T his BOOK EXAMINES the world confronted by the men of an American combat division during the Vietnam War. Although the unit in question is the 25th Infantry Division, this is not a unit history or standard military chronology. Instead, I try to view all of the major parts of the soldiers' world-including subjects as diverse as climate, living conditions, deadly combat, and morale. The world inhabited by the soldiers of the 25th Division was not theirs alone; the men and women who served with other frontline units in Vietnam will immediately recognize the major landmarks. Using the 25th Division as a focal point, I hope to help the people of today better understand what the Vietnam War was like in fact, not fiction. This work is based on a variety of sources. The documentary foundations come from a great number of 25th Division records generated during the war; the most important of which are the large quarterly Division reports. They, in turn, are complemented by the quarterly reports that came from II Field Force, Vietnam, the Army headquarters for the units operating in the provinces near Saigon. The Center of Military History, Department of the Army, provided these documents to me while I was doing research on the village war in a Vietnamese province. I used this research to write The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province (Westview Press, 1991), which deals with the political and military struggle waged by both sides in an important part of the 25th Division's area of operations.

Contents:
1. An introduction to Golf Course Wars
2. Construction of Canadian Myths of Identity
3. Displacing the Native in Canadian Histories
4. Cultural Displays: Inside the Canadian Museum of Civilisation
5. At the Barricades
6. Interventions
Conclusion: Myths of Disappearance and Alternative Remembrance

The Viet Cong have long remained a mystery even to those who fought against them during America's longest and most divisive war. They have been given many acronyms and slang names by the American fighting men; included among them are V.C., Charlie and other less complimentary terms. They have been portrayed in many guises by the American press and popular Hollywood films. None, however, have really addressed the Viet Cong in human terms. This work will strip away the myth and mystery which surrounds the Viet Cong and, through the medium of their own candid photography, present them in human terms. They were everything we were - resourceful, cunning, adaptable, and most of all, human. As did our own American soldiers, they endured life in some of the harshest, most inhospitable terrain on earth. In doing so, they exhibited the will to sacrifice and be sacrificed for the collective goal of unification. Little did they know that we were serving the hidden agenda of the Politburo in Hanoi. In the end, they, like many of our soldiers, were betrayed and abandoned. This book portrays the Viet Cong as seen through their own photography. A cultural obsession, photographs were taken wherever and whenever possible. On many occasions, Allied forces were able to capture such photos. It is from such sources that these photographs are made available, most for the first time ever, to the general public.

Existing studies of the Vietnam War have been written mostly from an American perspective, using western sources, and viewing the conflict through western eyes. This book, based on extensive original research, including Vietnamese, Chinese and former Soviet sources, presents a history of the war from the perspective of the Vietnamese communists. It charts relations with Moscow and Beijing, showing how the involvement of the two major communist powers changed over time, and how the Vietnamese, despite their huge dependence on the Chinese and the Soviets, were most definitely in charge of their own decision making. Overall, it provides an important corrective to the many one-sided studies of the war, and presents a very interesting new perspective.

This volume offers a dispassionate strategic examination of the Vietnam conflict that challenges the conventional wisdom that South Vietnam could not survive as an independent non-communist entity over the long term regardless of how the United States conducted its military-political effort in Indochina. In reality, the Vietnam War was far from an "unwinnable" war for the United States: the latter possessed enormous military, financial, and other advantages over its foes. However, US officials made a multitude of predictable, avoidable strategic mistakes over a long period of time and certain key figures displayed an inability even to understand the significance of their errors and learn from them. The book considers US strategic decision-making at a number of levels and shows how American errors created the military and political conditions that made North Vietnamese victory possible. If the United States had conducted its political-military effort in a fashion that did not negate its advantages - indeed, ifit had avoided only a small number of many strategic errors - the outcome of the Indochina conflict would likely have been very different.

