During the Vietnam War, the United States embarked on an unusual crusade on behalf of the government of South Vietnam. Known as the pacification program, it sought to help South Vietnam's government take root and survive as an independent, legitimate entity by defeating communist insurgents and promoting economic development and political reforms. In this book, Richard Hunt provides the first comprehensive history of America's "battle for hearts and minds," the distinctive blending of military and political approaches that took aim at the essence of the struggle between North and South Vietnam. Hunt concentrates on the American role, setting pacification in the larger political context of nation building. He describes the search for the best combination of military and political action, incorporating analysis of the controversial Phoenix program, and illuminates the difficulties the Americans encountered with their sometimes reluctant ally. The author explains how hard it was to get the U.S. Army involved in pacification and shows the struggle to yoke divergent organizations (military, civilian, and intelligence agencies) to serve one common goal. The greatest challenge of all was to persuade a surrogate-the Saigon government-to carry out programs and to make reforms conceived of by American officials. The book concludes with a careful assessment of pacification's successes and failures. Would the Saigon government have flourished if there had been more time to consolidate the gains of pacification? Or was the regime so fundamentally flawed that its demise was preordained by its internal contradictions? This pathbreaking book offers startling and provocative answers to these and other important questions about our Vietnam experience.

And Bring the Darkness Home is a haunting exploration of how the mental scars of war destroyed an international cricket career, tore a family apart and left destitute a man who seemed to have it all. Tony Dell was the only Test cricketer to fight in the Vietnam War. His journey to the summit of the game, playing for Australia against England in the Ashes, was as unlikely and meteoric as any in cricket history. His descent was painful and harrowing. It was in his mid-60s, living in his mother's garage, that he learned the truth about what had led him on a path of self-destruction. A diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder allowed him to piece together the ruins of his life and also to search for answers, for himself and the thousands of other sufferers. The restlessness and urgency that once drove him to the top of the game was turned on authorities who refused to learn the lessons from history. PTSD robbed Tony Dell of memories of his playing career and left a palpable sense of loss. It also gave him a life-changing mission.

By 1969, following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, over 500,000 US troops were 'in country' in Vietnam. Before America's longest war had ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975, 450,000 Vietnamese had died, along with 36,000 Americans. The Vietnam War was the first rock 'n' roll war, the first helicopter war with its doctrine of 'airmobility', and the first television war; it made napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange infamous, and gave us the New Journalism of Michael Herr and others. It also saw the establishment of the Navy SEALs and Delta Force. At home, America fractured, with the peace movement protesting against the war; at Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on unarmed students, killing four and injuring nine. Lewis's compelling selection of the best writing to come out of a war covered by some truly outstanding writers, both journalists and combatants, includes an eyewitness account of the first major battle between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam at Ia Drang; a selection of letters home; Nicholas Tomalin's famous 'The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong'; Robert Mason's 'R&R', Studs Terkel's account of the police breaking up an anti-war protest; John Kifner on the shootings at Kent State; Ron Kovic's 'Born on the Fourth of July'; John T. Wheeler's 'Khe Sanh: Live in the V Ring'; Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh on the massacre at My Lai; Michael Herr's 'It Made You Feel Omni'; Viet Cong Truong Nhu Tang's memoir; naval nurse Maureen Walsh's memoir, 'Burning Flesh'; John Pilger on the fall of Saigon; and Tim O'Brien's 'If I Die in a Combat Zone'.

The Iraq War is a visual record of the American-led Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003, which resulted in the dramatic overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In a striking sequence of photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones shows how this was achieved by the American and British armed forces in a lightning campaign of just two weeks. But the photographs also show the disastrous aftermath when the swift victory was undermined by the outbreak of the Iraqi insurgency - in the Shia south, in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, and in Fallujah where two ferocious battles were fought. The author, who is an expert on the Iraqi armed forces and has written extensively on the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War, gives a fascinating insight into the Iraqi army and air force and into the multitude of weapons systems Saddam purchased from around the world. He also looks at the failures on the American and British side - the flaws in the tactics that were used, the poor performance of some of the armoured fighting vehicles - and at the reformed Iraqi armed forces who have now taken responsibility for security in the country. The Iraq War is a vivid photographic introduction to a conflict that has only just passed into history.

