During the first half of 1969, Bravo Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division operated northwest of Saigon in the vicinity of Go Dau Ha, fighting in 15 actions on the Cambodian border, in the Boi Loi Woods, the Hobo Woods and Michelin Rubber Plantation and on the outskirts of Tay Ninh City. In that time, Bravo Troop saw 10 percent of its average field strength killed while inflicting much heavier losses on the enemy. This memoir vividly recounts those six months of intense armored cavalry combat in Vietnam through the eyes of an artillery forward observer, highlighting his fire direction techniques and the routines and frustrations of searching for the enemy and chaos of finding him.

British foreign policy towards Vietnam illustrates the evolution of Britain's position within world geopolitics 1943-1950. It reflects the change of the Anglo-US relationship from equaltiy to dependence, and demonstrates Britain's changing association with its colonies and with the other European imperial spheres within southeast Asia. This book shows that Britain pursued a more involved policy towards Vietnam than has previously been stated, and clarifies Britain's role in the origins of the Vietnam War and the nature of subsequent US involvement.

More than 130,000 South Vietnamese fled their homeland at the end of the Vietnam War. Tens of thousands landed on the island of Guam on their way to the U.S. Many remained there. Guamanians and U.S. military personnel welcomed them. Funded by a $405 million Congressional appropriation, Operation New Life was among the most intensive humanitarian efforts ever accomplished by the U.S. government, with the help of the people of Guam. Without it, many evacuees would have died somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. This book chronicles a part of the first mass migration of Vietnamese "boat people," before and after the fall of Saigon in April 1975-a story still unfolding almost half a century later.

On the same day the Japanese surrender ended World War II, Vietnamese nationalists declared independence from France. Within weeks, France sought to reestablish colonial rule. American merchant seamen arriving in French ports to ship GIs back to the U.S. were dismayed when French troops bound for Vietnam came aboard instead. Many merchant seamen objected to these troopship movements because American veterans awaited transport home, and because they flew in the face of Allied war aims of national self-determination. Later, with the Vietnam War effort dependent on Merchant Marine logistical support, seamen were among the first to protest U.S. involvement. With firsthand recollections, this book tells the story of the Merchant Marine in Vietnam, from deadly encounters with mines, rockets and gunfire to evacuations of refugees to rescues of "boat people" in the South China Sea.

Like the widely praised original, this new edition is compact, clearly written, and accessible to the nonspecialist. First, the book chronicles and analyzes the twenty-year struggle to maintain South Vietnamese independence. Joes tells the story with a sympathetic focus on South Viet Nam and is highly critical of U.S. military strategy and tactics in fighting this war. He claims that the fall of South Viet Nam was not inevitable, that an abrupt and public termination of U.S. aid provoked a crisis of confidence inside South Viet Nam that led to the debacle. Students and scholars of military studies, South East Asia, U.S. foreign policy, or the general reader interested in this fascinating period in 20th century history, will find this new edition to be invaluable reading. After discussing the principal American mistakes in the conflict, Joes outlines a workable alternative strategy that would have saved South Viet Nam while minimizing U.S. involvement and casualties. He documents the enormous sacrifices made by the South Vietnamese allies, who in proportion to population suffered forty times the casualties the Americans did. He concludes by linking the final conquest of South Viet Nam to an increased level of Soviet adventurism which resulted in the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. military build-up under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and the eventual collapse of the USSR. The complicated factors involved in the war are here offered in a consolidated, objective form, enabling the reader to consider the implications of U.S. experiences in South Viet Nam for future policy in other world areas.

In a 1965 letter to 'Newsweek', French writer and academic Bernard Fall (1926-67) staked a claim as the 'Number One Realist' on the Vietnam War. This is the first book to study the thought of this overlooked figure, one of the most important experts on counterinsurgency warfare in Indochina. Nathaniel L. Moir's intellectual history analyses Fall's formative experiences: his service in the French underground and army during the Second World War; his father's execution by the Germans and his mother's murder in Auschwitz; and his work as a research analyst at the Nuremberg Trials. Moir demonstrates how these critical events shaped Fall's trenchant analysis of Viet Minh-led revolutionary warfare during the French-Indochina War and the early Vietnam War. In the years before conventional American intervention in 1965, Fall argued that--far more than anything in the United States' military arsenal--resolving conflict in Vietnam would require political strength, willpower, integrity and skill. 'Number One Realist' illuminates Fall's study of political reconciliation in Indochina, while showing how his profound, humanitarian critique of war continues to echo in the endless conflicts of the present. It will challenge and change the way we think about the Vietnam War.