Although US involvement in the Vietnam conflict began long before 1965, Lyndon Johnson's substantial large commitment of combat troops that year marked the official beginning of America's longest twentieth-century war. By 1969, after years of intense fighting and thousands of casualties, an increasing number of Americans wanted the United States out of Vietnam. Richard Nixon looked for a way to pull out while preserving the dignity of the United States at home and abroad, and at the same time, to support the anticommunist Republic of Vietnam. Ultimately, he settled on the strategy of Vietnamization—the gradual replacement of US soldiers with South Vietnamese forces. Drawing on newly declassified documents and international archives, Unwilling to Quit dissects the domestic and foreign contexts of America's withdrawal from the Vietnam War. David L. Prentice demonstrates how congressional and presidential politics were a critical factor in Nixon's decision to abandon his hawkish sensibilities in favor of de-escalation. Prentice reframes Nixon's choices, emphasizes Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird's outsized yet subtle role in the decision-making process, and considers how South Vietnam's Nguyen Van Thieu and North Vietnam's Le Duan decisively shaped the American exit. Prentice brings Vietnamese voices into the discussion and underscores the unprecedented influence of American civilians on US foreign policy during the Vietnamization era.

With first-hand insight into the into the key role of the US Air Force's fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War through to Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War, this book is an unmissable account of some of the most dangerous and demanding missions in the two wars. The advent of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) in the early 1950s threatened the whole concept of aerial bombing from medium and high altitude. Countermeasures were developed during the Korean War, but with little initial success. It was only in the closing stages of the Vietnam War, with the F-4Cww Phantom II (Wild Weasel 4), that this equipment started to become successful enough to allow a substantial investment in converting 116 F-4E Phantom IIs into dedicated SEAD aircraft. This move introduced a new generation of anti-radar missiles which became invaluable in later operations including operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Northern Watch over Iraq. This volume features dynamic archival photography from crews who flew the jet, alongside mission accounts and technical details of the development and fielding of the F-4 Wild Weasel in its various iterations. Including specially commissioned artwork of 'sharkmouthed' Phantom IIs in Vietnam jungle camouflage and more modern USAF 'Ghost Gray', this book is the ultimate visual and technical guide to the F-4 Phantom II Wild Weasel Units in combat.

Contents:
1. Small, Melvin The Impact of the Antiwar Movement on Lyndon Johnson, 1965-1968: A Preliminary Report, Peace and Change 10 [1984]
2. Harrison, Benjamin T Roots of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 16
3. DeBenedetti, Charles On the Significance of Citizen Peace Activism: America, 1961-1975, Peace and Change 9 [1983]
4. Katz, Milton S Peace Liberals and Vietnam:SANE and the Politics of 'Responsible' Protest, Peace and Change 9 [1983]
5. Shapiro, Herbert The Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights Movement, Journal of Ethnic Studies 16 [1989]
6. Harrison, Benjamin T Impact of the Vietnam War on the Civil Rights Movement in the Midsixties, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 19
7. DeBenedetti, Charles A CIA Analysis of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement: October 1967, Peace and Change 9 [1983]
8. Schuman, Howard Two Sources of Antiwar Sentiment in America, American Journal of Sociology 78 [1972]
9. Johnson, Robert David The Origins of Dissent: Senate Liberals and Vietnam, 1959-1964, Pacific Historical Review 65 [1996]
10. Garfinkle, Adam No Discharge from that War: Aftermyths of the Antiwar Movement, Orbis 39 [1995]
11. Gartner, Scott, Gary Segura and Michael Wilkenning All Polititcs are Local: Local Losses and Individual Attitudes toward the Vietnam War, Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 [1997]
12. Hall, Mitchell Unsell the War: Vietnam and Antiwar Advertising, The Historian 58 [1995]
13. Buzzanco, Robert Prologue to Tragedy: US Military Opposition to Intervention in Vietnam, 1950-1954, Diplomatic History 17 [1993]
14. Gibson, James L The Policy Consequences of Political Intolerance: Political Repression During the Vietnam Era, Journal of Politics 51 [1989]
15. Katz, Andrew Z Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: The Nixon Administration and the Pursuit of Peace with Honour in Vietnam, Presidential Studies Quarterly 27 [1997]
16.Kahin, George McT The Pentagon Papers: A Critical Evaluation, American Political Science Review 69 [1975]
17. Sweet, Barry Legal Challenges to Presidential Policies on the Use of Military Force, Policy Studies Journal 24 [1996]

The Vietnam War generated controversy long after the guns went silent in Southeast Asia. At first, a consensus emerged that the war had been a tragic 'mistake' in US foreign policy. But with the revival of the Cold War under President Ronald Reagan, who proclaimed that the Vietnam conflict had been a 'noble cause', revisionists began to reinterpret the history and meaning of the war. As a new conflict emerged in Central America, some argued that the lesson of Vietnam was to avoid direct involvement in such struggles, while others insisted that the US could not afford to be paralyzed by a 'Vietnam syndrome' equating all intervention with failure. Among the additional lessons and legacies of the war was its impact on the men who fought in Vietnam. For complex reasons, explored by authors in this volume, powerful myths about Vietnam veterans emerged in postwar American culture.

This six-volume collection of essential articles on the American involvement in the Vietnam Wa encompasses the political, social, and military aspects of the war.

This six-volume collection of essential articles on the American involvement in the Vietnam Wa encompasses the political, social, and military aspects of the war.

Contents:
1. Haines, Harry W Disputing the Wreckage: Ideological Struggle at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Generation 1 [1989]
2. Wagner-Pacifici, Robin and Barry Schwartz The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating A Difficult Past, American Journal of Sociology 97 [1991]
3. Sturken, Marita The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Representations 35 [1991]
4. Jeffords, Susan Women, Gender and the War, Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6 [1989]
5. Smith, Lorrie Back Against the Wall: Anti-Feminist Backlist in Vietnam War Literature, Vietnam Generation 1 [1989]
6. Mithers, Carol Lynn Missing in Action: Women Warriors in Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
7. Marling, Carol Ann The Statute Near the Wall, Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 [1987]
8. Bellhouse, Mary L and Lawrence Litchfield Vietnam and Loss of Innocence: An Analysis of the Political Implications of the Popular Literature of the Vietnam War, Journal of Popular Culture 16 [1982]
9. Uchmanowicz, Pauline Vanishing Vietnam: Whiteness and the Technology of Memory, Literature and Psychology 41 [1995]
10. Charlot, John Vietnamese Cinema: First Views, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 22 [1991]
11. Katzman, Jason From Outcast to Cliche: How Film Shaped, Warped and Developed the Image of the Vietnam Veteran, 1967-1990, Journal of American Culture 16 [1993]
12. Clark, Michael Remembering Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
13. Berg, Rick Losing Vietnam: Covering the War in an Age of Technology, Cultural Critique 3 [1986]
14. Rowe, John Carlos From Documentary to Docudrama: Vietnam on Television in the 1980s, Genre 21 [1988]
15. Auster, Albert Reflections of the Way Life Used to Be: Tour of Duty, China Beach, and the memory of the Sixties, Television Quarterly 24 [1990]
16. Ballard-Reisch, Deborah China Beach and Tour of Duty: American Television and Revisionist History of The Vietnam War, Journal of Popular Culture 25 [1991]
17. Jason, Philip K The Noise is Always in My Head: Auditory Images in the Literature of the Vietnam War, Midwest Quarterly 37 [1996]

The Vietnam War was a traumatic event for America and a lesson for Americans on the limits of power. For the Vietnamese, however, it was but one in a series of struggles against foreign domination. This fascinating study puts all of this in perspective by providing a comprehensive overview of warfare throughout Vietnamese history, from the early efforts of the Vietnamese to establish their own state and free themselves from Chinese domination, down through the Indo-China and Vietnam Wars, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, to the present.

Vietnam provides an overview of the causes, course, and effects of the numerous wars in Vietnamese history, many of them not generally known to Westerners, such as the Black Flag/Tonkin Wars and the Franco-Thai War. Concentrating on the period after the Second World War, it treats matters from the Vietnamese perspective as much as from the French and American, and seeks to clarify the missed opportunities and false perceptions that led to warfare. Encompassing overviews of socio-political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural issues, Vietnam provides an excellent introduction to Vietnamese history as well as an in-depth look at the long record of warfare in that country. It will prove essential reading for all students of twentieth-century American and Asian history.

Did Ajax and Achilles ever suffer from Post-traumatic stress syndrome?

In this absorbing account, Vietnam veteran and classics scholar Lawrence A Tritle offers an incisive analysis of war and its impact upon the soldier and civilian from the classical age to the present day.
Tritle discusses the links between battlefield experiences that affect the participants and victims of war in every age, drawing examples from sources as diverse as the Iliad, Michael Herr's Dispatches, Thucydides' account of the Pelopenesian Wars, and the Oliver Stone film Platoon. Each instance sheds light on some of the most puzzling phemonena of war and shows how the heroes of epic responded to battle with their own forms of "shellshock," battle-madness and bonding. Tritle examines such issues as:

How can ordinarily decent men can commit acts of extraordinary savagery?

Attitudes toward the "enemy"

The impact of war on waiting wives, lovers and civilian bystanders

Remembering the fallen soldier: from the classic Athenian funeral speech to the Vietnam Wall

How veterans live with physical and psychological injury

This memorable book is for readers who wonder about the meaning and experience of battle, about the impact of war and violence on our culture, and for anyone interested in the culture of ancient Greece.

From Melos to My Lai presents an erudite, provocative and moving analysis of the accounts of violence in the literature and history of ancient Greece and in the film literature and veterans' accounts of the Vietnam War. This comparative investigation examines the nature of violence, its impact on society and culture, especially as reflected from the perspective of the survivors. The survivors include not only actual combatants, but those with whom they interact: their comrades, their wives and children, families and society as a whole.
From Melos to My Lai provides a unique contribution to the study of the impact of violence on its participants and its audience which combines an examination of the artistic representations of violence and the real-life accounts of those involved in it.

This book explores the international leadership of the AFL-CIO, the UAW and UAW Local 600, the world's largest union local, and reveals that overall, working-class response to the Vietnam War mirrored that of the American society as a whole.

Featuring modern portraits and first-hand accounts, this book offers a unique perspective on the Vietnam War, bringing together the stories of American Vietnam war veterans, southern Vietnamese war veterans and civilians. The surreal imagery of Thomas Sanders' vivid portraits encourages the viewer to take a closer look at those who experienced the war, giving them a chance to read the haunting, inspirational, and sometimes comical stories of the individuals of the Vietnam War. Set in a surreal jungle environment, the portraits evoke the sense of darkness and uncertainty felt by those who experienced the war. Some of the portraits hold objects that relate to their role or experience during their time in the service. The objects tell a deeper story of a dark and confusing war: the common cigarette pack smoked by the vets while in the jungle; a homemade grenade made by the northern Vietnamese; and a "order to report" document - a piece of paper that changed many a life. Vietnam Portraits serves as a form of catharsis for the many people involved in the Vietnam War and honours them by giving them an opportunity to tell their story, bearing witness to their service, their experiences and the aftermath.

When American forces arrived in Vietnam, they found themselves embedded in historical village and frontier spaces already shaped by past conflicts. American bases and bombing targets followed spatial and political logics influenced by the footprints of previous wars in central Vietnam, and these militarized landscapes continue to shape postwar land-use politics. Footprints of War traces the long history of conflict-produced spaces in Vietnam, beginning with early modern wars and the French colonial invasion in 1885 and continuing through the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. Drawing on extensive archival research and years of interviews and fieldwork in the hills and villages around the city of Hue, David Biggs integrates historical geographic information system (GIS) data and uses aerial, high-altitude, and satellite imagery to render otherwise inscrutable sites as living, multidimensional spaces. This personal and multilayered approach yields an innovative history of the lasting traces of war in Vietnam and a model for understanding other militarized landscapes.

This guide showcases knives used by America's clandestine military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. It provides the collector and others interested in the period a way of identifying honest SOG (Studies and Observations Group) specimens and separating them from counterfeits. With beautiful color photographs that show a high level of detail, the book identifies all known SOG specimens (over 165 knives) and includes rare personalized knives and custom combat knives made in the United States. Sections of the book focus on Randalls, Eks, Gerbers, and the knives made by tribal artisans in Southeast Asia. This is the eighth in Mike Silvey's series on military knives.

As an Observer correspondent in Vietnam before the American withdrawal in 1975, Gavin Young met many courageous Vietnamese people. He frequently stayed with one such person, Madame Bong, a woman who had lost her husband when she was only twenty-five, had recovered the mangled limbs of one son from a battlefield and watched as another son was sent off to a 're-education camp' for seven years. When Young was allowed to return to Vietnam he helped many of Madame Bong's relatives emigrate to the US. A Wavering Grace is a personal account of how one ordinary family survived the horrors of war and a political process that was beyond their control. 'By far ... the most moving account of Vietnam to be written in recent years.' Norman Lewis 'This delicate, terrible and enchanting book ... brings the atmosphere of Vietnam so near that you can almost taste and smell it.' Jonathan Mirsky, The Times 'Full of passion and feeling ... A Wavering Grace could be described as a love story [and] tells the story of Vietnam and Mme Bong's family in its many conflicting complexions.' Andrew Barrow, Spectator

This book tells the full story of the US Naval air campaign during the Vietnam War between 1965 to 1975, where the US Seventh Fleet, stationed off the Vietnamese coast, was given the tongue-in-cheek nickname 'The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club'. On August 2, 1964, USS Maddox became embroiled in the infamous 'Gulf of Tonkin incident' that lead directly to America's increased involvement in the Vietnam War. Supporting the Maddox that day were four F-8E Crusaders from the USS Ticonderoga, signalling the start of the US Navy's commitment to the air war over Vietnam. The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club was the nickname for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, Task Force 77, stationed off the coast of Vietnam which, at various points throughout the war, comprised as many as six carriers with 70-100 aircraft on board. The Seventh Fleet played an essential role in supporting operations over Vietnam, providing vital air support to combat troops on the ground and taking part in major operations such as Rolling Thunder and Linebacker I and II. Serving with the US Seventh Fleet during this period and involved in the dramatic history of The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club was author Tom Cleaver, who was a 20-year-old member of Commander Patrol Forces Seventh Fleet which had operational control over Maddox and Turner Joy. His use of dramatic first-hand experiences from interviews with both American and Vietnamese pilots plus official Vietnamese accounts of the war provides a balanced and personal picture of the conflict from both sides. Detailing the very earliest incident in the Gulf of Tonkin through to the final evacuation of US nationals in 1975, he brings the story of US air intervention into Vietnam vividly to life.

Postwar Journeys: American and Vietnamese Transnational Peace Efforts since 1975 tells the story of the dynamic roles played by ordinary American and Vietnamese citizens in their postwar quest for peace-an effort to transform their lives and their societies. Hang Thi Thu Le-Tormala deepens our understanding of the Vietnam War and its aftermath by taking a closer look at postwar Vietnam and offering a fresh analysis of the effects of the war and what postwar reconstruction meant for ordinary citizens. This thoughtful exploration of US-Vietnam postwar relations through the work of US and Vietnamese civilians expands diplomatic history beyond its rigid conventional emphasis on national interests and political calculations as well as highlights the possibilities of transforming traumatic experiences or hostile attitudes into positive social change. Le-Tormala's research reveals a wealth of boundary-crossing interactions between US and Vietnamese citizens, even during the times of extremely restricted diplomatic relations between the two nation-states. She brings to center stage citizens' efforts to solve postwar individual and social problems and bridges a gap in the scholarship on the US-Vietnam relations. Peace efforts are defined in their broadest sense, ranging from searching for missing family members or friends, helping people overcome the ordeals resulting from the war, and meeting or working with former opponents for the betterment of their societies. Le-Tormala's research reveals how ordinary US and Vietnamese citizens were active historical actors who vigorously developed cultural ties and promoted mutual understanding in imaginative ways, even and especially during periods of governmental hostility. Through nonprofit organizations as well as cultural and academic exchange programs, trailblazers from diverse backgrounds promoted mutual understanding and acted as catalytic forces between the two governments. Postwar Journeys presents the powerful stories of love and compassion among former adversaries; their shared experiences of a brutal war and desire for peace connected strangers, even opponents, of two different worlds, laying the groundwork for US-Vietnam diplomatic normalization.

Why did the US make a commitment to an independent South Vietnam? Could a major war have been averted? Fredrik Logevall provides a concise, comprehensive and accessible introduction to the origins of the Vietnam War from the end of the Indochina War in 1954 to the eruption of full-scale war in 1965, and places events against their full international background.

This book explores the international leadership of the AFL-CIO, the UAW and UAW Local 600, the world's largest union local, and reveals that overall, working-class response to the Vietnam War mirrored that of the American society as a whole.