Set as deeply in his mind as in the depths of the Southeast-Asian jungle, a young American soldier embarks on an evocative journey to a war that, for him, will never be over. I am that American soldier. It's 1969. 18 and living in New York City the world was a playground for Mickey, a naive Irish-American kid bored with his life who felt he was ready for the adventures of war. His father served in World War II, his brother a Marine in Vietnam it was now his turn. His 365 days, in the hell that was Vietnam, builds in torment until an attack on a bunker complex in Cambodia where everything goes terribly wrong. Wounded, his friend captured, he becomes a tormented survivor knowing he is always just a heartbeat away from death. His adventure turned nightmare brings a visceral understanding of the words penned by Thoreau, those very same words with which his father imparted enduring wisdom throughout his youth: ""Most men live lives of quiet desperation,"" especially those at war. This emotional journey of self-realisation chronicles the key perspective-shaping experiences of a U.S. Army grunt fighting in Vietnam.

Extraordinary Valor is the true story of American Special Forces officer John Duffy, and South Vietnamese paratrooper, Le Van Me, as they fight to defend Charlie Hill, a key to holding Vietnam's Central Highlands during North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive. John Joseph Duffy was born in Brooklyn, New York; Le Van Me in a small village outside the old imperial capital of Hue in South Vietnam. Living on opposite sides of the globe, they come together in the heat of war in Southeast Asia when Major Duffy is assigned as the American advisor to the elite South Vietnamese 11th Airborne Battalion where Me is second in command. The battalion receives the order to "Fight to the death" on Charlie Hill. After two weeks of intense combat, hundreds lay dead and those still standing are out of food, water, and medical supplies. Their ammunition is nearly gone. Duffy and Me draw on their bond of friendship and trust to make a selfless two-man last stand against the final North Vietnamese human wave assault. Both are badly wounded, Duffy multiple times. Their heroic action allows 36 members of the 471-man battalion to escape and be rescued. The rest are killed, captured, or missing in action. This is their story.

Eighteen nurses who served in the United States military nurse corps during the Vietnam War present their personal accounts in this book. They represent all military branches and both genders. They served in the theater of combat, in the United States, and in countries allied with the U.S. They served in front line hospitals, hospital ships, large medical centers and small clinics. They speak of caring for casualties during a conflict filled with controversy. They speak of patriotism, belief in a greater power, the gaining of knowledge about the nursing profession and about themselves, of persecution and discrimination, of travel and the adventure of friendship and love.

On November 8, 1967, the author arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, ill-prepared for the training and abuse that awaited him in boot camp. At the time, he would have done anything to escape; only upon reflection years later did he realize that the self-confidence instilled in him by his drill instructors had probably saved his life in Vietnam. A few months after boot camp, Private Ball was shipped out to Vietnam, joining F Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, near Khe Sanh. As an infantryman, a grunt in the vernacular of the Corps, Ball, like the other youths of F Company, did a very difficult and deadly job in such places as the A Shau Valley, Leatherneck Square, the DMZ and other obscure but critical I Corps locales. His--their--fear of death mingled with homesickness. Little did they realize that the horrors of the Vietnam War--horrors that while in-country they often claimed did not even exist--would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

With FULL COLOR maps and illustrations. CMH 91-7-1. United States Army in Vietnam. 2nd of two volumes that examine the Vietnam conflict from the perspective of the theater commander and his headquarters. Traces the story of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), from the Communist Tet offensive of early 1968 through the disestablishment of MACV in March 1973. Deals with theater-level command relationships, strategy, and operations.

Between 1965 and 1973, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans participated in one of the most remarkable and significant people's movements in American history. Through marches, rallies, draft resistance, teach-ins, civil disobedience, and non-violent demonstrations at both the national and local levels, Americans vehemently protested the country's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. The book is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Anti-War movement of the twentieth century.

This book describes and explains Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore s attitudes and policies regarding the Vietnam War. While it is generally known that all three countries supported the US war effort in Vietnam, it reveals the motivations behind the decisions of the decision makers, the twists and turns and the nuances in the attitudes of Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore following the development of the war from the 1950s through to its end in 1975. Although the principal focus is the three supposedly non-aligned countries - Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the perspectives of Thailand and the Philippines - the two Southeast Asian countries which were formally allied with the United States - are discussed at the appropriate junctures. It makes an original contribution to the gradually growing literature on the international history of the Vietnam War and furthers our knowledge of the diplomatic history of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in the early independent years, 1945/1949, 1957 and 1965 respectively, which coincided with early years of the Cold War in Southeast Asia.

