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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > Vietnam War
The slang, the unique vocabulary of the soldiers and Marines
serving in Vietnam was a mishmash of words and phrases reaching
back to the Korean War, World War II, and even earlier. At the same
time it used words and phrases reflecting the country's changing
protest culture at home, ideological and poetical doctrine, ethical
and cultural conflicts, and racialism and the drug culture. The
slanguage in Vietnam was made even more complex by the Pidgin
Vietnamese-English used by Americans and Vietnamese alike. American
culture and society were changing rapidly and drastically at home
and this bled into Vietnam. In the jungles, swamps, and hills of
Vietnam soldier and marine slang also followed the traditional path
of what was important to their daily lives: their leaders, the
harsh environment, food, uniforms, weapons, equipment, and how they
fought and lived in the country.
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Vietnam
(Paperback)
Nigel Cawthorne
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R245
R191
Discovery Miles 1 910
Save R54 (22%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The men of the U.S. Navy's brown-water force played a vital but
often overlooked role in the Vietnam War. Known for their black
berets and limitless courage, they maneuvered their aging,
makeshift craft along shallow coastal waters and twisting inland
waterways to search out the enemy. In this moving tribute to their
contributions and sacrifices, Tom Cutler records their dramatic
story as only a participant could. His own Vietnam experience
enables him to add a striking human dimension to the account. The
terror of firefights along the jungle-lined rivers, the rigors of
camp life, and the sudden perils of guerrilla warfare are conveyed
with authenticity. At the same time, the author's training as a
historian allows him to objectively describe the scope of the
navy's operations and evaluate their effectiveness.
Winner of the Navy League's Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary
Achievement in 1988 when the book was first published, Cutler is
credited with having written the definitive history of the
brown-water sailors, an effort that has helped readers better
understand the nature of U.S. involvement in the war.
Winner of the 2020 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing
Nearly 1,600 Americans are still unaccounted for and presumed dead
from the Vietnam War. These are the stories of those who mourn and
continue to search for them. For many families the Vietnam War
remains unsettled. Nearly 1,600 Americans-and more than 300,000
Vietnamese-involved in the conflict are still unaccounted for. In
What Remains, Sarah E. Wagner tells the stories of America's
missing service members and the families and communities that
continue to search for them. From the scientists who work to
identify the dead using bits of bone unearthed in Vietnamese
jungles to the relatives who press government officials to find the
remains of their loved ones, Wagner introduces us to the men and
women who seek to bring the missing back home. Through their
experiences she examines the ongoing toll of America's most fraught
war. Every generation has known the uncertainties of war.
Collective memorials, such as the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington
National Cemetery, testify to the many service members who never
return, their fates still unresolved. But advances in forensic
science have provided new and powerful tools to identify the
remains of the missing, often from the merest trace-a tooth or
other fragment. These new techniques have enabled military experts
to recover, repatriate, identify, and return the remains of lost
service members. So promising are these scientific developments
that they have raised the expectations of military families hoping
to locate their missing. As Wagner shows, the possibility of such
homecomings compels Americans to wrestle anew with their memories,
as with the weight of their loved ones' sacrifices, and to
reevaluate what it means to wage war and die on behalf of the
nation.
The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, for the first time
fully explores the most sustained, intensive use of psychological
operations (PSYOP) in American history. In PSYOP, US military
personnel use a variety of tactics-mostly audio and visual
messages-to influence individuals and groups to behave in ways that
favor US objectives. Informed by the author's firsthand experience
of such operations elsewhere, this account of the battle for
"hearts and minds" in Vietnam offers rare insight into the art and
science of propaganda as a military tool in the twentieth century.
The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, focuses on the
creation, capabilities, and performance of the forces that
conducted PSYOP in Vietnam, including the Joint US Public Affairs
Office and the 4th PSYOP Group. In his comprehensive account,
Mervyn Edwin Roberts III covers psychological operations across the
entire theater, by all involved US agencies. His book reveals the
complex interplay of these activities within the wider context of
Vietnam and the Cold War propaganda battle being fought by the
United States at the same time. Because PSYOP never occurs in a
vacuum, Roberts considers the shifting influence of alternative
sources of information-especially from the governments of North and
South Vietnam, but also from Australia, Korea, and the Philippines.
