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Books > History > American history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
This book is above all, history. For the first time an author has covered the actions of a single Marine company in Vietnam and their 5+ year deployment. The content of Loss of Innocence is the result of 15 years of official document research, taped interviews, and meetings with those who served within the company's ranks. From beginning to end, the reader will discover the horror, boredom, and humor of America's most controversial war. The reader, veteran or non-veteran, will find meaning and new understanding about a war fought largely by those 18 to 21 years of age. For current information about Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines in Vietnam, visit www.hotel27vietnam.com.
During the United States' involvement in the war in Vietnam, the decision by the US Marine Corps to emphasise counterinsurgency operations in coastal areas was the cause of considerable friction between the Marines and the army commanders in Vietnam, who wanted the corps to conduct more conventional operations. This book will examine the background to the Marines' decision and place it in the context of Marine Corps doctrine, infrastructure and logistical capability. For the first time, this book brings together the Marine Corps' background in counterinsurgency and the state of contemporary counterinsurgency theory in the 1960s - combining this with the strategic outlook, role, organisation and logistic capability of the Marine Corps to provide a complete view of its counterinsurgency operations. This book will argue that the US Marine Corps successfully used counterinsurgency as a means to achieve their primary aim in Vietnam - the defence of three major bases in the coastal area in the north of the Republic of Vietnam - and that the corps' decision to emphasise a counterinsurgency approach was driven as much by its background and infrastructure as it was by the view that Vietnam was a 'war for the people'. This book is also an important contribution to the current debate on counterinsurgency, which is now seen by many in the military doctrine arena as a flawed or invalid concept following the perceived failures in Iraq and Afghanistan - largely because it has been conflated with nation-building or democratisation. Recent works on British counterinsurgency have also punctured the myth of counterinsurgency as being a milder form of warfare - with the main effort being the wellbeing of the population - whereas in fact there is still a great deal of violence involved. This book will bring the debate 'back to basics' by providing an historical example of counterinsurgency in its true form: a means of dealing with terrorist or guerrilla warfare at an operational level to achieve a specific aim in a specific area within a specific period of time.
The U.S. Marine Corps' Combined Action Program (CAP) in Vietnam was an enlightened gesture of strategic dissent. Recognizing that search-and-destroy operations were immoral and self-defeating and that the best hope for victory was "winning hearts and minds," the Corps stationed squads of Marines, augmented by Navy corpsmen, in the countryside to train and patrol alongside village self-defense units called Popular Forces. Corporal Edward F. Palm became a combined-action Marine in 1967. His memoir recounts his experiences fighting with the South Vietnamese, his readjustment to life after the war, and the circumstances that prompted him to join the Corps in the first place. A one-time aspiring photojournalist, Palm includes photographs he took while serving, along with an epilogue describing what he and his former sergeant found during their 2002 return to Vietnam.
This book considers the Vietnam war in light of U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam, concluding that the war was a direct result of failed state-building efforts. This U.S. nation building project began in the mid-1950s with the ambitious goal of creating a new independent, democratic, modern state below the 17th parallel. No one involved imagined this effort would lead to a major and devastating war in less than a decade. Carter analyzes how the United States ended up fighting a large-scale war that wrecked the countryside, generated a flood of refugees, and brought about catastrophic economic distortions, results which actually further undermined the larger U.S. goal of building a viable state. Carter argues that, well before the Tet Offensive shocked the viewing public in late January, 1968, the campaign in southern Vietnam had completely failed and furthermore, the program contained the seeds of its own failure from the outset.
