Since the early 1950s, the heavily industrialised nation of South Korea has seen steady growth and is now the world's seventh-largest exporter and 11th-largest economy overall. As the Cold War on the Korean peninsula gathered momentum, the development of the Republic of Korea Air Force became one of the nation's top priorities. While initially dependent on the United States for its aircraft, Korea's aviation industry has matured rapidly, and the ROKAF's use of indigenously manufactured equipment is on the rise. Modern South Korean Air Power provides a detailed look at the aircraft and armament, as well as the organisation and the modernisation process of the ROKAF. The air arm has invested heavily in its early warning and intelligence-gathering capability to guard against the unpredictability of its northern neighbour. A territorial dispute with long-standing rival Japan, as well as incursions into its airspace by both China and Russia, have fuelled the need to transform the ROKAF into a technologically superior force. In its ongoing efforts to maintain its edge, the ROKAF has introduced fifth-generation stealth fighters while at the same time still making effective use of obsolete biplanes. It is this wide variety of aircraft and helicopters that make this air arm one of a kind. This book is a highly informative and richly illustrated source of reference and documents the ROKAF in a previously unavailable degree of detail. It provides an insightful and in-depth look at the journey the service has embarked upon to face the regional security challenges of tomorrow.

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.

Eric Blehm, author of the award-winning The Last Season, is back with another true adventure story, The Only Thing Worth Dying For. Set in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, The Only Thing Worth Dying For chronicles the untold story of the team of Green Berets led by Captain Jason Amerine that conquered the Taliban and helped bring Hamid Karzai to power in Afghanistan. In the tradition of Black Hawk Down, The Only Thing Worth Dying For is, in the words of former Congressman Charlie Wilson (from Charlie Wilson's War), "the one book you must read if you have any hope of understanding what our fine American soldiers are up against in Afghanistan."

"Forever Forward" is the first in-depth account of K-9 Operations during the Vietnam War, and provides a behind the scenes look at how Allied forces employed dog teams in a variety of roles, the evolution of the United States military working dog program, and the aftermath of Vietnam. The 4,000 dogs that served with our men in Vietnam in every service branch are America's unsung heroes. American dog teams averted over 10,000 casualties and worked as scouts, sentries, trackers, mine, and tunnel detectors. They were so effective the Viet Cong even placed a bounty on them. Heroes yes, but our own government left most of them behind to an unknown fate.

This collection of essays, inspired by the author s experience teaching ethics to Marine and Navy chaplains during the Iraq War, examines the moral and psychological dilemmas posed by war. The first section deals directly with Dr. Peter A. French s teaching experience and the specific challenges posed by teaching applied and theoretical ethics to men and women wrestling with the immediate and personal moral conflicts occasioned by the dissonance of their duties as military officers with their religious convictions. The following chapters grew out of philosophical discussions with these chaplains regarding specific ethical issues surrounding the Iraq War, including the nature of moral evil, forgiveness, mercy, retributive punishment, honor, torture, responsibility, and just war theory. This book represents a unique viewpoint on the philosophical problems of war, illuminating the devastating toll combat experiences take on both an individual s sense of identity and a society s professed moral code.

In That Time tells the story of the American experience in Vietnam through the life of Michael O'Donnell, a promising young poet who became a soldier and helicopter pilot in Vietnam. O'Donnell wrote with great sensitivity and poetic force about his world and especially the war that was slowly engulfing him and his most well-known poem is still frequently cited and reproduced. Nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honour, O'Donnell never fired a shot in Vietnam. During an ill-fated attempt to rescue fellow soldiers, O'Donnell's helicopter was shot down in the jungles of Cambodia where he and his crew remained missing for almost 30 years. In telling O'Donnell's story, In That Time also tells the stories of those around him, both famous and ordinary, who helped to shape the events of the time and who were themselves shaped by them. The book is both a powerful personal story and a compelling, universal one about how America lost its way in the 1960s.

The war story that needs to be told: a Washington Post reporter follows five courageous National Guard soldiers as they deploy to Iraq, survive combat, and come home to pick up the pieces The Iraq War radically transformed the typical "one weekend a month, two weeks a year" commitment of many National Guard soldiers around the country into lengthy, grueling tours of duty in Iraq. Little has been written about the tens of thousands of guardsmen and women sent to Iraq and the unique challenges these citizen-soldiers have faced in serving their country--and then coming home to the civilian world. Washington Post reporter Christian Davenport was embedded with the Virginia National Guard's 2-224th Aviation Regiment and witnessed the hardship and heroism of its members firsthand, from their sudden call-up, through their return from overseas, to new battles faced on the home front as they struggle to rebuild their lives after the war. He tells the story of five of these remarkable soldiers--a teacher, a 50-something Vietnam vet, a sorority-girl-turned-door-gunner, a born leader, and a young woman unable to find her place in the world. By continuing to follow these soldiers, and their families, for more than a year after their tour, Davenport chronicles the difficulties they face returning home: lost jobs, financial woes, and the inability to relate to a society that has never been so divorced from the war its country was fighting. Depicting these soldiers as heroes, not victims, As You Were reveals a hidden dimension of the war, and provides an intimate look at the patriotism and courage that inspire those who have fought in it--and the rest of us as well. Christian Davenport (Washington, DC) is a reporter for the Washington Post. He was embedded with the Virginia National Guard's 2-224th Regiment, and his work covering the military helped uncover some of the iconic photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