The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, also addresses the
development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to
the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965 and, finally,
shows how the course of the war itself forced changes to this
doctrine. The scope of the book allows for a unique measurement of
the effectiveness of psychological operations over time.
It wasn't rockets or artillery that came through the skies one week
during the war. It was the horrific force of nature that suddenly
put both sides in awe. As an unofficial truce began, questions and
emotions battled inside every air crewman's mind as they faced
masses of Vietnamese civilians outside their protective base
perimeters for the first time. Could we trust them not to shoot?
Could they trust us not to drop them off in a detention camp?
Truces never last, but life changes a bit for all the people
involved while they are happening. Sometimes wars are suspended and
fighting stops for a while. A holiday that both sides recognize
might do it, as happened in the Christmas truce during World War I.
Weather might do it, too, as it did in Vietnam in October 1970. The
"typhoon truce" was just as real, and the war stopped for three
days in northern I Corps--that area bordering the demilitarized
zone separating South Vietnam from the North. The unofficial
"typhoon truce" came because first, Super Typhoon Joan arrived,
devastating all the coastal lowlands in I Corps and further up into
North Vietnam. Then, less than a week later came Super Typhoon
Kate. Kate hit the same area with renewed fury, leaving the entire
countryside under water and the people there faced with both war
and natural disaster at the same time. No one but the Americans,
the foreign warriors fighting throughout the country, had the
resources to help the people who lived in the lowlands, and so they
did. For the men who took their helicopters out into the unending
rain it really made little difference. Perhaps no one would shoot
at them for a while, but the everyday dangers they faced remained,
magnified by the low clouds and poor visibility. The crews got just
as tired, maybe more so, than on normal missions. None of that
really mattered. The aircrews of the 101st Airborne went out to
help anyway, because rescuing people was now their mission. In this
book we see how for a brief period during an otherwise vicious war,
saving life took precedence over bloody conflict.
While the past half-century has seen no diminution in the valor and
fighting skill of the U.S. military and its allies, the fact
remains that our wars have become more protracted, with decisive
results more elusive. With only two exceptions-Panama and the Gulf
War under the first President Bush-our campaigns have taken on the
character of endless slogs without positive results. This
fascinating book takes a ground-up look at the problem in order to
assess how our strategic objectives have recently become divorced
from our true capability, or imperatives. The book presents a
unique examination of the nature of insurgencies and the three
major guerrilla wars the United States has fought in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Vietnam. It is both a theoretical work and one that
applies the hard experience of the last five decades to address the
issues of today. As such, it also provides a timely and meaningful
discussion of America's current geopolitical position. It starts
with the previously close-held casualty estimate for Iraq that The
Dupuy Institute compiled in 2004 for the U.S. Department of
Defense. Going from the practical to the theoretical, it then
discusses a construct for understanding insurgencies and the
contexts in which they can be fought. It applies these principles
to Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, assessing where the projection of
U.S. power can enhance our position and where it merely weakens it.
It presents an extensive analysis of insurgencies based upon a
unique database of 83 post-WWII cases. The book explores what is
important to combat and what is not important to resist in
insurgencies. As such, it builds a body of knowledge based upon a
half-century's worth of real-world data, with analysis, not
opinion. In these pages, Christopher A. Lawrence, the President of
The Dupuy Institute, provides an invaluable guide to how the U.S.
can best project its vital power, while avoiding the missteps of
the recent past.
Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War,
Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved
through the American experience in these conventional wars only to
be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in
Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led
air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the
war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed how even
intense aerial attacks may not achieve military or political
objectives in a limited war. Based on findings from previously
classified documents in presidential libraries and air force
archives as well as on interviews with civilian and military
decision makers, "The Limits of Air Power" argues that reliance on
air campaigns as a primary instrument of warfare could not have
produced lasting victory in Vietnam. This Bison Books edition
includes a new chapter that provides a framework for evaluating air
power effectiveness in future conflicts.