1970 - the height of the Vietnam War. A group of young Forward Air Controllers based in Thailand are assigned with supporting the Truck War and the People's War in southern Laos, where the fate of the Vietnam War, and Laos' very future, is being decided. Tasked with shutting down the Ho Chi Minh Trail - the North Vietnamese supply lines running into South Vietnam - literally stopping the constant stream of trucks in their tracks, these American airmen, call sign "Nail," fly missions 24 hours a day. Daily they run the gauntlet of intense anti-aircraft fire to bring in accurate attacks by American fighter bombers. At night, streams of red tracers scream up from the ground, seeking the metallic flesh of their fragile craft. During the day, they search the skies for the telltale black puffs of smoke that reveal the self-destructive warheads of the North Vietnamese gunners. Even when tragedy befalls the group, they perserve with their mission. But will courage and dedication be enough?

LEAD TITLE PUBLISHING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE UK THE LANDMARK, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BOOK HAILED BY ARIEL DORFMAN AND EDUARDO GALEANO, PUBLISHED TO COINCIDE WITH THE FIRST ARGENTINE WAR CRIMES TRIALS. News hook: Trials of high-level military officials, including the subject of this book, began in July 2004 in Spain. New introduction by the judge who declared the Argentine impunity laws null and void; the new epilogue is by the author Torrid aftermath of hardcover publication: The New York Times reported on its front page that the Argentine Navy captain whose story is at the heart of this book had had his face slashed by four attackers and was warned to stop speaking with journalists about military crimes - violent retribution for his breaking of the military's code of silence about the atrocities. Author's reputation: Verbitsky is Argentina's leading investigative journalist. He won a major award from the Latin American Studies Association when this book was first published in America in 1996. Author visit at the beginning of August for publicity and promotion. Argentine military's code of silence, stunning his compatriots and the world by openly confessing his participation in the hideous practice of pushing live political dissidents out of airplanes during Argentina's dirty war. Available for the first time in the UK, with a new introduction by Judge Gabriel Cavallo on the upcoming military trials and a new epilogue by the author, Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior includes the complete text of Scilingo's confession in the form of interviews given to Argentina's best-known investigative journalist, Horacio Verbitsky. The afterword by Juan Mendez, General Consel of Human Rights Watch, puts Adolfo Scilingo confession of atrocities committed during the 'dirty war' into a historical and international context.

Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War documents the use of antipersonnel chemical weapons throughout the Vietnam War, and explores their effectiveness under the wide variety of circumstances in which they were employed. The short, readable account follows the US program as it progressed from a focus on the humanitarian aspects of non-lethal weapons to their use as a means of augmenting and enhancing the lethality of traditional munitions. It also presents the efforts of the North Vietnamese to both counter US chemical operations and to develop a chemical capability of their own. Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War is a comprehensive and thoroughly fascinating examination of riot-control agents during the Vietnam War.

Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War documents the use of antipersonnel chemical weapons throughout the Vietnam War, and explores their effectiveness under the wide variety of circumstances in which they were employed. The short, readable account follows the US program as it progressed from a focus on the humanitarian aspects of non-lethal weapons to their use as a means of augmenting and enhancing the lethality of traditional munitions. It also presents the efforts of the North Vietnamese to both counter US chemical operations and to develop a chemical capability of their own. Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War is a comprehensive and thoroughly fascinating examination of riot-control agents during the Vietnam War.

On March 16, 1968, American soldiers killed as many as five hundred Vietnamese men, women, and children in a village near the South China Sea. In "My Lai" William Thomas Allison explores and evaluates the significance of this horrific event. How could such a thing have happened? Who (or what) should be held accountable? How do we remember this atrocity and try to apply its lessons, if any?

My Lai has fixed the attention of Americans of various political stripes for more than forty years. The breadth of writing on the massacre, from news reports to scholarly accounts, highlights the difficulty of establishing fact and motive in an incident during which confusion, prejudice, and self-preservation overwhelmed the troops.

Son of a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War--and aware that the generation who lived through the incident is aging--Allison seeks to ensure that our collective memory of this shameful episode does not fade.

Well written and accessible, Allison's book provides a clear narrative of this historic moment and offers suggestions for how to come to terms with its aftermath.

In this memoir, Stephen E. Atkins relates his unique experiences during the Vietnam War. Atkins was drafted just before he had completed his Ph.D. in French history in November 1966. He entered the army after his 26th birthday in February 1967, and, after his stint in Officer Candidacy School was cut short, became a non-commissioned officer and arrived in South Vietnam in April 1968. Serving as a pointman and sniper, he experienced six weeks of frontline duty, averaging a firefight each week with heavy casualties. With an advanced degree and a case of beer for a bribe, he transferred to the 19th Military History Detachment in late May and spent the remainder of his tour of duty traveling the Mekong Delta, Plain of Reeds, and areas near Saigon. His memoir is the result of a tour of intense fighting, careful documentation, and an illicit diary kept at all times.