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

The British Army's considerable contribution to The Korean War 1950 - 1953 was largely composed of 'conscripts' or national servicemen. Plucked from civilian life on a 'lottery' basis and given a short basic training, some like Jim Jacobs volunteered for overseas duty and suddenly found themselves in the thick of a war as intensive and dangerous as anything the Second World War had had to offer. As a member of 170 Independent Mortar Battery RA from March 1951 to June 1952 Jim was in the frontline at the famous Battle of the Imjin River. By great luck he evaded capture - and death - unlike so many. He returned to the UK only to volunteer again for a second tour with 120 Light Battery from March 1953 to March 1954. During this period he was in the thick of the action at the Third Battle of the Hook during May 1953. In this gripping memoir Jim calmly and geographically recounts his experiences and emotions from joining the Army through training, the journeys by troopship and, most importantly, on active service in the atrocious and terrifying war fighting that went on in a very foreign place.

"'I never got a chance to be a girl, ' Kate O'Hare Palmer lamented, thirty-four years after her tour as an army nurse in Vietnam. Although proud of having served, she felt that the war she never understood had robbed her of her innocence and forced her to grow up too quickly. As depicted in a photograph taken late in her tour, long hours in the operating room exhausted her both physically and mentally. Her tired eyes and gaunt face reflected th e weariness she felt after treating countless patients, some dying, some maimed, all, like her, forever changed. Still, she learned to work harder and faster than she thought she could, to trust her nursing skills, and to live independently. She developed a way to balance the dangers and benefits of being a woman in the army and in the war. Only fourteen months long, her tour in Vietnam profoundly affected her life and her beliefs."

Such vivid personal accounts abound in historian Kara Dixon Vuic's compelling look at the experiences of army nurses in the Vietnam War. Drawing on more than 100 interviews, Vuic allows the nurses to tell their own captivating stories, from their reasons for joining the military to the physical and emotional demands of a horrific war and postwar debates about how to commemorate their service.

Vuic also explores the gender issues that arose when a male-dominated army actively recruited and employed the services of 5,000 nurses in the midst of a growing feminist movement and a changing nursing profession. Women drawn to the army's patriotic promise faced disturbing realities in the virtually all-male hospitals of South Vietnam. Men who joined the nurse corps ran headlong into the army's belief that women should nurse and men should fight.

"Officer, Nurse, Woman" brings to light the nearly forgotten contributions of brave nurses who risked their lives to bring medical care to soldiers during a terrible--and divisive--war.

In the 40 years since the end of World War II, Vietnam has been the focal point of the struggle for and against colonialism, of the war between capitalism and socialism and, more recently, of the clash between contending socialisms. For the first time, a nation divided in two by the ideological schisms of the Cold War has been reunified. With a population of 65 million it has become the 12th largest country in the world and it is the third largest socialist country. It has mineral, agricultural and labour resources which could ultimately see it become a major economic power in Southeast Asia. However, it remains one of the poorest economies in the world at present and the reunification process has created difficult problems for the economic development strategy being pursued. In focussing on the theme of economic unification, this book hopes to throw some new light on these domestic developments and on Vietnam's potential for growth in the future. The study explains the economic upheavals in terms of historical developments, especially the legacy of separation of North and South from 1954 to the 1975 Communist victory. The author traces those aspects of the divided economies which have been of significance for post-War development and argues that the process of unifying radically different economic systems has been the key to understanding the economic crisis facing Vietnam since 1975 and its potential for constructing a strong, socialist economy in future. The Vietnamese experience with reunification also contains important lessons for other countries in the region. The author has also written "A Manual of Political Economy" and "Vietnam: Politics, Economics and Society".

