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.

Lurps is the memoir of a juvenile delinquent who drops out of ninth grade to pursue a dream of military service. While a paratrooper in Europe, he volunteers for Vietnam where he joins the elite U.S. Army LRRP / Rangers-small, heavily armed long-range reconnaissance teams that patrolled deep in enemy-held territory. Set in 1968, during some of the war's major campaigns and battles including Tet, Khe Sanh, and A Shau Valley, Lurps considers war through the eyes of a green young warrior. The compelling narrative and realistic dialogue engrosses the reader in both the horror and the humor of life in Vietnam and reflects upon the broader philosophical issue of war. This poignant, auto-biographical, coming-of-age story explores the social background that shaped the protagonist's thinking; his quest for redemption through increased responsibility; the brotherhood of comrades in arms; women and his sexual awakening; and the mysterious, baffling randomness of who lives and who dies.

Days of the Fall takes the reader into the heart of the terrible wars in Syria and Iraq. The book combines frontline reporting with analysis of the deeper causes and effects of the conflict. Over five years, Jonathan Spyer reported from the depths of the wars, spending time in Aleppo, Baghdad, Damascus, Mosul, Idlib, Hasaka and other frontline areas. He witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the conflict - the rescue of the trapped Yezidis from the attempted ISIS genocide in 2014, the Assad regime's assault on Aleppo, the rise of independent Kurdish power in north east Syria, the emergence of the Shia militias in Iraq as a key force. The book depicts these events, and seeks to place them within a broader framework. The author notes the ethnic and sectarian faultlines in both Syria and Iraq, and contends that both countries have now effectively separated along these lines, leading to the emergence of de facto fragmentation and the birth of a number of new entities. The book also notes that this confused space has now become an arena for proxy conflict between regional and global powers. Containing interviews with key figures from all sides of the conflict, such as the Shia militias in Iraq, and even ISIS members, Days of the Fall serves as an invaluable and comprehensive guide to the complex dynamics and the tragic human impact of the wars.

When US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, they occupied a country that had been at war for 23 years. Yet in their attempts to understand Iraqi society and history, few policy makers, analysts and journalists took into account the profound impact that Iraq's long engagement with war had on the Iraqis' everyday engagement with politics, the business of managing their daily lives, and their cultural imagination. Drawing on government documents and interviews, Dina Rizk Khoury traces the political, social and cultural processes of the normalization of war in Iraq during the last twenty-three years of Ba'thist rule. Khoury argues that war was a form of everyday bureaucratic governance and examines the Iraqi government's policies of creating consent, managing resistance and religious diversity, and shaping public culture. Coming on the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, this book tells a multilayered story of a society in which war has become the norm.

The Vietnam War lasted twenty years and resulted in the deaths of over 58,000 American soldiers, with many more Vietnamese victims. But the roots of the American-led conflict lay in the complex colonial history of Vietnam itself. Here, Pablo de Orellana uses recently declassified material to provide a new interpretation of the diplomatic failures and processes that lead to the outbreak and continuation of the conflict. Through a focus on the first Vietnam War, de Orellana shows how and why a Southeast Asian French colony already devastated by two wars came to be seen as an existential threat by policymakers in the United States, and how an attempt to stem the influence of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China spiraled out of control. The Road to Vietnam features new archival documents, including diplomatic notes and briefing material, to construct a new history of America's descent into conflict. This will be an essential resource for scholars and students of the Vietnam War and 20th Century diplomatic history.

Frances FitzGerald's landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, "a compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another." (New York Times Book Review) This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam -- the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention -- and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.

After a million deaths and twice that number injured, after the destruction of much of the infrastructure of Iran and Iraq, disruption of trade throughout the Gulf and the involvement of the USA and USSR, was the Gulf War a pointless exercise, a futile conflict which achieved nothing and left the combatants at the end of it all back in exactly the same position from which they started in 1980? In this book, first published in 1989, the authors argue that the lack of territorial gain was irrelevant: the real advantages won by each side were far more important, intangible though they were. For Iran, the channelling of the energies of her people away from domestic concerns meant the continuation of the Islamic revolution and ensured the stability of the mullahs. In Iraq, the war propped up the increasingly shaky regime of Saddam Hussein. The outside world, especially the superpowers, was terrified of the spread of Muslim fundamentalism, so made no effort to prevent Iraq from trying to halt this spread. But Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the oil states also had vested interests in promoting the continuation of the war.

Based on new archival research in many countries, this volume broadens the context of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Its primary focus is on relations between China and Vietnam in the mid-twentieth century; but the book also deals with China's relations with Cambodia, U.S. dealings with both China and Vietnam, French attitudes toward Vietnam and China, and Soviet views of Vietnam and China. Contributors from seven countries range from senior scholars and officials with decades of experience to young academics just finishing their dissertations. The general impact of this work is to internationalize the history of the Vietnam War, going well beyond the long-standing focus on the role of the United States.

