Throughout American history, Christianity has shaped public opinion, guided leaders in their decision making, and stood at the center of countless issues. To gain complete knowledge of an era, historians must investigate the religious context of what transpired, why it happened, and how. Yet too little is known about American Christianity's foreign policy opinions during the Cold and Vietnam Wars. To gain a deeper understanding of this period (1964-75), David E. Settje explores the diversity of American Christian responses to the Cold and Vietnam Wars to determine how Americans engaged in debates about foreign policy based on their theological convictions.

Settje uncovers how specific Christian theologies and histories influenced American religious responses to international affairs, which varied considerably. Scrutinizing such sources as the evangelical "Christianity Today," the mainline Protestant, "Christian Century," a sampling of Catholic periodicals, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Church of Christ, "Faith and War" explores these entities' commingling of religion, politics, and foreign policy, illuminating the roles that Christianity attempted to play in both reflecting and shaping American foreign policy opinions during a decade in which global matters affected Americans daily and profoundly.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR:
"THE NEW YORK TIMES
CHICAGO TRIBUNE"
SLATE.COM
"THE BOSTON GLOBE
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
THE PLAIN DEALER" (CLEVELAND)
"THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR"""WINNER OF THE HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. It became known as "the surge." Among those called to carry it out were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.
Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home -- forever changed. The chronicle of their tour is gripping, devastating, and deeply illuminating for anyone with an interest in human conflict. With "The""Good Soldiers," Pulitzer Prize-winning "r"eporter David Finkel has produced an eternal story -- not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

A groundbreaking new history of how the Vietnam War thwarted U.S. liberal ambitions in the developing world and at home in the 1960s At the start of the 1960s, John F. Kennedy and other American liberals expressed boundless optimism about the ability of the United States to promote democracy and development in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. With U.S. power, resources, and expertise, almost anything seemed possible in the countries of the Cold War's "Third World"-developing, postcolonial nations unaligned with the United States or Soviet Union. Yet by the end of the decade, this vision lay in ruins. What happened? In The End of Ambition, Mark Atwood Lawrence offers a groundbreaking new history of America's most consequential decade. He reveals how the Vietnam War, combined with dizzying social and political changes in the United States, led to a collapse of American liberal ambition in the Third World-and how this transformation was connected to shrinking aspirations back home in America. By the middle and late 1960s, democracy had given way to dictatorship in many Third World countries, while poverty and inequality remained pervasive. As America's costly war in Vietnam dragged on and as the Kennedy years gave way to the administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, America became increasingly risk averse and embraced a new policy of promoting mere stability in the Third World. Paying special attention to the U.S. relationships with Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and southern Africa, The End of Ambition tells the story of this momentous change and of how international and U.S. events intertwined. The result is an original new perspective on a war that continues to haunt U.S. foreign policy today.

'Combines elements of In Cold Blood and Black Hawk Down with Apocalypse Now as it builds towards its terrible climax...Extraordinary' New York Times Iraq's 'Triangle of Death', 2005. A platoon of young soldiers from a U.S. regiment known as 'the Black Heart Brigade' is deployed to a lawless and hyperviolent area just south of Baghdad. Almost immediately, the attacks begin: every day another roadside bomb, another colleague blown to pieces. As the daily violence chips away, and chips away at their sanity, the thirty-five young men of 1st Platoon, Bravo Company descend into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality -- with tragic results. Black Hearts is a timeless true story of how modern warfare can make or break a man's character. Told with severe compassion, balanced judgement and the magnetic pace of a thriller, it looks set to become one of the defining books about the Iraq War. 'Black Hearts is the obverse of Band of Brothers, a story not of combat unity but of disharmony and disarray' Chicago Sun-Times 'A riveting picture of life outside the wire in Iraq, where "you tell a guy to go across a bridge, and within five minutes he's dead."' Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Many saw the United States' decisive victory in Desert Storm (1991) as not only vindication of American defense policy since Vietnam but also confirmation of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). Just as information-age technologies were revolutionizing civilian life, the Gulf War appeared to reflect similarly profound changes in warfare. A debate has raged ever since about a contemporary RMA and its implications for American defense policy. Addressing these issues, The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the RMA debate. Focusing on the creation of a reconnaissance-strike complex and conceptions of parallel or nonlinear warfare, Keith L. Shimko finds a persuasive case for a contemporary RMA while recognizing its limitations as well as promise.