More than thirty years later, the Vietnam War still stands as one of the most controversial events in the history of the United States, and historians have so far failed to come up with a definitive narrative of the wartime experience. With competing viewpoints already in play, Mark Moyar 's recent revisionist approach in Triumph Forsaken has created heated debate over who "owns" the history of America 's war in Vietnam.

Triumph Revisited: Historians Battle for the Vietnam War collects critiques of Triumph Forsaken from both sides of this debate, written by an array of Vietnam scholars, cataloguing arguments about how the war should be remembered, how history may be reconstructed, and by whom. A lively introduction and conclusion by editors Andrew Wiest and Michael Doidge provide context and balance to the essays, as well as Moyar 's responses, giving students and scholars of the Vietnam era a glimpse into how history is constructed and reconstructed.

More than thirty years later, the Vietnam War still stands as one of the most controversial events in the history of the United States, and historians have so far failed to come up with a definitive narrative of the wartime experience. With competing viewpoints already in play, Mark Moyara (TM)s recent revisionist approach in Triumph Forsaken has created heated debate over who "owns" the history of Americaa (TM)s war in Vietnam.

Triumph Revisited: Historians Battle for the Vietnam War collects critiques of Triumph Forsaken from both sides of this debate, written by an array of Vietnam scholars, cataloguing arguments about how the war should be remembered, how history may be reconstructed, and by whom. A lively introduction and conclusion by editors Andrew Wiest and Michael Doidge provide context and balance to the essays, as well as Moyara (TM)s responses, giving students and scholars of the Vietnam era a glimpse into how history is constructed and reconstructed.

This book describes and explains Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore's attitudes and policies regarding the Vietnam War. While it is generally known that all three countries supported the US war effort in Vietnam, it reveals the motivations behind the decisions of the decision makers, the twists and turns and the nuances in the attitudes of Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore following the development of the war from the 1950s through to its end in 1975. Although the principal focus is the three supposedly non-aligned countries - Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the perspectives of Thailand and the Philippines - the two Southeast Asian countries which were formally allied with the United States - are discussed at the appropriate junctures. It makes an original contribution to the gradually growing literature on the international history of the Vietnam War and furthers our knowledge of the diplomatic history of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in the early independent years, 1945/1949, 1957 and 1965 respectively, which coincided with early years of the Cold War in Southeast Asia.

During the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Buddhist peace activists made extraordinary sacrifices -- including self-immolation -- to try to end the fighting. They hoped to establish a neutralist government that would broker peace with the Communists and expel the Americans. Robert J. Topmiller explores South Vietnamese attitudes toward the war, the insurgency, and U.S. intervention, and lays bare the dissension within the U.S. military. The Lotus Unleashed is one of the few studies to illuminate the impact of internal Vietnamese politics on U.S. decision-making and to examine the power of a nonviolent movement to confront a violent superpower.

This book explores how and why Vietnam loomed so large for Humphrey as vice president from 1964 through the 1968 election campaign against Richard Nixon. It assesses how Humphrey's loyalty to Lyndon Johnson, who emerges as the villain of the story in many ways, would negatively affect his political ambitions. And it engages the disconnect between Humphrey's principles and the intricate politics of his convoluted relationship with the president and his unsuccessful presidential campaign. It is a complex and frustrating narrative, the results of which would be tragic, not only for Humphrey's presidential aspirations, but also for the war in Southeast Asia and the future of the United States.

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for three years, eight months and twenty days. After overthrowing Lon Nol in April 1975 and establishing a so-called Democratic Kampuchea, the Communist-sponsored government was responsible for the deaths of as many as two million people, almost one-third of the country's population. Here, Chileng Pa vividly recalls life under the Cambodian Communists.Attempting to conceal his identity as a soldier for the previous government, Chileng changed his name and moved his family to the village of Prayap, near the Vietnamese border. In April of 1977, after two years of starvation and cruelty at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Chileng was forced to watch as Communist guerillas brutally murdered his wife and two-year-old son. With nothing left for him in Prayap Chileng fled to Vietnam, but eventually returned to Cambodia as part of a Vietnamese invasion force that would end the bloody reign of the Khmer regime. In 1980, Chileng and his new family found their way to America. His ""simple strand of remembrance"" serves to honor all those who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

