The Mad Fragger and Me relates the true experiences of a U.S. Army lieutenant throughout his training, culminating in a tour as an Infantry Rifle Platoon Leader in Vietnam. This is an articulate, sometimes graphically violent and often humorous account of the grunts in The Famous 2nd Platoon, who struggled to dominate the Quang Ngai Province elements of the North Vietnamese Army in 1971.

THE SCREAMING EAGLES OF VIETNAM IN 1970 The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne have been in combat against the elusive Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army for nearly five years. In his memoir, author John G. Roberts tells the story of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, the "Widow Makers" of the 101st Divisions' 1st Brigade. Written in the often crude language of the combat infantryman, Roberts describes what it was like to confront the enemy during close combat in the triple-canopied jungles of I Corps, west of the Song Bo River and in the infamous A Shau Valley. As part of Operation Texas Star, the 502nd Infantry (the "O-Deuce") lost 30 men killed and over 200 wounded in a month long battle against the 29th NVA Regiment in April and May, 1970. JUNGLE COMBAT SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG SHAKE-N-BAKE SERGEANT Roberts relates the shock and grief he and others felt when his 11-man squad lost 3 men killed and five wounded in about an hour of combat. The fights around Hill 714, Hill 882 and the 4-month Battle of Firebase Ripcord received very little attention in the media. The press was focused on the April invasion of Cambodia and the May student shootings at Kent State University in Ohio. Roberts, like many Vietnam combat veterans, carried the symptoms of PTSD with him when he returned home. The author is very open about the 35 year battle he had with PTSD and alcohol. With help from his family and support from medical professionals at Veterans Affairs, he has worked out a truce with the demons of PTSD and now lives a quiet life in Southern California. JOIN THE O-DEUCE DURING OPERATION TEXAS STAR When you read Mighty Men of Valor: With Charlie Company on Hill 714 - Vietnam, 1970 you have the chance to experience life (and death) as an combat infantryman during the last big American-led battles of the Vietnam War as only someone who was there can describe them.

In 1966 a young Army lieutenant from small-town Oklahoma set foot in the Central Highlands of Vietnam as a raw, inexperienced Huey pilot. Ray Clark would serve two harrowing tours in Vietnam, developing his piloting skills in combat. Clark has written an engrossing, poignant, and often humorous account of America's combat helicopter pilots and crew members: their adventures, triumphs and tragedies as they fought in a war like no other in America's history. A natural and masterful storyteller, Clark shares a personal memoir of war that Americans should heed carefully. Just Let Me Walk Away is a chronicle of a defining point in U.S. history, a tale of an unpopular war and the soldiers charged to fight it. This riveting, personal story is written with passion, dignity, and a commitment to truth. A day in the life of these American veterans is a story largely untold, an uncelebrated truth that Clark is compelled to reveal.

During the Vietnam War, the US Air Force secretly trained pilots from Laos, skirting Lao neutrality in order to bolster the Royal Lao Air Force and their own war efforts. Beginning in 1964, this covert project, "Water Pump," operated out of Udorn Airbase in Thailand with the support of the CIA. This Secret War required recruits from Vietnam-border region willing to take great risks-a demand that was met by the marginalized Hmong ethnic minority. Soon, dozens of Hmong men were training at Water Pump and providing air support to the US-sponsored clandestine army in Laos. Short and problematic training that resulted in varied skill levels, ground fire, dangerous topography, bad weather conditions, and poor aircraft quality, however, led to a nearly 50 percent casualty rate, and those pilots who survived mostly sought refuge in the United States after the war. Drawing from numerous oral history interviews, Fly Until You Die brings their stories to light for the first time-in the words of those who lived it.

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.
JWV

Once Upon a Distance War tells the stories of such young Vietnam war correspondents as Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett, and David Halberstam, providing a riveting chronicle of high adventure and brutal slapstick, gallantry and cynicism, as well as a vital addition to the history they shaped. "Prochnau . . . tells a Vietnam story we haven't heard before. . . . Complex, witty, and humane."--Tobias Wolff. of photos.

