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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > Vietnam War
In 1968, at the age of 22, Karl Marlantes abandoned his Oxford
University scholarship to sign up for active service with the US
Marine Corps in Vietnam. Pitched into a war that had no defined
military objective other than kill ratios and body counts, what he
experienced over the next thirteen months in the jungles of South
East Asia shook him to the core. But what happened when he came
home covered with medals was almost worse. It took Karl four
decades to come to terms with what had really happened, during the
course of which he painstakingly constructed a fictionalized
version of his war, MATTERHORN, which has subsequently been hailed
as the definitive Vietnam novel.
WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR takes us back to Vietnam, but this
time there is no fictional veil. Here are the hard-won truths that
underpin MATTERHORN: the author's real-life experiences behind the
book's indelible scenes. But it is much more than this. It is part
exorcism of Karl's own experiences of combat, part confession, part
philosophical primer for the young man about to enter combat. It It
is also a devastatingly frank answer to the questions '"What is it
like to be a soldier?"' "What is it like to face death?"' and
"'What is it like to kill someone?"'
From the defeat of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam at Ap Bac to
the battles of the Ia Drang Valley, Khe Sanh, and more, Storms over
the Mekong offers a reassessment of key turning points in the
Vietnam War. Award-winning historian William P. Head not only
reexamines these pivotal battles but also provides a new
interpretation on the course of the war in Southeast Asia. In
considering Operation Rolling Thunder, for example-which Head dubs
as "too much rolling and not enough thunder"-readers will grasp the
full scope of the campaign, from specifically targeted bridges in
North Vietnam to the challenges of measuring success or failure,
the domestic political situation, and how over time, Head argues,
"slowly, but surely, Rolling Thunder dug itself into a hole."
Likewise, Head shows how the battles for Saigon and Hue during the
Tet Offensive of 1968 were tactical defeats for the Communist
forces with as many as 40,000 killed and no real gains. At the same
time, however, Tet made it clear to many in Washington that victory
in Vietnam would require a still greater commitment of men and
resources, far more than the American people were willing to
invest. Storms over the Mekong is a blow-by-blow account of the key
military events, to be sure. But beyond that, it is also a measured
reconsideration of the battles and moments that Americans thought
they already knew, adding up to a new history of the Vietnam War.
This book explores how and why Vietnam loomed so large for Humphrey
as vice president from 1964 through the 1968 election campaign
against Richard Nixon. It assesses how Humphrey's loyalty to Lyndon
Johnson, who emerges as the villain of the story in many ways,
would negatively affect his political ambitions. And it engages the
disconnect between Humphrey's principles and the intricate politics
of his convoluted relationship with the president and his
unsuccessful presidential campaign. It is a complex and frustrating
narrative, the results of which would be tragic, not only for
Humphrey's presidential aspirations, but also for the war in
Southeast Asia and the future of the United States.
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.
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.
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.
In 1961, the U.S. government established the first formalized
provisions for intercountry adoption just as it was expanding
America's involvement with Vietnam. Adoption became an increasingly
important portal of entry into American society for Vietnamese and
Amerasian children, raising questions about the United States'
obligations to refugees and the nature of the family during an era
of heightened anxiety about U.S. global interventions. Whether
adopting or favoring the migration of multiracial individuals,
Americans believed their norms and material comforts would salve
the wounds of a divisive war. However, Vietnamese migrants
challenged these efforts of reconciliation. As Allison Varzally
details in this book, a desire to redeem defeat in Vietnam, faith
in the nuclear family, and commitment to capitalism guided American
efforts on behalf of Vietnamese youths. By tracing the stories of
Vietnamese migrants, however, Varzally reveals that while many had
accepted separations as a painful strategy for survival in the
midst of war, most sought, and some eventually found, reunion with
their kin. This book makes clear the role of adult adoptees in
Vietnamese and American debates about the forms, privileges, and
duties of families, and places Vietnamese children at the center of
American and Vietnamese efforts to assign responsibility and find
peace in the aftermath of conflict.
At Easter 1972, North Vietnam invaded the South, and there were almost no US ground troops left to stop it. But air power reinforcements could be rushed to the theater. Operation Linebacker's objective was to destroy the invading forces from the air and cut North Vietnam's supply routes – and luckily in 1972, American air power was beginning a revolution in both technology and tactics.
Most crucial was the introduction of the first effective laser-guided bombs, but the campaign also involved the fearsome AC-130 gunship and saw the debut of helicopter-mounted TOW missiles. Thanks to the new Top Gun fighter school, US naval aviators now also had a real advantage over the MiGs.
This is the fascinating story of arguably the world's first “modern” air campaign. It explains how this complex operation – involving tactical aircraft, strategic bombers, close air support and airlift – defeated the invasion. It also explains the shortcomings of the campaign, the contrasting approaches of the USAF and Navy, and the impact that Linebacker had on modern air warfare.
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.
In late March 1975, as the Vietnam War raged, an Australian
voluntary aid worker named Rosemary Taylor approached the
Australian Embassy seeking assistance to fly 600 orphans out of
Saigon to safety. Rosemary and Margaret Moses, two former nuns from
Adelaide, had spent eight years in Vietnam during the war, building
up a complex of nurseries to house war orphans and street waifs as
the organisation that built up around them facilitated
international adoptions for the children. As the North Vietnamese
forces closed in on their nurseries, they needed a plan to evacuate
the children, or all their work might count for little ... Based on
extensive archival and historical research, and interviews of some
of those directly involved in the events described, Operation
Babylift details the last month of the Vietnam War from the
perspective of the most vulnerable victims of that war: the orphans
it created. Through the story of the attempt to save 600 children,
we see how a small group of determined women refused to play
political games as they tried to remake the lives of a forgotten
generation, one child at a time.
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.
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.
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.
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