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

This book analyses the various ways counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is gendered. The book examines the US led war in Afghanistan from 2001 onwards, including the invasion, the population-centric counterinsurgency operations and the efforts to train a new Afghan military charged with securing the country when the US and NATO withdrew their combat forces in 2014. Through an analysis of key counterinsurgency texts and military memoirs, the book explores how gender and counterinsurgency are co-constitutive in numerous ways. It discusses the multiple military masculinities that counterinsurgency relies on, the discourse of 'cultural sensitivity', and the deployment of Female Engagement Teams (FETs). Gendering Counterinsurgency demonstrates how population-centric counterinsurgency doctrine and practice can be captured within a gendered dynamic of 'killing and caring' - reliant on physical violence, albeit mediated through 'armed social work'. This simultaneously contradictory and complementary dynamic cannot be understood without recognising how the legitimation and the practice of this war relied on multiple gendered embodied performances of masculinities and femininities. Developing the concept of 'embodied performativity' this book shows how the clues to understanding counterinsurgency, as well as gendering war more broadly are found in war's everyday gendered manifestations. This book will be of much interest to students of counterinsurgency warfare, gender politics, governmentality, biopolitics, critical war studies, and critical security studies in general.

The military adventure that George W. Bush embarked on within months of his inauguration in 2001 was to eclipse everything else in his presidency. His name will forever be synonymous with the "war on terror." What started as a military response to al Qaeda's attacks in New York and Washington on 9/11, with the goal of neutralizing al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, quickly fused with the neo-conservative agenda to dominate and reshape the Middle East. Al Qaeda's terrorism was answered by the terror of American military power, which has destroyed or blighted the lives of millions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Deepak Tripathi, a former BBC correspondent who has kept a keen eye on the region for more than three decades, identifies systematically the naive calculations, strategic and operational blunders, disregard for history and for other cultures, and even downright prejudice that have brought so much harm to so many. The legacy of Bush's foreign policy will take years to overcome, Tripathi argues. His war on terror provoked resentment and violent opposition, opened up sectarian divisions, and created Hobbesian conditions of war of all against all. The long-term price tag for America has been estimated at a colossal $3 trillion, but as Tripathi seeks to demonstrate, the overall cost, in human and economic terms, will be incalculable.

"The Dust of Life" is a collection of vivid and devastating oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians. Abandoned during the war by their American fathers, discriminated against by the victorious Communists, and ignored for many years by the American government, they endured life in impoverished Vietnam. Their stories are sad, sometimes tragic, but they are also testimonials to the strength of human resiliency.

Robert S. McKelvey is a former marine who served in Vietnam in the late 1960s. Now a child psychiatrist, he returned to Vietnam in 1990 to begin the long series of interviews that resulted in this book. While allowing his subjects to speak for themselves, McKelvey has organized their narratives around themes common to their lives: early maternal loss, the experience of prejudice and discrimination, coping with adversity, dealing with shattered hopes for the future, and, for some, adapting to the alien environment of the United States.

While unique in many respects, the Vietnamese Amerasian story also illustrates themes that are tragically universal: neglect of the human by-products of war, the destructiveness of prejudice and racism, the pain of abandonment, and the horrors of life amidst extreme poverty, hostility, and neglect.

In spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam war veterans who spoke out against the war in public hearings, Iraq veterans gathered to expose the war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this book Aaron Glantz and the Iraq war veterans reveal the atrocities they have witnessed.

""Winter Soldiers "is an immensely valuable contribution to the history of the Vietnam War. It brings to life, through the words of the veterans themselves, the journey each individual made, through the crucible of combat, from warrior to protester."--Howard Zinn

"Stacewicz has captured the simple, rough-hewn elegance of the voices of Vietnam veterans. As in other wars, the ordinary soldier always has the most extraordinary words for history."--Stanley Kutler, editor of "The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War"

"By turns irreverent and painfully sincere, "Winter Soldiers "will transform stereotyped views of both veterans and the antiwar movement."--Marilyn Young

The Vietnam War left an indelible mark on those who took part in it and spawned an antiwar movement more popular than any other in US history. In all that has been written about the war, rarely do the worlds of the Vietnam veteran and the antiwar demonstrator come together. Yet in a small but articulate organization known as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), the two made common cause.