The tactics and technologies of modern air assault - vertical deployment of troops by helicopter or similar means - emerged properly during the 1950s in Korea and Algeria. Yet it was during the Vietnam War that helicopter air assault truly came of age and by 1965 the United States had established fully airmobile battalions, brigades, and divisions, including the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).This division brought to Vietnam a revolutionary new speed and dexterity in battlefield tactics, using massed helicopters to liberate its soldiers from traditional overland methods of combat manoeuvre. However, the communist troops adjusted their own thinking to handle airmobile assaults. Specializing in ambush, harassment, infiltration attacks, and small-scale attrition, the North Vietnamese operated with light logistics and a deep familiarity with the terrain. They optimized their defensive tactics to make landing zones as hostile as possible for assaulting US troops, and from 1966 worked to draw them into 'Hill Traps', extensive kill zones specially prepared for defence -in -depth. By the time the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) withdrew from Vietnam in 1972, it had suffered more casualties than any other US Army division. Featuring specially commissioned artwork, archive photographs, and full-colour battle maps, this study charts the evolution of US airmobile tactics pitted against North Vietnamese countermeasures. The two sides are analysed in detail, including training, logistics, weaponry, and organization.

Vietnam veteran Don Yost explores the pain and rage of his experience as a correspondent near Mai Laid in 1968, transforming it through writing to a elegaic and powerful memoir, imbued with a significant message for our time.

Although the American involvement in Vietnam is most often thought of in terms of its army and air forces, the United States Navy also had a significant presence in Southeast Asia from 1945 on. Its role in the immediate post-World War II era, its support of French forces up to the fall of Dien Bien Phu, and the run-up to a more substantial direct American involvement in the late 1950s is particularly obscure. "The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: Volume I, The Setting of the Stage to 1959," the first in a series, provides the needed historical background for the period up to 1959 to assist readers in understanding naval roles in the Vietnam era, how these roles evolved, their relationships to other forms of power and influences, strategic considerations, and the impact of naval power on the conflict. It also traces the story of the Vietnam-related actions of the Navy through the initial period of American military aid to the British and French and the first five years that followed the French-Viet Minh War. Among the topic treated are the little-known American role in transporting Nationalist Chinese troops from Haiphong back to China in 1945, American military aid to the French prior to 1954, evacuation of Vietnamese civilians from the north at the end of that year - including the role of Lieutenant (jg) Doctor Thomas A. Dooley - and the training and equipping of the navy of the Republic of Vietnam up through 1959. In addition to the operational details, "The Setting of the Stage to 1959" also documents the administrative and diplomatic background, including the effects of the creation and implementation of the new U.S. Department of Defense and the behind-the-scenes discussion of possible American intervention to assist the French on the eve of their defeat. Students of the roots of American involvement in Indochina and naval historians will find The Setting of the Stage to 1959 a valuable resource in deciphering the tangled and prolonged American presence in Southeast Asia. Originally published in 1976 by the Naval History Division, United States Department of the Navy. 436 pages. maps. ill.

Originally published in 1986 by the Naval Historical Center, United States Department of the Navy. 608 pages. maps. ill.

Haven't read anything positive about the United States of America lately?

Can hardly remember exactly why we fought all those wars or what that is worthwhile came out of them? The author of this book of 12 speeches and several essays was the invited speaker in those difficult Sixties and Seventies on Independence Day, Naturalization Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day at gatherings in Southern Oregon. There he spoke from the heart (and his years of historical training) to the matter of our wars and their reasons for being waged.

Large audiences and small alike stood or sat while Vaughn Davis Bornet delivered short orations that speak directly to sensitive matters. In the Country and around the World at the time there grew to be muttering and questioning; many "tuned out" or "dropped out" as the drug culture and draft resistance moved in on the spirit that had won World War II and earlier World War I.

