This Lord's Prayer has been called a model prayer by many good theologians. But it is also true that it is among the least scrutinized of all teachings in the Bible, and therefore one of the least studied and understood. We need to remind ourselves that when Jesus gave this teaching to us it was for the express purpose of establishing a good communication with God out in the joys and scuffles of daily life. This book is offered to take the reader back to that purpose.

We need to put ourselves back in the shoes of those who heard this teaching on prayer for the first time. When we do, we find our identity, our destiny, and our purpose for living at the very foundation of what Jesus told us here, along with the corollaries too. We discover that this and this alone is the foundational teaching on communicating with God in the New Testament, and when all else is stripped away it is the one understanding we cannot do without; it becomes our anchor point. It not only focuses our understanding on the truth behind all things; it exposes a great deal of falsehood as a consequence. How could it not? When the road we walk is rock solid at its base, the quicksand is easy to spot and avoid.

This book takes each element of this prayer and discusses it in-depth, and each element reveals more than what first meets the eye. Of course, this prayer-teaching by Jesus of Nazareth is of necessity coupled with a great deal of related New Testament teaching throughout the book.

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"No book about the Vietnam War can be simply a book about the Vietnam War. "Vietnam's Forgotten Army" appears in the midst of a raging debate over American armed interventions abroad and over the proper lessons to draw from Vietnam for the war in Iraq."
--"The Nation"

This is a fascinating study of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)--the South Vietnamese army--during America's involvement in the Vietnam War. . . . This well-written, compassionate study is a major contribution to most libraries.
--"Library Journal"

This sympathetic biography of Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, mid-level officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), provides a unique perspective among American war histories. . . . [Readers] will gain new respect for the mishandled South Vietnamese army.
--"Publishers Weekly"

Exceptional, both in content and readability. Vietnam's Forgotten Army addresses one of the lacunas in the historiography of the war -- the story of the South Vietnamese soldier, a story that more often than not is totally ignored or only given the briefest of consideration. The authors vivid description of combat and its toll put a human face on what for many historians is merely a clinical discussion of unit moves, victories and defeats.
--James H. Willbanks, Director, Department of Military History, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Vietnam's Forgotten Army offers a compelling account of two heroic ARVN officers who, in the final years of the war, choose diametrically opposed courses of action. One surrenders, and enjoys a relatively easy subsequent life, but is plagued by guilt. Hiscomrade-in-arms remains true to the Republic, suffers many years of separation, imprisonment and deprivation, but ultimately finds fulfillment. In the process of telling this remarkable story, Wiest offers a better understanding of the trials and travails of those who served in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam.
--James R. Reckner, Director, The Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University

Written with balance and flair by a scholar who is devoted to a thorough accounting of Vietnam. With firsthand research, Wiest provides crucial missing voices, those of the South Vietnamese often misportrayed, overshadowed, and under-appreciated by their powerful American allies.
--Quang X. Pham, author of "A Sense of Duty"

Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN chronicles the lives of Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, two of the brightest young stars in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Both men fought with valor in a war that seemed to have no end, exemplifying ARVN bravery and determination that is largely forgotten or ignored in the West. However, while Hue fought until he was captured by the North Vietnamese Army and then endured thirteen years of captivity, Dinh surrendered and defected to the enemy, for whom he served as a teacher in the reeducation of his former ARVN comrades.

An understanding of how two lives that were so similar diverged so dramatically provides a lens through which to understand the ARVN and South Vietnam's complex relationship with Americas government and military. The lives of Dinh and Hue reflect the ARVNs battlefield successes, from the recapture of the Citadel in Hue City in the Tet Offensive of 1968, to Dinhs unheraldedrole in the seizure of Hamburger Hill a year later. However, their careers expose an ARVN that was over-politicized, tactically flawed, and dependent on American logistical and firepower support. Marginalized within an American war, ARVN faced a grim fate as U.S. forces began to exit the conflict. As the structure of the ARVN/U.S. alliance unraveled, Dinh and Hue were left alone to make the most difficult decisions of their lives.

Andrew Wiest weaves historical analysis with a compelling narrative, culled from extensive interviews with Dinh, Hue, and other key figures. Once both military superstars, Dinh is viewed by a traitor by many within the South Vietnamese community, while Hue, an expatriate living in northern Virginia, is seen as a hero who never let go of his ideals. Their experiences and legacies mirror that of the ARVNs rise and fall as well as the tragic history of South Vietnam.