Through a collection of original source documents and the words of those who lived through it, The Vietnam War gives insight into the historic background and events leading to American involvement and escalation of the war. Professor Mitch Yamasaki examines the major interpretations of how and why the U.S. became involved, what it hoped to accomplish, and how a poorly armed guerilla army thwarted U.S. efforts. Carefully selected materials highlight the forces that led to President Johnson's dilemma, the country's deep divisions over the war, and the ongoing reexamination of the Vietnam War.

This book revisits the American canon of novels, memoirs, and films about the war in Vietnam, in order to reassess critically the centrality of the discourse of American victimization in the country's imagination of the conflict, and to trace the strategies of representation that establish American soldiers and veterans as the most significant victims of the war. By investigating in detail the imagery of the Vietnamese landscape recreated by American authors and directors, the volume explores the proposition that Vietnam has been turned into an American myth, demonstrating that the process resulted in a dehistoricization and mystification of the conflict that obscured its historical and political realities. Against this background, representations of the war's victims-Vietnamese civilians and American soldiers-are then considered in light of their ideological meanings and uses. Ultimately, the book seeks to demonstrate how, in a relation of power, the question of victimhood can become ideologized, transforming into both a discourse and a strategy of representation-and in doing so, to demythologize something of the "Vietnam" of American cultural narrative.

The Viet Nam War ended almost half a century ago. This book-part history, part travelogue-reveals the war's legacy, still very much alive, in the places where it was fought and in the memories and memorials of those who survived it. The chronological story of the war is told through exploration of culture, history, popular music, and the countries who were major players: North and South Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Australia and the United States. The author traverses significant sites like Dien Bien Phu-where French colonialism ended and U.S. intervention began-the DMZ, Hamburger Hill, the Rock Pile, the Cu Chi Tunnels, and Australia's most famous battlefield, Long Tan. Residual hazards of the war remain in the form of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in such places as Siem Reap, Luang Prabang, and in Quang Tri Province, where nonprofit groups like Project RENEW work to manage removal and provide victim assistance.

An advisor to the South Vietnamese Navy Mobile Riverine Forces in 1970-1971, U.S. Navy Commander Richard Kirtley was tasked with helping implement Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization"-the rapid drawdown of U.S. troops to bring an abortive end to the Vietnam War. The program called for the turnover of arms and equipment to South Vietnamese forces, while U.S. personnel trained their counterparts to continue fighting the war alone. The U.S. Navy's supporting effort, Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV), emphasized "Accelerated." Kirtley's account gives an up-close look at the futility and frustration of the advisory effort during the withdrawal, the implementation of both programs-doomed to failure yet hyped to cover a lost-cause retreat-and their disastrous outcomes.

The Vietnam War was not going well in 1968. The January Tet Offensive-a tactical defeat but strategic victory for North Vietnam-showed the U.S. military and the American public that the enemy remained determined, no nearer defeat. Americans grew war weary while politicians and military leaders could not agree on how to win or how to withdraw. Between combat tours, the author served as a U.S. Army company commander-a job he came to despise. Experiencing what he perceived as a degradation in the Army's senior command, he resigned his commission. Yet he needed money to complete graduate school and volunteered to return to Vietnam as a combat advisor. This memoir describes his participation in the fiercest fighting of the war, on the Cambodian border, where he almost died of hookworm and was shot in a night operation. In Saigon to recuperate, he was tasked with creating an advisory team to train South Vietnamese commandos to conduct raids in the swamps south of Saigon, the Rung Sat Special Zone. For seven months they were successful, with Worthington receiving seven combat decorations.