The Rogue River Valley is a place of small towns; the locale is just north of California, in the mountains, but Ashland, Medford, and the smaller places are in valleys where old values continue to be honored in ceremonies that honor our service personnel year after year.

This book, whose prose is in most cases forty years old, returns readers to an older time. It does so without apology, for the author admits from the very beginning to being "patriotic." His essay/speeches are, in a word no longer in general use, patriotics.

The author's publications and bio appear on pages 150-153.

Since most of the words in this book were created to be spoken aloud, why not read a few paragraphs or pages to a friend or relative?

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.

From the commotion of a college campus to hitchhiking on the open road and treating young heroin users in Vietnam, "Phoenix to LA" is a piece of living history for children of the 1960s, their children, and their grandchildren.

Designed to counter the threat of a massed Soviet armored assault, the M50 Ontos showed its merit in the jungles and streets of Vietnam. Ontos grew out of Project Vista, the secret study of possible improvements to NATO defenses. Project Vista identified the need for an inexpensive, heavily armed "something" to thwart waves of Soviet armor. Armed with six powerful recoilless rifles, the diminutive M50 was given the name "Ontos," an Army mistranslation of Greek for "the Thing." Initially, the Army felt that the Allis-Chalmers T165E1 (later standardized as the M50) was the thing to fill the recommendation of Project Vista. Ultimately, and after some controversy, the Army lost interest in the vehicle, but the United States Marine Corps believed in the vehicle, and in 1955 the M50 entered production. While the Corps first used the Ontos in Santo Domingo in 1965, it would rise to fame in Vietnam, where the M50, as well as the modernized M50A1, saw considerable use as antipersonnel weapons and in perimeter defense. On the streets of Hue, Marines made considerable use of the Ontos, blasting open walls and using antipersonnel rounds to create faux smoke screens. Over 270 photos, many in color, chronicle the development, production, combat use, and details of this famed vehicle and the men who used them.

The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was the most important military campaign of the Vietnam War. The ancient capital city of Hue, once considered the jewel of Indochina's cities, was a key objective of a surprise Communist offensive launched on Vietnam's most important holiday. But when the North Vietnamese launched their massive invasion of the city, instead of the general civilian uprising and easy victory they had hoped for, they faced a devastating battle of attrition with enormous casualties on both sides. In the end, the battle for Hue was an unambiguous military and political victory for South Vietnam and the United States. In Fire in the Streets, the dramatic narrative of the battle unfolds on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis. The focus is on the U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers and Marines-from the top commanders down to the frontline infantrymen-and on the men and women who supported them. With access to rare documents from both North and South Vietnam and hundreds of hours of interviews, Eric Hammel, a renowned military historian, expertly draws on first-hand accounts from the battle participants in this engrossing mixture of action and commentary. In addition, Hammel examines the tremendous strain the surprise attack put on the South Vietnamese-U.S. alliance, the shocking brutality of the Communist "liberators," and the lessons gained by U.S. Marines forced to wage battle in a city-a task for which they were utterly unprepared and which remains highly relevant today. Re-issued in the fiftieth anniversary year of the battle, with an updated photo section and maps this is the only complete and authoritative account of this crucial landmark battle.

A Conflict that Shaped A Generation
Four decades on, the legacy of American involvement in the Viet Nam War still looms large in the lives of the veterans who experienced it first hand. This new anthology of poems, stories, and essays looks at the war through the lens of both past and present perspectives.
Featuring the work of fifteen veteran writers, the scope of the book defines how modern warfare affects the lives of those who lived it and subsequently their own families after returning from the war. The men who have contributed to this volume each have played their own part whether medic, air cavalry, recon, forward observer, or just plain grunt. The pain they felt, witnessed, and buried can hopefully be released by the telling of their collective truths.
It is their hope that through this book you will be able to feel something of what they have felt and that it will inform you about the role that this conflict continues to play in the lives of those who served there. The words of William Faulkner still ring true: The past is not dead, it s not even past.
"More Than a Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam" is the newest book in the "Reflections of America" series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com

This book is taken largely from the author's War Journal ... a daily record of his adventures in the Vietnam War. The book is five central stories making up Colonel Bo's three years fighting in Vietnam. Every veteran has a Vietnam story. This is his.

