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Books > Humanities > History > American history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > Vietnam War
A secret mission sends the author to Vietnam's Mekong Delta, the
bread basket of old Indo - China. He uncovers a sophisticated enemy
supply network unknown to our military hierarchy.
Using intelligence data covertly gathered in Cambodia and
analyzed at the Center for Naval Analyses in Arlington, Virginia
they discover and destroy Vietcong forces and interdict VC supply
lines with a mixture of intrigue and romance.
A U. S. Naval story never told, complete with declassified maps
from the Office of Naval Intelligence, and illuminating pictures of
Saigon and archaic areas of the Delta taken by the author forty -
six years ago, a depiction of "old Saigon" and real relationships
between North and South Vietnam are related.
Headquartered in Saigon, the true interaction between our Navy
and Army ( MACV ) brass couched in the background of wartime
Saigon, often referred to as the "Paris of the Orient," and
Washington, D. C. is insightfully told.
If a historian were allowed but one book on the American
involvement in Vietnam, this would be it." - Foreign Affairs. When
first published in 1979, four years after the end of one of the
most divisive conflicts in the United States, The Irony of Vietnam
raised eyebrows. Most students of the war argued that the United
States had "stumbled into a quagmire in Vietnam through hubris and
miscalculation," as the New York Times's Fox Butterfield put it.
But the perspective of time and the opening of documentary sources,
including the Pentagon Papers, had allowed Gelb and Betts to probe
deep into the decisionmaking leading to escalation of military
action in Vietnam. The failure of Vietnam could be laid at the door
of American foreign policy, they said, but the decisions that led
to the failure were made by presidents aware of the risks, clear
about their aims, knowledgeable about the weaknesses of their
allies, and under no illusion about the outcome. The book offers a
picture of a steely resolve in government circles that, while
useful in creating consensus, did not allow for alternative
perspectives. In the years since its publication, The Irony of
Vietnam has come to be considered the seminal work on the Vietnam
War.
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
This controversial and timely book about the American experience in
Vietnam provides the first full exploration of the perspectives of
the North Vietnamese leadership before, during, and after the war.
Herbert Y. Schandler offers unique insights into the mindsets of
the North Vietnamese and their response to diplomatic and military
actions of the Americans, laying out the full scale of the
disastrous U.S. political and military misunderstandings of
Vietnamese history and motivations. Including frank quotes from
Vietnamese leaders, the book offers important new knowledge that
allows us to learn invaluable lessons from the perspective of a
victorious enemy. Unlike most military officers who served in
Vietnam, Schandler is convinced the war was unwinnable, no matter
how long America stayed the course or how many resources were
devoted to it. He is remarkably qualified to make these judgments
as an infantry commander during the Vietnam War, a Pentagon
policymaker, and a scholar who taught at West Point and National
Defense University. His extensive personal interviews with North
Vietnamese are drawn from his many trips to Hanoi after the war.
Schandler provides not only a definitive analysis of the American
failure in Vietnam but a crucial foundation for exploring the
potential for success in the current guerrilla wars the United
States is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Vietnam War is one of the defining conflicts of the twentieth
century: not only did it divide American society at every level;
the conflict also represented a key shift in Asian anti-colonialism
and shaped the course of the Cold War. Despite its political and
social importance, popular memory of the war is dominated by myths
and stereotypes. In this incisive new text, John Dumbrell debunks
popular assumptions about the war and reassesses the key political,
military and historical controversies associated with one of the
most contentious and divisive wars of recent times. Drawing upon an
extensive range of newly accessible sources, Rethinking the Vietnam
War assesses all aspects of the conflict - ranging across domestic
electoral politics in the USA to the divided communist leadership
in Hanoi and grassroots antiwar movements around the world. The
book charts the full course of the war - from the origins of
American involvement, the growing internationalization of the
conflict and the swing year of 1968 to bitter twists in Sino-Soviet
rivalry and the eventual withdrawal of American forces. Situating
the conflict within an international context, John Dumbrell also
considers competing interpretations of the war and points the way
to the resolution of debates which have divided international
opinion for decades.
While serving as a crew chief aboard a U.S. Air Force Rescue
helicopter, Airman First Class William A. Robinson was shot down
and captured in Ha Tinh Province, North Vietnam, on September 20,
1965. After a brief stint at the "Hanoi Hilton," Robinson endured
2,703 days in multiple North Vietnamese prison camps, including the
notorious Briarpatch and various compounds at Cu Loc, known by the
inmates as the Zoo. No enlisted man in American military history
has been held as a prisoner of war longer than Robinson. For seven
and a half years, he faced daily privations and endured the full
range of North Vietnam's torture program. In The Longest Rescue:
The Life and Legacy of Vietnam POW William A. Robinson, Glenn
Robins tells Robinson's story using an array of sources, including
declassified U.S. military documents, translated Vietnamese
documents, and interviews from the National Prisoner of War Museum.
Unlike many other POW accounts, this comprehensive biography
explores Robinson's life before and after his capture, particularly
his estranged relationship with his father, enabling a better
understanding of the difficult transition POWs face upon returning
home and the toll exacted on their families. Robins's powerful
narrative not only demonstrates how Robinson and his fellow
prisoners embodied the dedication and sacrifice of America's
enlisted men but also explores their place in history and memory.
This study uses a comparative analysis of the Malayan Emergency,
the American experience in Vietnam, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM to
examine the role and effectiveness of artillery units in complex
counterinsurgency environments. Through this analysis, four factors
emerge which impact the employment of artillery units: the
counterinsurgency effort's requirement for indirect fires;
constraints and limitations on indirect fires; the
counterinsurgency effort's force organization; and the conversion
cost of nonstandard roles for artillery units. In conclusion, the
study offers five broadly descriptive fundamentals for employing
artillery units in a counterinsurgency environment: invest in
tactical leadership, exploit lessons learned, support the
operational approach and strategic framework, maintain pragmatic
fire support capability, and minimize collateral damage. Finally,
the study examines the role of education for leaders in a
counterinsurgency, and its influence on these imperative
fundamentals.
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Ski
(Hardcover)
A. L Sutton
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R753
Discovery Miles 7 530
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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American military advisors in South Vietnam came to know their
allies personally - as few American soldiers could. In addition to
fighting the Viet Cong, advisors engaged in community building
projects and local government initiatives. They dealt firsthand
with corrupt American and South Vietnamese bureaucracies and not
many would have been surprised to learn that 105mm artillery shells
were being sold on the black market to the Viet Cong. Not many were
surprised by the Communist victory in 1975. This memoir of a U.S.
Army intelligence officer focuses on the province advisors who
worked with local militias that were often disparaged by American
units. The author describes his year (1969-1970) as a U.S. advisor
to the South Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces in the Mekong
Delta.
This oral history of the air war in Vietnam includes the stories of
more than thirty pilots who all had one thing in common-after
returning from Southeast Asia and separating from the service, they
were hired as pilots by Western Airlines. As the chapters begin,
Bruce Cowee tells his story and introduces us to each pilot. The
interesting theme is that all of these men served in Southeast Asia
and in most cases never knew each other until they came home and
went to work for Western Airlines. Each of the pilots featured in
this book is the real thing, and in an age of so many "Wannabees,"
it is reassuring to know that each of them was a pilot for Western
Airlines and someone who Bruce worked with or knew professionally.
The stories span a 9 year period, 1964 - 1973, and cover every
aspect of the Air War in Southeast Asia. These 33 men represent
only a small fraction of the Vietnam veterans hired as pilots by
Western Airlines, but this book pays tribute to all of them.
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