"Winter Soldiers "recovers this moving chapter in the history of the Vietnam War era. Bringing together the voices of more than thirty former and current members of the VVAW, oral historian Richard Stacewicz offers an eloquent account of the impact of the war on the lives of individuals and the nation.

Richard Stacewicz teaches history at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois.

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History Winner of the 2018 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Greene Award for a distinguished work of nonfiction. The first battle book from Mark Bowden since his #1 New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968, "an instantly recognizable classic of military history" (Christian Science Monitor), was published to massive critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched over one hundred attacks across South Vietnam in what would become known as the Tet Offensive. The lynchpin of Tet was the capture of Hue, Vietnam's intellectual and cultural capital, by 10,000 National Liberation Front troops who descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. Within hours the entire city was in their hands save for two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the Front's presence, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the U.S. and Vietnam and inter-views with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over twenty-four days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. Hue 1968 is a gripping and moving account of this pivotal moment.

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.

Ten U.S. Marines are assigned to live, train, and go into battle with more than five hundred raw and undisciplined Iraqi soldiers. A member of this Adviser Support Team, Capt. Eric Navarro, recounts their tour in vivid and brutally honest detail.Their deployment comes at a particularly important time in the war. The Battle of Fallujah is raging, and President Bush has proclaimed training the Iraqi forces is the key to winning the war. Once they stand up, we can stand down, or so the theory goes. Navarro's team, nicknamed The Drifters, faces countless roadblocks-no interpreters initially, limited supplies, little contact with other U.S. forces, and a vast cultural gulf with the Iraqis. One hackneyed and fatalistic Arabic phrase seems to sum up the mission, "Insha Allah," which translates as "God willing" or "if God wills it."Whether riding into downtown Fallujah in an unarmored Nissan pick-up truck, living in squalor in abandoned buildings, dodging trigger-happy troops, sharing "FHM" magazine with Iraqi soldiers to boost morale, or getting attacked by insurgent rockets less than an hour after arriving, life is never easy and more often surreal. The Drifters' trials and tribulations help shed light on this most under-reported aspect of the war: What is wrong with the new Iraqi Army? The answer is not as pretty as the politicians would like.

This book takes a fresh look at the Korean War by considering the conflict from a Northeast Asian regional perspective. It highlights the connections of the war to earlier conflicts in the region and examines the human impact of the war on neighboring countries, focusing particularly on the ways in which the Korean War shaped regional cross-border movements of people, goods, and ideas (including hopes and fears). It also considers the lasting consequences of these movements for the region's society and politics.

Through the Valley is the captivating memoir of the last U.S. Army soldier taken prisoner during the Vietnam War. A narrative of courage, hope, and survival, Through the Valley is more than just a war story. It also portrays the thrill and horror of combat, the fear and anxiety of captivity, and the stories of friendships forged and friends lost In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so that Americans could leave.

Beginning with a brief account of the troubled historical past of this small country that had long known invasion and the threat of invasion, Carl Berger sets the stage for Korea's catastrophic hour resulting from World War II-the division of a once-united nation into two separate countries. It is this division, he maintains, that holds the key to the Korean tragedy. The book ranges from the Cairo Pledge to the present, examining the shifts in international diplomacy, Russia's change in attitude after Yalta and the death of Roosevelt, the intransigence of the Communist occupiers of northern Korea after the defeat of Japan. Berger also vividly describes the Communist invasion of South Korea and the conviction of President Truman that led ot the united Nations action to meet the challenge under the leadership of the United States. The bitter warfare of the "police action," the worldwide shock at the Chinese "volunteer" army's sudden entry into North Korea, the recall of General MacArthur, the struggles to work out an armistice, President' Rhee's despairing attempts to force the unification of his country and his final downfall-the entire dramatic story is unfolded in sequence. Carefully documented, The Korea Knot is an objective and detailed study that makes an important contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas-of war and peace, of freedom and repression-that still face a divided world.