A Few Bad Men is the incredible true story of an elite team of U.S. Marines set up to take the fall for Afghanistan war crimes they did not commit-and their leader who fought for the redemption of his men. Ambushed in Afghanistan and betrayed by their own leaders-these elite Marines fought for their lives again, back home. A cross between A Few Good Men and American Sniper, this is the true story of an elite Marine special operations unit bombed by an IED and shot at during an Afghanistan ambush. The Marine Commandos were falsely accused of gunning down innocent Afghan civilians following the ambush. The unit's leader, Maj. Fred Galvin, was summarily relieved of duty and his unit was booted from the combat zone. They were condemned by everyone, from the Afghan president to American generals. When Fox Company returned to America, Galvin and his captain were the targets of the first Court of Inquiry in the Marines in fifty years. "Fred Galvin is the real deal. His dramatic retelling of his experience as commander of Fox Company reads like a thriller, full of twists and turns, filled with unassuming heroes and deceitful villains." - Rob Lorenz, Producer/Director, American Sniper, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Mystic River, The Marksman "Fred Galvin has written a real 'page turner' that demonstrates how politics permeates The Pentagon and posts abroad...I highly recommend this book." - J.D. Hayworth, U.S. House of Representatives (Arizona), TV/Radio Host "This book is a must-read for every American who wants to know why, after twenty long years in Afghanistan, we did not win." - Jessie Jane Duff, USMC, Analyst, CNN and FOX "A Few Bad Men is a must-read story of valor, betrayal, and keeping the Marines' honor clean." - Jed Babbin, USAF Judge Advocate, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Journalist, National Review, Washington Post "An incredible account and history of the fighting spirit of the 'Marine Raiders' under fire and the relentless fourteen-year campaign by their leader to clear their names." - Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, U.S. Army (Ret.), Deputy Commander, U.S. Pacific Command

As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of citizens in the Muslim world, the United States has poured millions of dollars into local television and radio programming, hoping to generate pro-American currents on Middle Eastern airwaves. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and creative agendas while working within U.S. restrictions. The Other Air Force gives readers a unique inside look at television and radio production in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, from the isolated villages of the Afghan Panjshir Valley to the congested streets of Ramallah. Communications scholar Matt Sienkiewicz explores how the U.S. takes a ""soft-psy"" approach to its media efforts combining ""soft"" methods of encouraging entertainment programming, such as adaptations of The Voice and The Apprentice with more militaristic ""psy-ops"" approaches to information control. Drawing from years of field research and interviews with everyone from millionaire executives to underpaid but ever resourceful cameramen, Sienkiewicz considers the perspectives of the Afghan and Palestinian media workers trying to forge viable broadcasting businesses without straying outside American-set boundaries for acceptable content. As it carefully examines the interplay of U.S. military and economic might with the capacity for local ingenuity and resistance, the book also analyzes the intriguingly complex programming that emerges from this tension. Combining eyewitness reportage with cutting-edge scholarship, The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world's tensest conflict zones.

Eventually every conqueror, every imperial power, every occupying army gets out. Why do they decide to leave? And how do political and military leaders manage withdrawal? Do they take with them those who might be at risk if left behind? What are the immediate consequences of departure? For Michael Walzer and Nicolaus Mills, now is the time to ask those questions about exiting--and to worry specifically about the difficulties certain to arise as we leave--Iraq."Getting Out" approaches these issues in two sections. The first, entitled "Lessons Learned," examines seven historical cases of how and how not to withdraw: Britain's departure from the American colonies and from India, the French withdrawal from Algeria, Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and the U.S. decision to leave (or not leave) the Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam. These cases offer a comparative perspective and an opportunity to learn from the history of political and military retreats.The second section, "Exiting Iraq," begins with an introduction to just how the United States got into Iraq and continues with an examination of how the U.S. might leave from a diversity of voices, ranging from those who believe that the Iraq war has produced no real good to those who hope for a decent ending. In addition to essays by volume editors Walzer and Mills, "Getting Out" features contributions by Shlomo Avineri, Rajeev Bhargava, David Bromwich, Frances FitzGerald, Stanley Karnow, Brendan O'Leary, George Packer, Todd Shepard, Fred Smoler, and Stanley Weintraub.

"There is no reason why America's withdrawal from Iraq should be as dishonest as its intervention has been judged to be."--Brendan O'Leary, from the PrefaceBoth the American people and Arab Iraqis have voiced their overwhelming desire to see U.S. troops removed from the country. "How to Get Out of Iraq with Integrity" argues that the U.S. military intervention in Iraq must come to an end. But it must come to an end in a judicious, pragmatic, and orderly fashion. In this book, Brendan O'Leary spells out why that withdrawal can begin to occur now, why it is in the best interests of the United States and the Iraqis that withdrawal occur, and why Iraq can function as a federation once the U.S. military has left the country."How to Get Out of Iraq with Integrity" provides an in-depth analysis of the new Iraqi constitution, an evaluation of the political goals and powers of the major ethnic and religious groups that will constitute the new Iraqi state, and an assessment of the regional realities of a Saddam-less Iraq. With a viable constitution and other institutional structures already in place, Iraq is poised for a future as a sovereign state. If U.S. leaders facilitate the remaking of Iraq as a federation with four or more regions instead of a recentralized state, the United States can begin successfully to remove its forces.Propelled by this incisive and bold argument, "How to Get Out of Iraq with Integrity" provides the foundation for the incoming presidential administration to do just that, without betraying U.S. commitments to Arabs, Kurds, or democracy. To make his case, O'Leary draws on his extensive background as constitutional advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government, the European Union, and the United Nations, along with expertise in constitutional design and ethnic reconciliation in Northern Ireland and South Africa.