American military special operations forces-Rangers, SEALs, and
others-have become a well-recognised and highly respected part of
our popular culture. But whom do these elite warriors look to in
their times of greatest need: when wounded on the battlefield, cut
off deep behind enemy lines, or adrift in the expanse of the
world's oceans? They look skyward, hoping to catch a glimpse of
their own personal guardian angel: a U.S. Air Force pararescue
jumper (PJ) who lives, and sometimes dies, by the motto that others
may live. Taking Fire provides an up-close look into the heroism
and mystique of this little known segment of the Air Force Special
Tactics community by focusing on one of the most dramatic rescues
of the Vietnam War. It was June 1972 and Capt. Lynn Aikman is
returning from a bombing mission over North Vietnam when his F-4
Phantom is jumped by an enemy MiG and shot down. He and his
backseater Tom Hanton eject from their crippled aircraft, but
Hanton lands near a village and is quickly captured by local
militia. Badly injured during the ejection, Aikman lands some
distance from the village, and there is a chance that he can be
recovered if American rescuers can reach him before the enemy does.
Now on the ground and drifting in and out of consciousness, Captain
Aikman looks up and suddenly sees his guardian angel in the form of
USAF Pararescue Jumper Chuck McGrath. As Sergeant McGrath is
preparing to hook the downed pilot to a hoist line, he sees it fall
to the ground. Hostile fire on the hovering Jolly Green Giant
rescue helicopter has damaged the hoist mechanism causing the
operator to cut the line. While circling A-1 Skyraiders strafe the
militia to keep them away from Aikman and McGrath, the helicopter
crew races to come up with a plan. It's getting dark, and they'll
only have one chance. Taking Fire is an exciting, highly dramatic
story of life and death over North Vietnam. Much more than a
chronicle the events of 27 June 1972, the book gives the reader an
up-close look at the little known world of the U.S. Air Force's
elite aerial rescue force.
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.
During Hank Zeybel's first tour in Vietnam he flew 772 C130 sorties
as a navigator. He volunteered for a second tour, requesting
assignment to B26s so he could "shoot back." When B26s were removed
from the inventory, he accepted a Spectre gunship crew slot, flying
truck-busting missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He describes the
terror of flying through heavy AA fire over the trail, and the
heroics of the pilots in bringing their crews through. Away from
the war he recalls leave back in the US, his elderly father
bewildered by his war-hardened attitude and black sense of humor.
Contextualising his time with Spectre gunships, he compares his
experiences with those of other airmen, like Phil Combies and Robin
Olds, and his broader Air Force career - he joined upon graduating
university in 1955 and his first operational assignment was as a
B47 Stratojet navigator-bomber at Strategic Air Command - trained
to drop thermonuclear bombs with precision. From 1957 to 1963, he
logged over two thousand hours as a radar-bombardier in B47
Stratojets and B52 C-models. In this memoir of Vietnam, his Air
Force career and his second career as a journalist and writer,
Zeybel's admiration of the skill and bravery of pilots - many of
whom who he depended on for his very survival - shines through his
desciptions of combat missions and being "along for the ride."
The year is 1970; the war in Vietnam is five years from over. The
women's movement is newly resurgent, and feminists are summarily
reviled as "libbers." Inette Miller is one year out of college-a
reporter for a small-town newspaper. Her boyfriend gets drafted and
is issued orders to Vietnam. Within their few remaining days
together, Inette marries her US Army private, determined to
accompany him to war. There are obstacles. All wives of US military
are prohibited in country. With the aid of her newspaper's editor,
Miller finagles a one-month work visa and becomes a war reporter.