This book investigates the origins of the North Korean garrison state by examining the development of the Korean People's Army and the legacies of the Korean War. Despite its significance, there are very few books on the Korean People's Army with North Korean primary sources being difficult to access. This book, however, draws on North Korean documents and North Korean veterans' testimonies, and demonstrates how the Korean People's Army and the Korean War shaped North Korea into a closed, militarized and xenophobic garrison state and made North Korea seek Juche (Self Reliance) ideology and weapons of mass destruction. This book maintains that the youth and lower classes in North Korea considered the Korean People's Army as a positive opportunity for upward social mobility. As a result, the North Korean regime secured its legitimacy by establishing a new class of social elites wherein they offered career advancements for persons who had little standing and few opportunities under the preceding Japanese dominated regime. These new elites from poor working and peasant families became the core supporters of the North Korean regime today. In addition, this book argues that, in the aftermath of the Korean War, a culture of victimization was established among North Koreans which allowed Kim Il Sung to use this culture of fear to build and maintain the garrison state. Thus, this work illustrates how the North Korean regime has garnered popular support for the continuation of a militarized state, despite the great hardships the people are suffering. This book will be of much interest to students of North Korea, the Korean War, Asian politics, Cold War Studies, military and strategic studies, and international history.

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.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When in 1950 the United Nations called upon its members to provide aid to South Korea, more than forty nations responded. Some of these sent troops which fought under the United Nations Command, some sent commodities and medical supplies. Some nations offered moral and political support but for a variety of reasons were not able to send aid. This book looks at the nations involved, what was behind their willingness to provide troops or aid, or what prevented them from doing so. The military contribution of the nations involved is discussed. The combination of troops, and their individual needs, made the logistics of this enterprise difficult, but in the end troops from 17 nations fought together to defend the freedom of South Korea.

As the United States withdraws its combat troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, politicians, foreign policy specialists, and the public are worrying about the consequences of leaving these two countries. Neither nation can be considered stable, and progress toward democracy in them-a principal aim of America and the West-is fragile at best. But, international relations scholar Mark N. Katz asks: Could ending both wars actually help the United States and its allies to overcome radical Islam in the long term? Drawing lessons from the Cold War, Katz makes the case that rather than signaling the decline of American power and influence, removing military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq puts the U.S. in a better position to counter the forces of radical Islam and ultimately win the war on terror. He explains that since both wars will likely remain intractable, for Washington to remain heavily involved in either is counter-productive. Katz argues that looking to its Cold War experience would help the U.S. find better strategies for employing America's scarce resources to deal with its adversaries now. This means that, although leaving Afghanistan and Iraq may well appear to be a victory for America's opponents in the short term-as was the case when the U.S. withdrew from Indochina-the larger battle with militant Islam can be won only by refocusing foreign and military policy away from these two quagmires. This sober, objective assessment of what went wrong in the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the ways the West can disentangle itself and still move forward draws striking parallels with the Cold War. Anyone concerned with the future of the War on Terror will find Katz's argument highly thought provoking.

This book explores the use of deadly force by private security companies during the Iraq War. The work focuses on and compares the activities of the US companies Blackwater and Dyncorp. Despite sharing several important characteristics, such as working for the same client (the US State Department) during the same time period, the employees of Blackwater fired their weapons far more often, and killed and seriously injured far more people in Iraq than their counterparts in DynCorp. In order to explain this disparity, the book undertakes the most comprehensive analysis ever attempted on the use of violence by the employees of these firms. Based on extensive empirical research, it offers a credible explanation for this difference: Blackwater maintained a relatively bellicose military culture that placed strong emphasis on norms encouraging its personnel to exercise personal initiative, proactive use of force, and an exclusive approach to security, which, together, motivated its personnel to use violence quite freely against anyone they suspected of posing a threat. Specifically, Blackwater's military culture motivated its personnel to fire upon suspected threats more quickly, at greater distances, and with a greater quantity of bullets, and to more readily abandon the people they shot at when compared to DynCorp's personnel, who maintained a military culture that encouraged far less violent behaviour. Utilizing the Private Security Company Violent Incident Dataset (PSCVID), created by the author in 2012, the book draws upon data on hundreds of violent incidents involving private security personnel in Iraq to identify trends in the behaviour exhibited by the employees of different firms. Based on this rich and original empirical data, the book provides the definitive study of contemporary private security personnel in the Iraq War. This book will be of much interest to students of the Iraq War, Private Security Companies, Military Studies, War and Conflict Studies and IR in general.