The year is 1970; the war in Vietnam is five years from over. The women's movement is newly resurgent, and feminists are summarily reviled as "libbers." Inette Miller is one year out of college-a reporter for a small-town newspaper. Her boyfriend gets drafted and is issued orders to Vietnam. Within their few remaining days together, Inette marries her US Army private, determined to accompany him to war. There are obstacles. All wives of US military are prohibited in country. With the aid of her newspaper's editor, Miller finagles a one-month work visa and becomes a war reporter. Her newspaper cannot afford life insurance beyond that. After thirty days, she is on her own. As one of the rare woman war correspondents in Vietnam and the only one also married to an Army soldier, Miller's experience was pathbreaking. Girls Don't shines a light on the conflicting motives that drive an ambitious woman of that era and illustrates the schizophrenic struggle between the forces of powerful feminist ideology and the contrarian forces of the world as it was. Girls Don't is the story of what happens when a twenty-three-year-old feminist makes her way into the land of machismo. This is a war story, a love story, and an open-hearted confessional within the burgeoning women's movement, chronicling its demands and its rewards.

'The best 'bird's eye view' of the helicopter war in Vietnam in print today ... Mills has captured the realities of a select group of aviators who shot craps with death on every mission' R.S. Maxham, Director, US Army Aviation Museum The aeroscouts of the 1st Infantry Division have three words emblazoned on their unit patch: Low Level Hell. It was the perfect concise defininition of what those intrepid aviators experienced as they ranged the skies of Vietnam from the Cambodian border to the Iron Triangle. The Outcasts, as they were known, flew low and slow. They were the aerial eyes of the division in search of the enemy. Too often for longevity's sake they found the Viet Cong and the fight was on. These young pilots, who were usually 19 to 22 years old, invented the book as they went along.

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.

This book assesses the emergence and transformation of global protest movements during the Vietnam War era. It explores the relationship between protest focused on the war and other emancipatory and revolutionary struggles, moving beyond existing scholarship to examine the myriad interlinked protest issues and mobilisations around the globe during the Indochina Wars. Bringing together scholars working from a range of geographical, historiographical and methodological perspectives, the volume offers a new framework for understanding the history of wartime protest. The chapters are organised around the social movements from the three main geopolitical regions of the world during the 1960s and early 1970s: the core capitalist countries of the so-called first world, the socialist bloc and the Global South. The final section of the book then focuses on international organisations that explicitly sought to bridge and unite solidarity and protest around the world. In an era of persistent military conflict, the book provides timely contributions to the question of what war does to protest movements and what protest movements do to war.

Elie Paul Cohen, a Franco-British civilian emergency doctor, was in his youth an anti-militarist who evaded conscription. But decades later, his military record comes back to haunt him when it turns up in his professional dossier. In a surreal coincidence, the French, British, and Israeli secret services suddenly become interested in recruiting him, and Cohen accepts the deal the French Army offers: he can settle his accounts by serving as a liaison emergency doctor in Afghanistan. After a year and a half of training, Cohen is in 2011 deployed at Camp Bastion, the largest British Military base since World War II. His mission is twofold: First, to study Damage Control Resuscitation, a new treatment for polytraumatized soldiers that was developed by British doctors in Afghanistan. Second, to share these advanced protocols with the French Military Health Service. Combining elements of spy thriller and adventure story with reflections on the costs of war, Cohen's memoir offers a unique perspective on the conflict in Afghanistan, and on the medical challenges presented by the expansion of terrorism into Europe and America.

For every great historical event, there is seemingly always one reporter whose eyewitness accounts are infused with such power and literary impact that they become joined with the subject in our minds. Widely considered the on-the-ground authority by both journalists and news sources, Jon Lee Anderson's dispatches out of Baghdad for the "New Yorker" were hailed as the best writing published anywhere on the war. "The Fall of Baghdad" is a masterpiece of literary reportage about the experience of ordinary Iraqis living through the endgame of the Saddam Hussein regime, its violent fall, and the troubled American occupation. In channeling a tragedy of epic dimensions through the stories of real people caught up in the whirlwind of history, Jon Lee Anderson has written a book of timeless significance.

In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm – Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon – a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior – he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning.