On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the North from South Vietnam were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers. Caught in a series of outposts of what was the former 'McNamara Line', the shocked defenders had just enough time to emerge from their bunkers at the end of the barrage before they were attacked by regular North Vietnamese Army divisions, supported by hundreds of armoured vehicles that crashed though their defensive lines along the border. Thus began one of the fiercest campaigns of the Vietnam War but also one of the less well documented because by then most of the American ground forces had been withdrawn. Following on from the details of the downsizing of American forces and the setting up of the'Vietnamization' policy, the build up of both the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in the South and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the North is discussed at length. A special emphasis is devoted to the study of the development the North Vietnamese armoured corps that would spearhead the coming offensive. Consequently, the nature of the war changed dramatically, evolving from a guerrilla one into a conventional conflict. The South Vietnamese resistance shuddered, and then crumbled under the communist onslaught, putting Hue the ancient imperial capital at risk. It was only thanks to US airpower, directed by a small group of courageous American advisers, which helped to turn the tide. Under the command of a new capable commander, the South Vietnamese then methodically counterattacked to retake some of the lost ground. This culminated in the ferocious street fighting for Quang Tri. This first volume describes the combat taking place in the northern part of South Vietnam, and uses not only American archives but also Vietnamese sources, from both sides. The book contains 130 photos, five maps and 18 colour profiles. Asia@War - following on from our highly-successful Africa@War series, Asia@War replicates the same format - concise, incisive text, rare images and high quality colour artwork providing fresh accounts of both well-known and more esoteric aspects of conflict in this part of the world since 1945.
Possibly there is nothing more conducive to thoughts of the Eternal, than having one's face slammed into red, wet muck, with explosions so close your body arcs and bounces off the ground, hot shards burn in your flesh, and concussions are bright flashes of dirty fire beating a tattoo on the light receptors in the backs of your eyes. Your head aches; throbbing from visual shock waves. Time has come to an end; there is no right, no wrong, only whatever follows a life that is now over. The dark reaper is here. What's it going to be like on the other side? Is there an "other side"? The old timers use the maxim, "There are no atheists in a fox-hole." Possibly so; I can only give my own experience, and I never had the opportunity to be in one. Combat aviators crash and sometimes burn instead. But close calls almost always give rise to interminable questions; especially when the survived experience is seared into the human psyche. For some, satisfactory answers never seem to come. For myself,
may I pro-offer both scorching experience, and incredible
life-lessons learned? Then, should you ever fall into similar
adventure; you man go into it better prepared than I was.
Historian and collector Michael Green shows in this fascinating and graphically illustrated book that the two wars that engulfed Indochina and North and South Vietnam over 30 years were far more armoured in nature than typically thought of. By skilful use of imagery and descriptive text he describes the many variants deployed and their contribution. The ill-fated French Expeditionary Force was largely US equipped with WW2 M3 and M5 Stuart, M4 Sherman and M24 light tanks as well as armoured cars and half-tracks. Most of these eventually went to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam but were outdated and ineffective due to lack of logistics and training. The US Army and Marine Corps build-up in the 1960s saw vast quantities of M48 Pattons, M113 APCs and many specialist variants and improvised armoured vehicles arrive in theatre. The Australians brought their British Centurion tanks. But it was the Russians, Chinese and North Vietnamese who won the day and their T-38-85 tanks, ZSU anti-aircraft platforms and BTR-40 and -50 swept the Communists to victory. This fine book brings details and images of all these diverse weaponry to the reader in one volume.
This 528 Page compilation includes 4 Cruise Books with 100's of pictures describing the adventures of Naval Construction Battalion 8 during their 4 tours to South Vietnam: 1965 Da Nang, 1966-67 Chu Lai, 1968 Phu Bai, 1969 Da Nang. Cruise Books are Informal and nonofficial in nature (they sometimes are compared to college yearbooks) These publications offer insights into the daily activities and attitudes from the perspective of a unit's crew. Cruise books are of special note because of the intense interest by veterans, writers, and scholars. Care has been taken to render the best B & W copy possible. However, quality of the images copied for this book is based on the condition of the originals, and current technology available...
Seabee Cruise Book U.S Naval Construction Battalion Ten U.S. Pacific Fleet 1968-1969 Cruise Books are Informal and nonofficial in nature (they sometimes are compared to college yearbooks) These publications offer insights into the daily activities and attitudes from the perspective of a unit's crew. Cruise books are of special note because of the intense interest by veterans, writers, and scholars. Care has been taken to render the best copy possible. However, quality of this book is based on the condition of the original, and current technology available...
