. The Army's
monthly "Measurement of Progress" reports covered innumerable
aspects of the fighting in Vietnam-force ratios, Vietcong/North
Vietnamese Army incidents, tactical air sorties, weapons losses,
security of base areas and roads, population control, area control,
and hamlet defenses. Concentrating more on data collection and less
on data analysis, these indiscriminate attempts to gauge success
may actually have hindered the army's ability to evaluate the true
outcome of the fight at hand--a roadblock that Daddis believes
significantly contributed to the many failures that American forces
suffered in Vietnam.
Filled with incisive analysis and rich historical detail, No Sure
Victory is not only a valuable case study in unconventional
warfare, but a cautionary tale that offers important perspectives
on how to measure performance in current and future armed conflict.
Given America's ongoing counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and
Afghanistan, No Sure Victory provides valuable historical
perspective on how to measure--and mismeasure--military success.
After spending a year in Germany as a security guard with the
50th Ordnance Company, Curtis Gay went to Viet Nam as a Private
First Class. Six months later he was a Sergeant in the 25th
Infantry Division and experienced some of the most intense fighting
of the war. This book is his story.
Curtis spent a year as a Drill Sergeant at Fort Dix, New Jersey
before leaving the Army in 1968. After a long career in the
electrical industry, he is retired and lives in Durham, North
Carolina with his wife.
Part I is a compendium of World War II service recollections
embracing the unusual, bizarre and humorous, most of which never
appeared in the news or any publications. However, I do believe
readers will be very interested in the other side of war. Part II
is an incisive review of Vietnam, and why we failed or should never
have been involved militarily. Part III is a current analysis of
terrorism and the Iraq war, including a new proposal to address the
global aspects of terrorism and the Palestinian issue.
Thirty-five long years and I was still seeking answers. If I could
make someone in the government listen to the facts, I knew they'd
want to act on them. After all, who wouldn't want to find one of
our POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War? IS ANYBODY LISTENING? tells of
dignitaries, presidents and those involved with the POW/MIA issue
as I've known it since November 1968 when my husband, a Special
Forces officer, became missing-in-action. The pages reveal my
feelings and torment during my many trips to Southeast Asia in
search of answers, and my frustrations while wandering the halls of
Washington D.C. for help. The book was written to show the issue's
insidious cover-up and my commitment to the truth.
This book chronicles one man's journey through life, finding
happiness among the hardships and amusement amid the danger in
Vietnam. This vivid account takes you on an armchair ride through
an unpredictable and intriguing life. Set against the backdrop of
The War, follow this young civilian engineer, family man and
patriot through a war torn land as he strives to secure his young
family's future and seek a more meaningful purpose to his own life.
He returns home a changed man, only to confront a completely new
set of obstacles, not least of which is a country in turmoil.
In the run-up to, during and after the invasion of Iraq a large
number of literary texts addressing that context were produced,
circulated and viewed as taking a position for or against the
invasion, or contributing political insights. This book provides an
in-depth survey of such texts to examine what they reveal about the
condition of literature.
The emerging Jewish national consciousness in Europe toward the end
of the 19th century claims many spiritual fathers, some of which
have been seriously underestimated so far. Zionist intellectuals
such as Moses Hess, Leon Pinsker and Isaac Rulf were already
committed to the self-liberation of the Jewish people long before
Theodor Herzl. Their experiences and observations brought them to
believe that the emancipation and integration of Jews were not
realistically possible in Europe. Instead, they began to think in
national and territorial terms. The author explores the question as
to what extent religious messianism influenced the ideas of these
men and how this reflects in today's collective Israeli
consciousness. In a comprehensive epilogue, Julius H. Schoeps
critically correlates ideas of messianic salvation, Zionist pioneer
ideals, the settler's movement before and after 1967, and the
unsolved conflict between Israelis and Palestinians which has been
lasting for over 100 years.
The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations presents the story
of this seminal conflict as told through the words of the famous,
infamous, and anonymous. All sides of the controversy are presented
in chronological resource that starts with a look at Vietnamese
history, then traces the events preceding France's war, continues
through America's entry into the conflict, and concludes with the
war's aftermath. This is the story of the Vietnam War told through
quotations in chronological sequence. Starting with the beginnings
of Vietnamese history, it traces the events preceding the French
war, continues through the American war, and ends with its
aftermath. All sides of the controversy are represented. Here are
the voices of warriors, presidents, generals, government leaders,
civilians, aid workers, pilots, infantrymen, nurses, historians,
war correspondents, sociologists, POWs, peasants, draft dodgers,
guerillas, and war resisters. They speak from government capitals,
hooches, hospital wards, jungle trails, landing zones, aircraft
carriers, draft boards, Buddhist temples, and prison cells. They
talk of firefights, ambushes in the jungle, bombing raids, coups,
assassinations, suicides, demonstrations, atrocities, and
teach-ins. Here are Ho Chi Minh, Lyndon Johnson, Giap,
Westmoreland, Kennedy, De Gaulle, Eisenhower, Nixon, McNamara,
Kissinger, and many people you have never heard of. Meet Hanoi
Hannah, who broadcast propaganda from the North Vietnamese capital;
John McCain tells you what it was like to be shot down over enemy
territory and taken prisoner; John Kerry tells a U.S. Senate
committee why he opposes the Vietnam War. You will learn about My
Lai, Agent Orange, Kent State, the Pentagon Papers, and the plan to
free American POWs that went awry. Features include a chronology,
biographical sketches, Medal of Honor winners, bibliography,
nineteen photos, and an index.
LTC Mitchell Waite continues his honest and raw perspective on the
Iraq War from that of a citizen-soldier in Volume 2 of 400 Days - A
Call To Duty. He provides unique insight into this experience for
any interested American, and he highlights some of the
extraordinary people that fight in such a war and the effect this
has upon the families left behind.
The Vietnam War has had many long-reaching, traumatic effects, not
just on the veterans of the war, but on their children as well. In
this book, Weber examines the concept of the war as a social monad,
a confusing array of personal stories and public histories that
disrupt traditional ways of knowing the social world for the second
generation.
SOS and then stopped the ship. Seven Khmer Rouge soldiers boarded
the Mayaguez and their leader, Battalion Commander Sa Mean, pointed
at a map indicating that the ship should proceed to the east of
Poulo Wai. One of the crew members broadcast a Mayday which was
picked up by an Australian vessel. The Mayaguez arrived off Poulo
Wai at approximately 4pm and a further 20 Khmer Rouge boarded the
vessel. At 12:05 EST (21:05 Cambodia), a meeting of the National
Security Council (NSC) was convened to discuss the situation. The
members of the NSC were determined to end the crisis decisively,
believing that the fall of South Vietnam less than two weeks before
and the forced withdrawal of the United States from Cambodia,
(Operation Eagle Pull) and South Vietnam (Operation Frequent Wind)
had severely damaged the U.S.'s reputation. They also wished to
avoid comparisons to the Pueblo incident of 1968, where the failure
to promptly use military force to halt the hijacking of a US
intelligence ship by North Korea led to an eleven-month hostage
situation.
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