Facing the possibility of being drafted and sent to Vietnam, Roger Durham secured a deferment when he enrolled in college. Devoting more time to anti-war protests than to studies, he became immersed in the late 1960s counterculture, flunked out and was drafted anyway. Deployed to Vietnam with the U.S. Army's 18th Engineer Brigade Headquarters, he was assigned to a helicopter base "behind the wire," far from the action. Or so he thought-the action came to him as the base drew mortar, rocket and sapper attacks. Durham's clear-eyed memoir relates an often untold experience of the Vietnam War-that of the counterculture soldier whose opposition to war did not end when he was inducted. Adjusting to life in-country, he finds a thriving drug culture and a brotherhood of like-minded warriors, who resist both the enemy and the culture of zealous militarism that prosecutes what they see as an immoral war, against American national interests. Durham undergoes changes in perspective, extending his tour of duty when the thought of going home fills him with anxiety and anticipation.

Beginning with the withdrawal of French forces from South Vietnam in 1955, the U.S. took an ever-widening role in defending the country against invasion by North Vietnam. By 1965, the U.S. had "Americanized" the war, relegating the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to a supporting role. While the U.S. won many tactical victories, it had difficulty controlling the territory it fought for. As the war grew increasingly unpopular with the American public, the North Vietnamese launched two large-scale invasions in 1968 and 1972-both tactical defeats but strategic victories for the North that precipitated the U.S. policy of "Vietnamization," the drawdown of American forces that left the ARVN to fight alone. This book examines the maturation of the ARVN, and the major battles it fought from 1963 to its demise in 1975. Despite its flaws, the ARVN was a well-organized and disciplined force with an independent spirit and contributed enormously to the war effort. Had the U.S. "Vietnamized" the war earlier, it might have been won in 1967-1968.

Before unmanned combat drones, there was the Grumman OV-1C Mohawk, a twin-engine turboprop fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art target detection systems. Crewed by a pilot and observer, it flew at treetop level by day, taking panoramic photographs. By night it scanned the landscape from 800 feet with side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) and infrared. This lively, detailed memoir recounts the author's 1968-1969 tour with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam, serving as a technical observer (T.O.) aboard an unarmed Mohawk, searching for elusive enemy forces near the DMZ and along the Laotian and Cambodian borders, dodging mountains in the dark and avoiding anti-aircraft fire.

A Guardian Best Book of the Year "A gripping study of white power...Explosive." -New York Times "Helps explain how we got to today's alt-right." -Terry Gross, Fresh Air The white power movement in America wants a revolution. Returning to a country ripped apart by a war they felt they were not allowed to win, a small group of Vietnam veterans and disgruntled civilians who shared their virulent anti-communism and potent sense of betrayal concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. The command structure of their covert movement gave women a prominent place. They operated with discipline, made tragic headlines in Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City, and are resurgent under President Trump. Based on a decade of deep immersion in previously classified FBI files and on extensive interviews, Bring the War Home tells the story of American paramilitarism and the birth of the alt-right. "A much-needed and troubling revelation... The power of Belew's book comes, in part, from the fact that it reveals a story about white-racist violence that we should all already know." -The Nation "Fascinating... Shows how hatred of the federal government, fears of communism, and racism all combined in white-power ideology and explains why our responses to the movement have long been woefully inadequate." -Slate "Superbly comprehensive...supplants all journalistic accounts of America's resurgent white supremacism." -Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian

United States involvement in the Vietnam War was one of the most important events in the post-World War II period. The political, social and military consequences of US involvement and defeat in Vietnam have been keenly felt within the US and the international community, and the 'lessons' learned have continued to exert an influence to the present day. This book focuses on the effects of US propaganda on America's Western allies - particularly France, West Germany and Great Britain - from the time when the Vietnam War began to escalate in February 1965, to the American withdrawal and its immediate aftermath. One of its main aims is to assess the amount and veracity of information passed on by the US administration to allied governments and to compare this with the level of public information on the war within those countries.