"Matterhorn" author Karl Marlantes' nonfiction debut is a powerful book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war. One of the most important and highly-praised books of 2011, Karl Marlantes' "What It Is Like to Go to War" is set to become just as much of a classic as his epic novel "Matterhorn". In 1968, at the age of twenty-two, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat. He killed the enemy and he watched friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In "What It Is Like to Go to War", Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at the experience and ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our young soldiers for war. War is as old as humankind, but in the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion, and literature - which also helped bring them home. In a compelling narrative, Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings - from Homer to the Mahabharata to Jung. He tells frankly about how he is haunted by the face of the young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters and explains how he finally found a way to make peace with his past. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors - mainly men but increasingly women - are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of their journey.

No foreign policy decision in recent history has had greater repercussions than President George W. Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. It launched a new doctrine of preemptive war, mired the American military in an intractable armed conflict, disrupted world petroleum supplies, cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, and damaged or ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Its impact on international politics and America's standing in the world remains incalculable.
The Iraq Papers offers a compelling documentary narrative and interpretation of this momentous conflict. With keen editing and incisive commentary, the book weaves together original documents that range from presidential addresses to redacted memos, carrying us from the ideology behind the invasion to negotiations for withdrawal. These papers trace the rise of the neoconservatives and reveal the role of strategic thinking about oil supplies. In moving to the planning for the war itself, the authors not only provide Congressional resolutions and speeches by President Bush, but internal security papers, Pentagon planning documents, the report of the Future of Iraq Project, and eloquent opposition statements by Senator Robert Byrd, other world governments, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the World Council of Churches. This collection addresses every aspect of the conflict, from the military's evolving counterinsurgency strategy to declarations by Iraqi resisters and political figures-from Coalition Provisional Authority orders to Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of the insurgents as "dead-enders" and Iraqi discussions of state- and nationbuilding under the shadow of occupation. The economics of petroleum, the legal and ethical questions surrounding terrorism and torture, international agreements, the theory of the "unitary presidency," and the Bush administration's use of presidential signing statements all receive in-depth coverage.
The Iraq War has reshaped the domestic and international landscape. The Iraq Papers offers the authoritative one-volume source for understanding the conflict and its many repercussions.

Diary of A Young Artist is a beautiful reproduction of the diary notes and sketches of Vietnamese war artist Pham Thanh Tam, created in the Vietminh trenches while on the front line of the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu.

After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell joined the service, realising that becoming a Marine officer would allow him to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. In this immediate, thrilling, and inspiring memoir, Campbell recounts a timeless and transcendent tale of brotherhood, courage, and sacrifice. As commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called"Joker One", Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family: Sergeant Leza, the house intellectual who read Che Guevara; Sergeant Mariano Noriel, the "Filipino ball of fire" who would become Campbell's closest confidant and friend; Lance Corporal William Feldmeir, a narcoleptic who fell asleep during battle; and a lieutenant known simply as "the Ox," whose stubborn aggressiveness would be more curse than blessing. Campbell and his men were assigned to Ramadi, that capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen-with the chilling cries of"Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret-Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces. After seven months of day-to-day, house-to-house combat, nearly half of Campbell's platoon had been wounded, a casualty rate that went beyond that of any Marine or Army unit since Vietnam. Yet unlike Fallujah, Ramadi never fell to the enemy. Told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership, loyalty, faith, and camaraderie throughout the best and worst of times.

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.

More than half a million copies of "Chickenhawk" have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Masonas astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden deathathe extreme emotions of a achickenhawka in constant danger.

Following the end of the Korean War, the prevailing myth in the West was that of the absolute supremacy of US Air Force pilots and aircraft over their Soviet-supplied opponents. The claims of the 10:1 victory-loss ratio achieved by the US Air Force fighter pilots flying the North American F-86 Sabre against their communist adversaries, among other such fabrications, went unchallenged until the end of the Cold War, when Soviet records of the conflict were finally opened. Packed with first-hand accounts and covering the full range of US Air Force activities over Korea, MiG Alley brings the war vividly to life and the record is finally set straight on a number of popular fabrications. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver expertly threads together US and Russian sources to reveal the complete story of this bitter struggle in the Eastern skies.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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."