A retired U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and Vietnam veteran makes full use of recently declassified U.S. documents in this first comprehensive study of fighter combat over North Vietnam. His balanced, exhaustive coverage describes and analyzes both Air Force and Navy engagements with North Vietnamese MiGs while simultaneously discussing the SAM threat and U.S. countermeasures, laser-guided bombs, and U.S. attempts to counter the MiG threat with a variety of technologies. Accessible yet professional, Clashes is filled with valuable lessons that are as valid today as they were in the 1960s and 1970s. Some sixty-five photographs, tables, pie charts, maps, and diagrams of American and North Vietnamese formations and tactics are included. Beginning with the first air-to-air engagements of Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965, Marshall Michel describes the initial American successes against the MiGs and the stunning turn of events in late 1967 when the North Vietnamese began shooting down more U.S. aircraft than they lost. He explains how in 1968, at the end of Rolling Thunder, the U.S. Air Force ignored problems with their tactics, formations, and missiles, while the U.S. Navy undertook a complete reassessment of its air-to-air operations and formed its famous Topgun course. The second part of the book, covering Operation Linebacker in 1972, examines the results of these two approaches and how the Navy scored heavily against the MiGs while the Air Force continued to suffer losses to MiG-21s. Michel offers extraordinary insights into events that led to this situation and the Air Force's efforts to reverse the trend. This combination of descriptions of actual dogfights with authoritative analysis of the tactics, pilot skills, high-level decision making, and shortcomings - more than 57 percent of U.S. air-to-air missiles malfunctioned and less than 13 percent scored a kill - will prove indispensable to everyone with an interest in an combat, the war in Vietnam, and Navy and Air Force aviation in general.

There is an important debate raging about whether Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Those who deny the similarities most vociferously are often those who know (or remember) the least about Vietnam. Kenneth Campbell knows Vietnam from his thirteen months of fighting there (he received a Purple Heart), and years of political organizing to get the United States out of the war. Here, Campbell lays out the political process of getting into, sinking deeper, hitting bottom, and finally pulling out of the Vietnam quagmire. He traces the chief lessons of Vietnam, which helped the United States successfully avoid quagmires for thirty years, and explains how neoconservatives within the Bush administration cynically used the tragedy of 9/11 to override the "Vietnam syndrome" and drag the nation into a new quagmire in Iraq. In view of where the United States finds itself today-unable to stay but unable to leave-Campbell recommends that the country rededicate itself to the essential lessons of Vietnam: the danger of imperial arrogance, the limits of military force, the importance of international and constitutional law, and the power of morality.

There is an important debate raging about whether Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Those who deny the similarities most vociferously are often those who know (or remember) the least about Vietnam. Kenneth Campbell knows Vietnam from his thirteen months of fighting there (he received a Purple Heart), and years of political organizing to get the United States out of the war. Here, Campbell lays out the political process of getting into, sinking deeper, hitting bottom, and finally pulling out of the Vietnam quagmire. He traces the chief lessons of Vietnam, which helped the United States successfully avoid quagmires for thirty years, and explains how neoconservatives within the Bush administration cynically used the tragedy of 9/11 to override the "Vietnam syndrome" and drag the nation into a new quagmire in Iraq. In view of where the United States finds itself today-unable to stay but unable to leave-Campbell recommends that the country rededicate itself to the essential lessons of Vietnam: the danger of imperial arrogance, the limits of military force, the importance of international and constitutional law, and the power of morality.

A monumental work of research and analysis, this is a history of the Vietnam War in a single province of the Mekong Delta over the period 1930-1975. More precisely, it is a study of the Vietnamese dimension of the "Vietnam War, " focusing on the revolutionary movement that became popularly known as the "Viet Cong." There are several distinctive features to this study: (1) it provides an explanation for the paradox of why the revolutionary movement was so successful during the war, but unable to meet the challenges of postwar developments; (2) it challenges the dominant theme of contemporary political analysis which assumes that people are "rational" actors responding to events with careful calculations of self-interest; (3) it closely examines province-level documentation that casts light on a number of important historical controversies about the war. No other history of the Vietnam War has drawn on such a depth of documentation, especially firsthand accounts that allow the Vietnamese participants to spea directly to us.

Studies of air combat in the Vietnam War inevitably focus on the MiG-killing fighter engagements, B-52 onslaughts or tactical strikes on the Hanoi region. However, underlying all these was the secretive 'electron war' in which highly-skilled electronic warfare officers duelled with Soviet and North Vietnamese radar operators in the attempt to enable US strike forces to reach their targets with minimal losses. Orbiting at the edge of heavily-defended territory, the vulnerable EB-66s identified and jammed the enemy's radar frequencies with electronic emissions and chaff to protect the American bombers. Their hazardous missions resulted in six combat losses, four of them to SA-2 missiles and one to a MiG-21, and they became prime targets for North Vietnamese defences when their importance was realised. This illustrated study focuses on the oft-overlooked B-66 series, examining their vital contributions to the Vietnam War and the bravery of those who operated them in some of the most challenging situations imaginable. Author Peter E. Davies also explores how the technology and tactics devised during the period made possible the development of the EF-111A Raven, an invaluable component of the Desert Storm combat scenario over Iraq and Kuwait in 1991, and the US Navy's EA-6B Prowler, which entered service towards the end of the Vietnam War.