Her newspaper cannot afford life insurance beyond that. After
thirty days, she is on her own. As one of the rare woman war
correspondents in Vietnam and the only one also married to an Army
soldier, Miller's experience was pathbreaking. Girls Don't shines a
light on the conflicting motives that drive an ambitious woman of
that era and illustrates the schizophrenic struggle between the
forces of powerful feminist ideology and the contrarian forces of
the world as it was. Girls Don't is the story of what happens when
a twenty-three-year-old feminist makes her way into the land of
machismo. This is a war story, a love story, and an open-hearted
confessional within the burgeoning women's movement, chronicling
its demands and its rewards.
In 1967-68, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was on the front
line of the defence of South Vietnam's Quang Tri province, which
was at the very heart of the Vietnam conflict. Facing them were the
soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), men whose organization
and equipment made them a very different opponent from the famous,
irregular Viet Cong forces. From the 'Hill Battles' in April 1967
to the struggle for the city of Hue (January-March 1968) this
bloody campaign forced the two sides into a gruelling trial of
strength. The USMC held a general technological and logistical
advantage - including close air support and airborne transport,
technology, and supplies - but could not always utilize these
resources effectively in mountainous, jungle, or urban environments
better known by their Vietnamese opponents. In this arresting
account of small-unit combat, David R. Higgins steps into the
tropical terrain of Vietnam to assess the performance and
experience of USMC and NVA forces in three savage battles that
stretched both sides to the limit.
Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've
probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where
captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether
they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting
controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in
1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming home stories. What had
gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized
heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military
information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had
denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't
acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was
vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the
fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to
discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the
underlying factional divide between prowar "hardliners" and antiwar
"dissidents" among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into
the postwar American culture that created the myths of the HeroPOW
and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found
was surprising: It wasn't simply that some POWs were for the war
and others against it, nor was it an officers versus enlisted men
standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and
their precaptive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the
hardcore hero holdouts-like John McCain-moved on to careers in
politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the
antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them,
disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary myth buster,
disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI
resistance with images of suffering POWs - ennobled victims that
serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America's drift to
endless 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.
Twenty-five US Marine Corps squadrons flew versions of the Phantom
II and 11 of them used the aircraft in South-East Asia from May
1965 through to early 1973. Rather than the air-to-air missiles
that were the main component in the original F-4 armament, these
aircraft carried an ever-expanding range of weaponry. Some toted
24,500-lb bombs and others strafed with up to three 20 mm gun pods,
while most flew daily sorties delivering napalm, Snakeye bombs and
big Zuni rockets. Many US Marines holding small outpost positions
in Laos and South Vietnam against heavy Viet Cong attack owed their
lives to the Phantom II pilots who repeatedly drove off the enemy.
The book will examine these missions in the context of US Marine
Corps close-support doctrine, using the direct experience of a
selection of the aircrew who flew and organised those missions.
By the end of the American war in Vietnam, the coastal province of
Phu Yen was one of the least-secure provinces in the Republic of
Vietnam. It was also a prominent target of the American strategy of
pacification - an effort, purportedly separate and distinct from
conventional warfare, to win the 'hearts and minds' of the
Vietnamese. In Robert J. Thompson III's analysis, the consistent,
and consistently unsuccessful, struggle to place Phu Yen under
Saigon's banner makes the province particularly fertile ground for
studying how the Americans advanced pacification and why this
effort ultimately failed. In March 1970, a disastrous military
engagement began in Phu Yen, revealing the enemy's continued
presence after more than three years of pacification. Clear, Hold,
and Destroy provides a fresh perspective on the war across multiple
levels, from those making and implementing policy to those affected
by it. Most pointedly, Thompson contends that pacification, far
from existing apart from conventional warfare, actually depended on
conventional military forces for its application. His study reaches
back into Phu Yen's storied history with pacification before and
during the French colonial period, then focuses on the province
from the onset of the American War in 1965 to its conclusion in
1975. A sharply focused, fine-grained analysis of one critical
province during the Vietnam War, Thompson's work demonstrates how
pacification is better understood as the foundation of U.S.
fighting in Vietnam.
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