Peace in the Mountains analyzes student activism at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio University, and West Virginia University during the Vietnam War era. Drawing from a wide variety of sources including memoirs, periodicals, archival manuscript collections, and college newspapers such as The Pitt News, author Thomas Weyant tracks the dynamics of a student-led campus response to the war in real time and outside the purview of the national media. Along the way, he musters evidence for an emerging social and political conscience among the student bodies of northern Appalachia, citing politics on campus, visions of patriotism and dissent, campus citizenship, antiwar activism and draft resistance, campus issues, and civil rights as major sites of contention and exploration.Through this regional chronicle of student activism during the Vietnam War era, Weyant holds to one reoccurring and unifying theme: citizenship. His account shows that political activism and civic engagement were by no means reserved to students at elite colleges; on the contrary, Appalachian youth were giving voice to the most vexing questions of local and national responsibility, student and citizen identity, and the role of the university in civil society. Rich in primary source material from student op-eds to administrative documents, Peace in the Mountains draws a new map of student activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. Weyant's study is a thoughtful and engaging addition to both Appalachian studies and the historiography of the Vietnam War era and is sure to appeal not only to specialists-Appalachian scholars, political historians, political scientists, and sociologists-but to college students and general readers as well.
In 1968 Nguyen Qui Duc was nine years old, his father was a high-ranking civil servant in the South Vietnamese government, and his mother was a school principal. Then the Viet Cong launched their Tet offensive, and the Nguyen family's comfortable life was destroyed. The author's father was taken prisoner and marched up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam's highest-ranking civilian prisoner, he eventually spent twelve years in captivity, composing poems in his head to maintain his sanity. Nguyen himself escaped from Saigon as North Vietnamese tanks approached in 1975. He came of age as an American teenager, going to school dances and working at a Roy Rogers restaurant, yet yearning for the homeland and parents he had to leave behind. The author's mother stayed in Vietnam to look after her mentally ill daughter. She endured poverty and "reeducation" until her husband was freed and the Nguyens could reunite. Intertwining these three stories, "Where the Ashes Are" shows us the Vietnam War through a child's eyes, privation after a Communist takeover, and the struggle of new immigrants. The author, who returned to Vietnam as an American reporter, provides a detailed portrait of the nation as it opened to the West in the early 1990s. "Where the Ashes Are" closes with Nguyen's thoughts on being pulled between his adopted country and his homeland.
"Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos" is a detailed accounting of a CIA program directed by a CIA operations officer that sent small teams of irregulars behind enemy lines in Laos to find, fix and destroy North Vietnamese Army units, capture NVA soldiers or encourage them to defect, intercept NVA radio communications, and recruit NVA soldiers to spy and report on their comrades. It is a unique contribution to the history of the Vietnam War describing valuable experiences using surrogates to conduct intelligence and combat operations that have little or no adverse impact on the United States government's relations with the peoples and governments of other nations. An important lesson in the post 9/11 world of countering terrorism all over the globe where we do not have enough American troops to get the job done without political consequences. The book also describes the daring and dangerous rescue of Raven 42, a U.S. Air Force forward air controller shot down while supporting Lao irregular surrogate forces fighting NVA main force units in Laos, attempts to infiltrate Cambodia to collect intelligence on the North Vietnamese in early 1970, the effort to uncover information about a missing Air America crewman captured in 1963, the tragic fatal crash of an aircraft carrying four of the author's best Thai operational assistants, and the uncovering of a mole hidden in a Royal Lao government military headquarters. Here are intimate details that have never before appeared in print, recounting the planning and execution of a variety of special operations, conceived and carried out behind enemy lines by the CIA using only Lao irregular surrogates. The CIA employed surrogates in southern Laos to force the North Vietnamese Army to keep combat units there to defend their logistical supply line rather than send them to fight U.S. and allied forces in South Vietnam. For the duration of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War the CIA succeeded in that goal.
More Than A Few Good Men tells the compelling soldiers story of Robert J. Driver's life from childhood to his retirement from the United States Marine Corps. Driver witnessed and was part of many extreme, and sometimes chilling, events. These actions come to life through Driver's own letters home to his wife, encompassing the challenge of boot camp, Officer's Candidate School, and his tours of duty in the Vietnam War. Driver collected declassified documents and information from many of the Marines he served with in Vietnam in order to provide the reader with this exceptionally detailed account. Driver's letters home offer a clear reckoning of the traumatic events of combat and the bravery of his young Marines. The book also features biographies of the many contributors. Driver's admiration for the men he fought with is evident-they were More Than A Few Good Men.