By the end of the American War in Vietnam, the coastal province of PhU YEn was one of the least-secure provinces in the Republic of Vietnam. It was also a prominent target of the American strategy of pacification-an effort, purportedly separate and distinct from conventional warfare, to win the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese. In Robert J. Thompson III's analysis, the consistent, and consistently unsuccessful, struggle to place PhU YEn under Saigon's banner makes the province particularly fertile ground for studying how the Americans advanced pacification and why this effort ultimately failed. In March 1970 a disastrous military engagement began in PhU YEn, revealing the enemy's continued presence after more than three years of pacification. Clear, Hold, and Destroy provides a fresh perspective on the war across multiple levels, from those making and implementing policy to those affected by it. Most pointedly, Thompson contends that pacification, far from existing apart from conventional warfare, actually depended on conventional military forces for its application. His study reaches back into PhU YEn's storied history with pacification before and during the French colonial period, then focuses on the province from the onset of the American war in 1965 to its conclusion in 1975. A sharply focused, fine-grained analysis of one critical province during the Vietnam War, Thompson's work demonstrates how pacification is better understood as the foundation of U.S. fighting in Vietnam.

Wars have played an interregnal part in American history. Some of these are well remembered, some are not. Among the more significant wars that have been largely ignored is the Korean War (1950-1953) fought less than five years after the end of World War II. Much of the history of this watershed event has been lost or misinterpreted, primarily because the undefined goals of the conflict, the inability of the home front to properly engage, and the failure to achieve complete victory has tarnished it. Resulting from the intense propaganda issued and the vastly limited press coverage, much of what is known is the result of battlefield stories that are basically true but which miss much of the more significant information. These myths appear in the American memory and are told over and over again. In taking a closer look at these myths, such as 'Who started the war' and 'Did the Marines win the Korean War?' a clearer and somewhat unique understanding of the war is presented.

In the fall of 1965, the North Vietnamese Army launched its first major campaign against American forces, targeting, with 4,000 men, the U.S. Special Forces camp at Plei Me in the Central Highlands, where about a dozen green berets were training a few hundred South Vietnamese troops. In response, the U.S. choppered in a relief force of elite soldiers from Project Delta under legendary Chargin' Charlie Beckwith and dropped an unprecedented million pounds of munitions just yards from the camp's perimeter. The camp held out, but operations in the area continued. Within weeks, the Battle of Ia Drang broke out, the first major battle between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese regulars. Based on archival research and interviews with veterans, Saliba covers the battle for Plei Me camp in close, vivid, and very human detail. He also gives careful attention to the strategic picture and shows how this clash laid the groundwork for the Battle of Ia Drang.

The March 1965 landing of the US Marine Corps at Da Nang, South Vietnam, marked the first large-scale deployment of US forces to the region. From then on, the Marine Corps fought continuously until May 1975, when two Marines became the last US servicemen killed in that war during the Mayaguez battle. With over 200 archival photos, many never before published, the weapons, vehicles, and equipment of the Marines in theater are documented in this volume. Small arms, mortars and artillery, tanks, amphibious, armored and soft-skinned vehicles, helicopters, uniforms, and personal and specialist equipment are featured in superb-quality photos and detailed captions, including photos from such legendary Marine Corps battles as Hue and Khe Sanh.

Veterans of recent conflicts describe their individual journeys from raw recruit to war resister in this collection of testimonials. Although it is not well publicized, the long tradition of refusing to fight unjust wars continues today within the American military. The stories in this book provide an intimate, honest look at the personal transformation of each of these young people and at the same time constitute a powerful argument against militarization and endless war. Also included are exclusive interviews with Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg addressing the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and the role civilian and GI resistance plays in bringing the troops home.

Memories of a Lost War is a unique study of poetry born of the Vietnam War, out of the trauma of rewritten history. The book analyses poems written by American veterans, protest poets, and Vietnamese, within political, aesthetic, and cultural contexts. It highlights the haunting, indeed, deliberately ignored presence of Vietnam in mainstream culture.

From Andrew Wiest, the bestselling author of The Boys of '67: Charlie Company's War in Vietnam and one of the leading scholars in the study of the Vietnam War, comes a frank exploration of the human experience during the conflict. Vietnam allows the reader a grunt's-eye-view of the conflict - from the steaming rice paddies and swamps of the Mekong Delta, to the triple-canopy rainforest of the Central Highlands and the forlorn Marine bases that dotted the DMZ. It is the definitive oral history of the Vietnam War told in the uncompromising, no-holds barred language of the soldiers themselves.

This book examines the decisions by Tony Blair and John Howard to take their nations into the 2003 Iraq War, and the questions these decisions raise about democratic governance. It also explores the significance of the US alliance in UK and Australian decision-making, and the process for taking a nation to war. Relying on primary government documents and interviews, and bringing together various strands of literature that have so far been discussed in isolation (including historical accounts, party politics, prime ministerial leadership and intelligence studies), the authors provide a comprehensive and original view on the various post-war inquiries conducted in the UK, Australia.