2009 Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award for Biography Examines South Vietnam's complex relationship with the United States through the stories of two Vietnamese soldiers' diverging paths Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN chronicles the lives of Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, two of the brightest young stars in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Both men fought with valor in a war that seemed to have no end, exemplifying ARVN bravery and determination that is largely forgotten or ignored in the West. However, while Hue fought until he was captured by the North Vietnamese Army and then endured thirteen years of captivity, Dinh surrendered and defected to the enemy, for whom he served as a teacher in the reeducation of his former ARVN comrades. An understanding of how two lives that were so similar diverged so dramatically provides a lens through which to understand the ARVN and South Vietnam's complex relationship with America's government and military. The lives of Dinh and Hue reflect the ARVNs battlefield successes, from the recapture of the Citadel in Hue City in the Tet Offensive of 1968, to Dinhs unheralded role in the seizure of Hamburger Hill a year later. However, their careers expose an ARVN that was over-politicized, tactically flawed, and dependent on American logistical and firepower support. Marginalized within an American war, ARVN faced a grim fate as U.S. forces began to exit the conflict. As the structure of the ARVN/U.S. alliance unraveled, Dinh and Hue were left alone to make the most difficult decisions of their lives. Andrew Wiest weaves historical analysis with a compelling narrative, culled from extensive interviews with Dinh, Hue, and other key figures. Once both military superstars, Dinh is viewed by a traitor by many within the South Vietnamese community, while Hue, an expatriate living in northern Virginia, is seen as a hero who never let go of his ideals. Their experiences and legacies mirror that of the ARVNs rise and fall as well as the tragic history of South Vietnam.

In his first work of nonfiction, bestselling novelist James Webb tells the epic story of the Scots-Irish, a people whose lives and worldview were dictated by resistance, conflict, and struggle, and who, in turn, profoundly influenced the social, political, and cultural landscape of America from its beginnings through the present day.
More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England's Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself.
"Born Fighting is the first book to chronicle the full journey of this remarkable cultural group, and the profound, but unrecognized, role it has played in the shaping of America. Written with the storytelling verve that has earned his works such acclaim as "captivating . . . unforgettable" (the" Wall Street Journal on "Lost Soliders), Scots-Irishman James Webb, Vietnam combat veteran and former Naval Secretary, traces the history of his people, beginning nearly two thousand years ago at Hadrian's Wall, when the nation of Scotland was formed northof the Wall through armed conflict in contrast to England's formation to the south through commerce and trade. Webb recounts the Scots' odyssey--their clashes with the English in Scotland and then in Ulster, their retreat from one war-ravaged land to another. Through engrossing chronicles of the challenges the Scots-Irish faced, Webb vividly portrays how they developed the qualities that helped settle the American frontier and define the American character.
"Born Fighting shows that the Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only 5 percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army). It illustrates how the Scots-Irish redefined American politics, creating the populist movement and giving the country a dozen presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. And it explores how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, hard luck, stubbornness, and mistrust of the nation's elite formed and still dominates blue-collar America, the military services, the Bible Belt, and country music.
Both a distinguished work of cultural history and a human drama that speaks straight to the heart of contemporary America, "Born Fighting reintroduces America to its most powerful, patriotic, and individualistic cultural group--one too often ignored or taken forgranted.

This Lord's Prayer has been called a model prayer by many good theologians. But it is also true that it is among the least scrutinized of all teachings in the Bible, and therefore one of the least studied and understood. We need to remind ourselves that when Jesus gave this teaching to us it was for the express purpose of establishing a good communication with God out in the joys and scuffles of daily life. This book is offered to take the reader back to that purpose.

We need to put ourselves back in the shoes of those who heard this teaching on prayer for the first time. When we do, we find our identity, our destiny, and our purpose for living at the very foundation of what Jesus told us here, along with the corollaries too. We discover that this and this alone is the foundational teaching on communicating with God in the New Testament, and when all else is stripped away it is the one understanding we cannot do without; it becomes our anchor point. It not only focuses our understanding on the truth behind all things; it exposes a great deal of falsehood as a consequence. How could it not? When the road we walk is rock solid at its base, the quicksand is easy to spot and avoid.

This book takes each element of this prayer and discusses it in-depth, and each element reveals more than what first meets the eye. Of course, this prayer-teaching by Jesus of Nazareth is of necessity coupled with a great deal of related New Testament teaching throughout the book.