Going beyond the dominant orthodox narrative to incorporate insight from revisionist scholarship on the Vietnam War, Michael G. Kort presents the case that the United States should have been able to win the war, and at a much lower cost than it suffered in defeat. Presenting a study that is both historiographic and a narrative history, Kort analyzes important factors such as the strong nationalist credentials and leadership qualities of South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem; the flawed military strategy of 'graduated response' developed by Robert McNamara; and the real reasons South Vietnam collapsed in the face of a massive North Vietnamese invasion in 1975. Kort shows how the US commitment to defend South Vietnam was not a strategic error but a policy consistent with US security interests during the Cold War, and that there were potentially viable strategic approaches to the war that might have saved South Vietnam.
Patricia L. Walsh grew up the eighth of fifteen children in a poor Minnesota farm family and worked her way through nursing school and anesthesia training. In 1967, she volunteered to go to Vietnam to care for civilians caught in the crossfire. She injured her back in the Tet Offensive and returned home in denial of the severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) she had developed. RIVER CITY chronicles the dedication, self sacrifice, trials and triumphs of practicing combat medicine.
"The dramatic history of living American soldiers left in Vietnam,
and the first full account of the circumstances that left them
there"
By 1969, the Sikorski H-34 was an older helicopter with severe limitations for combat duty in Vietnam. For pilots like U.S. Marine Lieutenant Rick Gehweiler, the good news was it could still take significant damage and keep flying. His vivid memoir narrates his harrowing, at times deadly flight missions under fire, as experienced in the cockpit, along with anecdotes of tragedy and humor from his 13-month tour through Da Nang and Phu Bai.
During the four years General Creighton W. Abrams was commander in Vietnam, he and his staff made more than 455 tape recordings of briefings and meetings. In 1994, with government approval, Lewis Sorley began transcribing and analyzing the tapes. Sorley's laborious, time-consuming effort has produced a picture of the senior US commander in Vietnam and his associates working to prosecute a complex and challenging military campaign in an equally complex and difficult political context. The concept of the nature of the war and the way it was conducted changed during Abrams's command. The progressive buildup of US forces was reversed, and Abrams became responsible for turning the war back to the South Vietnamese. The edited transcriptions in this volume clearly reflect those changes in policy and strategy. They include briefings called the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates as well as meetings with such visitors as the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking officials. The 2005 winner of the Army Historical Foundation's Trefry Award, Vietnam Chronicles reveals, for the first time, the difficult task that Creighton Abrams accomplished with tact and skill.
Drawing on a wide range of Vietnamese-language sources, the author presents a detailed account of the continuing efforts of North Vietnam to invade the South, enlivened by a large number of previously unpublished photographs, and colour profiles for modellers. A year after the Paris peace accord had been signed, on 17 January 1973, peace had not been settled in Vietnam. During that period, the North Vietnamese continued their attacks now that the United States had pulled out completely their forces, with the definitive conquest of South Vietnam as the goal. The South Vietnamese forces' erosion on the field increased in face of a series of concerted North Vietnamese offensives at Corps level. The drastic American aid reduction began to impact heavily on the South Vietnamese ability to wage war. Equally, Saigon could not respond to a Chinese invasion of the Paracel Islands after a brief naval battle, and if Hanoi had been bolstered by massive deliveries of equipment from Peking and Moscow, both the Chinese and the Soviet had withheld the delivery of sufficient ammunitions for the artillery and the tanks, to deter the North Vietnamese from attempting a new widescale offensive against the South. It was with these constraints that the North Vietnamese leadership planned their new campaign, initially expecting it to take 2 to 3 years. A last test had to be done in order to assess the American intentions in case of an all-out North Vietnamese offensive against the South - if a South Vietnamese provincial capital was taken without American reaction, then Hanoi would begin the last campaign of the war. After the fall of Phuoc Long, the North Vietnamese decided to attack the strategic Central Highlands area where they hoped to destroy the greater part of an ARVN Corps. The battle of Ban Me Thuout would be the pivotal event leading to the rapid collapse of South Vietnam. While the battle was going on, without taking advices from his generals, President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam decided to take radical measures by redeploying his forces. That meant abandoning no less than half of the country, in order to shorter his logistic communication lines and to concentrate his remaining depleted forces around Saigon and the Mekong Delta area. He probably also hoped that by aggravating the military situation he would force Washington to fulfil its promise that "in case of massive violation of the cease-fire", the Americans would resume their military aid and would send back the B-52s.
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. |
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