This classic history of the Korean War-from its origins through the armistice-is now available in a paperback edition including a substantive introduction that considers the heightened danger of a new Northeast Asian war as Trump and Kim Jung-un escalate their rhetoric. Wada Haruki, one of the world's leading scholars of the war, draws on archival and other primary sources in Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to provide the first full understanding of the Korean War as an international conflict from the perspective of all the actors involved. Wada traces the North Korean invasion of South Korea in riveting detail, providing new insights into the behavior of Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee. He also provides new insights into the behavior of Communist leaders in Korea, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and their rivals in other nations. He traces the course of the war from its origins in the North and South Korean leaders' failed attempts to unify their country by force, ultimately escalating into a Sino-American war on the Korean Peninsula. Although sixty-five years have passed since the armistice, the Korean conflict has never really ended. Tensions remain high on the peninsula as Washington and Pyongyang, as well as Seoul and Pyongyang, continue to face off. It is even more timely now to address the origins of the Korean War, the nature of the confrontation, and the ways in which it affects the geopolitical landscape of Northeast Asia and the Pacific region. With his unmatched ability to draw on sources from every country involved, Wada paints a rich and full portrait of a conflict that continues to generate controversy.

That America was drawn into the Vietnam War by the French has been recognized, but rarely explored. This book analyzes the years from 1945 with the French military reconquest of Vietnam until 1963 with the execution of the French-endorsed dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem, demonstrating how the US should not have followed the French into Vietnam. It shows how the Korean War triggered the flow of American military hardware and finances to underpin France's war against the Marxist-oriented Vietnam Republic led by Ho Chi Minh.

The Vietnam War was an immense national tragedy that played itself out in the individual experiences of millions of Americans. The conflict tested and tormented the country collectively and individually in ways few historical events have. The Human Tradition in the Vietnam Era provides window into some of those personal journeys through that troubled time. The poor and the powerful, male and female, hawk and dove, civilian and military, are all here. This rich collection of original biographical essays provides contemporary readers with a sense of what it was like to be an American in the 1960s and early 1970s, while also helping them gain an understanding of some of the broader issues of the era. The diverse biographies included in this book put a human face on the tensions and travails of the Vietnam Era. Students will gain a better understanding of how individuals looked at and lived through this contro-versial conflict in American history.

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.

VIETNAM By Nicole Smith Copyright 2007 Erin Nicole Smith Used by permission Raging war In a foreign land U.S. Soldiers Made a stand Many died In Vietnam Was it right? Or was it wrong? Violent protest In the street American citizens Saw defeat Nightly news Brought the pictures home Radio listeners Heard the songs Love and hate War and peace 60's chaos Never ceased Battered Soldiers Fought and died The cost of freedom Oh so high Strong emotions In the USA Sounds familiar A lot like today http: //www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/BookStoreSearchResults.aspx?SearchType=smpl&SearchTerm=Dr]Art+Schmitt The book chronicles stories of truly Invincible Warriors. A woman Black Hawk pilot with two tours in Iraq tells the story how she thought that she was in A Star Wars Movie. The story of a Navy Corpman who served with Marines. His son is also a Navy Corpsman in Iraq. Harrison H (Jack) Schmitt, Apollo 17, one of the last men on the moon. I was his instructor to get him checked out in Helicopters. He tells his invincible story about a three hour hold on the mission and he took a nap in the rocket before launching to the moon. Stories of many Vietnam veterans. Pilots, Door gunners, River Patrol Gun Boat warriors (River Rats) and Navy SEALS. Admiral James Flatley, The former Executive Director of Patriots Point tells his story of his invincible story of flying a i130 Hercules off of an aircraft carrier. Other Invincible stories of CTF-116 River Rats, River Patrol gun boats in Vietnam. A tribute to Helicopter Attack Light Squadron Three, door gunners, crew and Pilots. A Vietnam Poem written by Nicole Smith, 14 years old, My wife's Grand Daughter. We were all truly Invincible.

This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems. This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general.

Through readings of literature, canonical history texts, studies of museum displays and media analysis, this work explores the historical formation of myths of Canadian national identity and then how these myths were challenged (and affirmed during the 1990 standoff at Oka. It draws upon history, literary criticism, anthropology, studies in nationalism and ethnicity and post-colonial theory.

This book identifies some of the main lessons for civil-military interactions that can be derived from the experiences of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. The book has three main themes. Firstly, the volume analyses why the ways in which civil and military actors interact in theatres of operations such as Afghanistan matter - for both those categories of actors, and for the ordinary people who their interactions serve. Second, the book highlights that these interactions are invariably complex. The third theme, which arises specifically from 'the PRT experience' in Afghanistan, is that such teams vary significantly in their roles, resourcing, and operational environments. Consequently, to appraise the value of 'the PRT experience', it is necessary to unpack the experiences of different PRTs, which the use of case studies allows one to do. The volume comprises an introduction, identifying some key questions to which the PRT experience gives rise, and case studies of the experiences of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and France; chapters dealing with the roles played by NGOs and the UN system and a discussion from an Afghan perspective of the implications of civilian casualties. It is the combination of the diverse cases discussed in this book with a focus on the broad challenges of optimising civil-military interactions that makes this book distinctive. This book will be of much interest to students of the Afghan War, civil-military relations, statebuilding, Central Asian politics and IR in general.

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.