Making sense of the wars for Vietnam has had a long history. The question why Vietnam? dominated American and Vietnamese political life for much of length of the Vietnam wars and has continued to be asked in the three decades since they ended. The essays in this inaugural volume of the National History Centres book series Reinterpreting History examine the conceptual and methodological shifts that mark the contested terrain of Vietnam war scholarship. They range from top-down reconsiderations of critical decision-making moments in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon to microhistories of the war that explore its meanings from the bottom up. Some draw on recently available Vietnamese-language archival materials. Others mine new primary sources in the United States or from France, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Collectively, these essays map the interpretative histories of the Vietnam wars: past, present, and future. They also raise questions about larger meanings and the ongoing relevance of the wars for Vietnam in American, Vietnamese, and international histories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In this heartfelt memoir, Dennis Blessing, Sr., shares his experiences as a grunt in the First Cavalry Division in 1966 and 1967. Blessing's story is drawn from his own remembrance and from the 212 letters that he wrote to his wife while deployed. Among his many combat experiences was the battle of Bong Son in May 1966, in which his platoon was nearly wiped out, going from 36 to only 6 troopers in just a few hours. Told with honesty and vulnerability, the book combines gripping combat with personal reflection, and the author hopes that his story will help other veterans escape the shadow of the war.

In 1968, twenty-one-year-old Fred McCarthy transitioned from the monastic life of a seminary student to that of a U.S. Army helicopter gunship commander in Vietnam. Despite preparation from a family tradition of decorated combat service, a strong sense of patriotism, a love for aviation, and a desire for adventure, he got far more than he bargained for. Written after 50 years of reflection, reading, and study, this memoir tells both a universal story about war, adventure, and perseverance and, also shares the intensely personal experience of the Vietnam War and its legacy for those who fought in it. McCarthy describes many of his missions, reflects on the nature of being a combat helicopter pilot, and processes the experience through his poetry, letters home, and reflective analysis.

The captivating individual stories of 17 U.S. Navy corpsmen who served in Vietnam, told in their own words. Their accounts relate why they joined the Navy in wartime, why they became corpsmen--the enlisted medical specialists of the Navy and Marine Corps--along with many day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute recollections of caring for both the wounded and the dead under fire. They also reflect on the long-term effects the war had on them and their families.

This book picks up where Passing Time: A Vietnam Veteran Against the War left off, and completes the trilogy begun with Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir. It begins with the Coast Guard raid on Ehrhart's oil tanker and ends with the conclusion of his trial for possession of "controlled substances," a span of time that corresponds almost exactly with the opening of the House Judiciary Committee's hearings on the impeachment of Richard Nixon and Nixon's resignation and pardon by Gerald Ford. Along the way, Ehrhart encounters a wise and sympathetic lawyer, an MG Midget, a local New Jersey cop who thinks he's Wyatt Earp, New York City detectives who arrest him for armed robbery of a liquor store, a forklift that can turn on a dime, a Coast Guard prosecutor who wants to teach Ehrhart a lesson, the Carranza Memorial, and three ghosts who are as real as you and me.

From the International Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Order of the Day and The War of the Poor comes a searing account of a conflict that dealt a fatal blow to French colonialism 'Absolutely spectacular' - France Info 'Scathing and clever' - Le Temps 19 October 1950. The war is not going to plan. In Paris, politicians gather to discuss what to do about Indochina. The conflict is unpopular back home in France: too expensive, and too far away for the public to care. Withdrawal is not an option - a global power cannot surrender to an army of peasants - but victory is impossible without more soldiers and more money. The soldiers can be sourced from the colonies, but the money is out of the question. A solution needs to be found. In this gripping and shocking novel, Eric Vuillard exposes the tangled web of politicians, bankers and titans of industry who all had a vested interest in France's prolonged presence in lands far from Paris. Skilfully skewering the guilty, Vuillard shows us how key players in conflicts throughout history often have a motivation even deeper and darker than nationalism and political ideology-greed. As well as bringing scenes from the battlefields to life, Vuillard looks beyond this visceral reality on the ground to the cold calculations of the boardroom elite with the power to turn a military win or loss into their financial gain. Short, sharp and brutal, An Honourable Exit is a journey behind closed doors to witness how history is really made.

Here is the epic story of Vietnam and the sixties told through the events of a few gripping, passionate days of war and peace in October 1967. "They Marched Into Sunlight" brings that tumultuous time back to life while exploring questions about the meaning of dissent and the official manipulation of truth, issues as relevant today as they were decades ago.
In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America's anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate.