Sheehan's tragic biography of John Paul Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment and disillusionment in Vietnam.

In That Time tells the story of the American experience in Vietnam through the life of Michael O'Donnell, a promising young poet who became a soldier and helicopter pilot in Vietnam. O'Donnell wrote with great sensitivity and poetic force about his world and especially the war that was slowly engulfing him and his most well-known poem is still frequently cited and reproduced. Nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honour, O'Donnell never fired a shot in Vietnam. During an ill-fated attempt to rescue fellow soldiers, O'Donnell's helicopter was shot down in the jungles of Cambodia where he and his crew remained missing for almost 30 years. In telling O'Donnell's story, In That Time also tells the stories of those around him, both famous and ordinary, who helped to shape the events of the time and who were themselves shaped by them. The book is both a powerful personal story and a compelling, universal one about how America lost its way in the 1960s.

At "zero dark thirty" on January 30, 1971, units of the U.S. Fifth Mechanized Division left their firebases along the DMZ heading west along Provincial Route 9. The mission, called Dewey Canyon II, was to reopen the road from Khe Sahn Air Base to the Laotian border, in support of a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos (doomed from the start) to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Alpha Company of U.S. 61st Infantry performed commendably in keeping Route 9 open, with just one casualty killed by friendly fire. They returned to Firebase Charlie-2 in April, exhausted but hopeful--the Fifth would be leaving Vietnam in July. They patrolled the "western hills" through May as rocket attacks fell each evening. On the 21st, a direct hit on a bunker killed 30 of the 63 men inside--18 were from Alpha Co. This is their story, as told to Specialist Lou Pepi by members of his unit.

This new, extensively researched volume (volume two in the series) is a comprehensive guide to the history, development, wear, and use of uniforms and equipment during American military advisors involvement in the Vietnam War. Included are insignia, headgear, camouflage uniforms, modified items, Flak vests, boots, clothing accessories, paper items and personal items from the years 1957-1972, all examined in great detail. Using re-constructed and period photos, the author presents the look and appearance of American Army, Navy, and Marine Corps advisors in Vietnam. ARVN Ranger, Airborne, and ARVN infantry advisors, all have their own chapter, along with Junk Force, RAG Force, and South Vietnamese Naval and Marine Corps advisors.

Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War opens in 1954 with the signing of the Geneva accords that ended the eight-year-long Franco-Indochinese War and created two Vietnams. In agreeing to the accords, Ho Chi Minh and other leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam anticipated a new period of peace leading to national reunification under their rule; they never imagined that within a decade they would be engaged in an even bigger feud with the United States. Basing his work on new and largely inaccessible Vietnamese materials as well as French, British, Canadian, and American documents, Pierre Asselin explores the communist path to war. Specifically, he examines the internal debates and other elements that shaped Hanoi's revolutionary strategy in the decade preceding U.S. military intervention, and resulting domestic and foreign programs. Without exonerating Washington for its role in the advent of hostilities in 1965, Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War demonstrates that those who directed the effort against the United States and its allies in Saigon were at least equally responsible for creating the circumstances that culminated in arguably the most tragic conflict of the Cold War era.

Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War opens in 1954 with the signing of the Geneva accords that ended the eight-year-long Franco-Indochinese War and created two Vietnams. In agreeing to the accords, Ho Chi Minh and other leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam anticipated a new period of peace leading to national reunification under their rule; they never imagined that within a decade they would be engaged in an even bigger feud with the United States. Basing his work on new and largely inaccessible Vietnamese materials as well as French, British, Canadian, and American documents, Pierre Asselin explores the communist path to war. Specifically, he examines the internal debates and other elements that shaped Hanoi's revolutionary strategy in the decade preceding US military intervention, and resulting domestic and foreign programs. Without exonerating Washington for its role in the advent of hostilities in 1965, Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War demonstrates that those who directed the effort against the United States and its allies in Saigon were at least equally responsible for creating the circumstances that culminated in arguably the most tragic conflict of the Cold War era.

Published for the fortieth anniversary of the final days of the Vietnam War, this is the suspenseful and moving tale of how John Riordan, an assistant manager of Citibank's Saigon branch, devised a daring plan to save 106 Vietnamese from the dangers of the Communist takeover.Riordan,who had served in the US Army after the Tet Offensive and had left the military behind for a career in international banking,was not the type to take dramatic action, but once the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon in April 1975 and it was clear that Riordan's Vietnamese colleagues and their families would be stranded in a city teetering on total collapse, he knew he could not leave them behind. Defying the objections of his superiors and going against the official policy of the United States, Riordan went back into Saigon to save them.In fifteen harrowing trips to Saigon's airport, he maneuvered through the bureaucratic shambles, claiming that the Vietnamese were his wife and scores of children. It was a ruse that, at times, veered close to failure, yet against all odds, the improbable plan succeeded. At great risk, the Vietnamese left their lives behind to start anew in the United States, and now John is known to his grateful Vietnamese colleagues and hundreds of their American descendants as Papa. They Are All My Family is a vivid narrative of one man's ingenious strategy which transformed a time of enormous peril into a display of extraordinary courage. Reflecting on those fateful days in this account, John Riordan's modest heroism provides a striking contrast to America's ignominious retreat from the decade of conflict.

Major John L. Plaster, a three-tour veteran of Vietnam tells the story of the most highly classified United States covert operatives to serve in the war: The Studies and Observations Group, code-named SOG. Comprised of volunteers from such elite military units as the Army's Green Berets, the USAF Air Commandos, and Navy SEALs, SOG agents answered directly to the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs, with some missions requiring approval from the White House. Now for the first time, the dangerous assignments of this top-secret unit can at last be revealed

Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern spent more than seven years traveling in Laos, talking to farmers, scrap-metal hunters, people who make and use tools from UXO, people who hunt for death beneath the earth and render it harmless. With their words and photographs, they reveal the beauty of Laos, the strength of Laotians, and the commitment of bomb-disposal teams. People take precedence in this account, which is deeply personal without ever becoming a polemic.

When his electronic warfare plane--call sign Bat 21--was shot down on 2 April 1972, fifty-three-year-old Air Force navigator Iceal "Gene" Hambleton parachuted into the middle of a North Vietnamese invasion force and set off the biggest and most controversial air rescue effort of the Vietnam War. Now, after twenty-five years of official secrecy, the story of that dangerous and costly rescue is revealed for the first time by a decorated Air Force pilot and Vietnam veteran. Involving personnel from all services, including the Coast Guard, the unorthodox rescue operation claimed the lives of eleven soldiers and airmen, destroyed or damaged several aircraft, and put hundreds of airmen, a secret commando unit, and a South Vietnamese infantry division at risk. The book also examines the thorny debates arising from an operation that balanced one man's life against mounting U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties and material losses, the operation's impact on one of the most critical battles of the war, and the role played by search and rescue as America disengaged from that war.

"A GRIPPING CLASSIC. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam War. Dan Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else could."--Colonel LEO THORSNESS, Wild Weasel pilot and Medal of Honor recipient At the height of the Cold War, America's most elite aviators bravely volunteered for a covert program aimed at eliminating an impossible new threat. Half never returned. All became legends. From New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton comes one of the most extraordinary untold stories of aviation history. Vietnam, 1965: On July 24 a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was suddenly blown from the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon-a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. Three days later, six F-105 Thunderchiefs were brought down trying to avenge the Phantom. More tragic losses followed, establishing the enemy's SAMs as the deadliest anti-aircraft threat in history and dramatically turning the tables of Cold War air superiority in favor of Soviet technology. Stunned and desperately searching for answers, the Pentagon ordered a top secret program called Wild Weasel I to counter the SAM problem-fast. So it came to be that a small group of maverick fighter pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers volunteered to fly behind enemy lines and into the teeth of the threat. To most it seemed a suicide mission-but they beat the door down to join. Those who survived the 50 percent casualty rate would revolutionize warfare forever. "You gotta be sh*#@ing me!" This immortal phrase was uttered by Captain Jack Donovan when the Wild Weasel concept was first explained to him. "You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a crazy fighter pilot who thinks he's invincible, home in on a SAM site in North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me?" Based on unprecedented firsthand interviews with Wild Weasel veterans and previously unseen personal papers and declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, as well as Dan Hampton's own experience as a highly decorated F-16 Wild Weasel pilot, The Hunter Killers is a gripping, cockpit-level chronicle of the first-generation Weasels, the remarkable band of aviators who faced head-on the advanced Soviet missile technology that was decimating fellow American pilots over the skies of Vietnam.

At the height of the Vietnam conflict, a complex system of secret underground tunnels sprawled from Cu Chi Province to the edge of Saigon. In these burrows, the Viet Cong cached their weapons, tended their wounded, and prepared to strike. They had only one enemy: U.S. soldiers small and wiry enough to maneuver through the guerrillas' narrow domain.
The brave souls who descended into these hellholes were known as "tunnel rats." Armed with only pistols and K-bar knives, these men inched their way through the steamy darkness where any number of horrors could be awaiting them-bullets, booby traps, a tossed grenade. Using firsthand accounts from men and women on both sides who fought and killed in these underground battles, authors Tom Mangold and John Penycate provide a gripping inside look at this fearsome combat. The Tunnels of Cu Chi" "is a war classic of unbearable tension and unforgettable heroes.

They were little more than boys in the turbulent 1960s when Lee Roy Herron and his high school buddy, David Nelson, signed up for Marine Corps officer training. Decisions during college took the pair in different directions--Lee Roy to the infantry, language school, and the cauldron of Vietnam, David to law school, the JAG office, and eventually to Okinawa.
When Lt. Lee Roy Herron was killed on the front lines in February 1969, only two months into his tour of duty, Nelson mourned the tragic loss. Haunted for years afterward, he questioned his own choices, his relative safety, and his backstage role in the conflict while his friend paid the ultimate price.
A chance encounter with a retired officer in 1997 spurred Nelson to delve more deeply into Lee Roy's death. What really happened that day on the hillside above A Shau Valley on the Laotian border? A quest to understand his old friend's experience and sacrifice led Nelson to military archives, to the homes of friends and family back in West Texas, and even to battle sites in Vietnam. What he learned caused him to rethink the nature of fate, friendship, and heroism--and touches lives even today.
The final chapter in Nelson's journey to honor his fallen friend, David and Lee Roy will resonate with Vietnam veterans, their families, and survivors of any war who carry the memory with them.

In the Cambodian proverb, "when broken glass floats" is the time when evil triumphs over good. That time began in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and the Him family began their trek through the hell of the "killing fields." In a mesmerizing story, Him vividly recounts a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps are the norm and technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer exists. Death becomes a companion at the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, Chanrithy's family remains loyal to one another despite the Khmer Rouge's demand of loyalty only to itself. Moments of inexpressible sacrifice and love lead them to bring what little food they have to the others, even at the risk of their own lives. In 1979, "broken glass" finally sinks. From a family of twelve, only five of the Him children survive. Sponsored by an uncle in Oregon, they begin their new lives in a land that promises welcome to those starved for freedom.