In this volume the author develops the thesis that burgeoning technology in communications faced a severe test in Vietnam. He analyzes the advantages and drawbacks of new communications systems and the effects these systems had on decision making and on command. In so doing, he describes the difficulties that communications systems had in keeping pace with the information explosion and shows that command and control do not necessarily improve with enhanced communications. The study illustrates that the communicator's mission of "getting the message through" was not only critical to the success of combat operations but also as challenging as combat itself. The author's clear understanding and description of these issues make this a valuable work for those responsible for the future success of command, control, communications, and intelligence. At the same time it serves as a primer for readers not fully aware of the vital part communications play in every phase of warfare.

Want an uplifting account of one young Army officer's service in the Vietnam War? "Vietnam, A Memoir: Saigon Cop," is not it. The focus of this book and of two later volumes in the series is war stripped of glory, high purpose, inspiration, and easy but false patriotism. Instead, the focus is on five Bs: booze, babes, boredom, bureaucracy, and occasionally battle. Heroes are few. Hyperbole is minimal.

Yet the tale is an unusual one. The author was an ROTC graduate with no long term Army commitment. After serving a year as a Military Police platoon leader in Saigon, a period that is the subject of this first volume, he stayed in Vietnam for another year and a half. His months as an infantry officer are covered in later volumes.

Military Police duty in Saigon in 1966-67 was a surreal combination of Army nitpicking on a stateside scale, protecting U.S. facilities against Viet Cong terrorism, and policing the large U.S. presence in the city. MPs lived, worked, and occasionally played in the middle of an Oriental metropolis of strange sights, sounds, and smells. Lengthy stretches of tedious, humdrum activity were interrupted by sudden bursts of danger and fear.

Professor Havens analyzes the efforts of Japanese antiwar organizations to portray the war as much more than a fire across the sea" and to create new forms of activism in a country where individuals have traditionally left public issues to the authorities. This path-breaking study examines not only the methods of the protesters but the tightrope dance performed by Japanese officials forced to balance outspoken antiwar sentiment with treaty obligations to the U.S. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The present volume describes the activities of the U.S. Army in Vietnam during World War II, military advice and assistance to the French government during the immediate postwar years, and the advisory program that developed after the Geneva Agreements of 1954. Its scope ranges from high-level policy decisions to low-echelon advisory operations in the field, presented against a background of relevant military and political developments. The author enjoyed access to the official records of the period and examined personal papers, interviews, other documentary sources, and miscellaneous published materials. Useful not only as a study of military assistance but as a view of the Army as an agent of national policy, this volume is a fitting introduction to the overall study of the conflict in Vietnam.

This collection of short stories is intended to illustrate a more humorous glimpse of a soldier's life in Vietnam. It's of the times when boredom and a fertile imagination often lead to amusing situations, rather than the "blood and guts" of combat.
All the narratives in this book, saves one, are true, or at least were presented to the author as fact. Some are without a doubt true, as they happened to the author. Other Vietnam veterans related the remainder of the yarns, swearing that each and every detail was unquestioningly genuine. We all know that combat veterans do not lie but their memories may, nevertheless recall their experiences slightly altered from actual events. Perusing these stories the reader might logically conclude that ego or passing years might, just possibly, influence a few of the bone-chilling tales.
GI's live through numerous happenstances that are not heroic but are embarrassing or mundane. No matter how cynical a GI becomes, some events, maybe only in retrospect, are viewed as ironic or downright funny. These random experiences are what the book are about.