South Texas and northern Mexico formed a seedbed of revolt in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, two decades after he had launched his own successful revolution from South Texas, Mexican president Porfirio DÍaz faced a cross-border insurgency intent on toppling his government. The Garza War, so named for the revolutionary firebrand and editor Catarino Erasmo Garza, actually comprised three concerted Texas-based attempts to overthrow DÍaz: a June 1890 raid led by Francisco Ruiz Sandoval, the Garza Raid of September 1891, and the San Ignacio Raid of December 1892. In the first detailed military history of the Garza War, Thomas Ty Smith reveals how an armed insurrection against a foreign government, conducted on American soil, drew the US Army into a uniquely complex conflict whose repercussions would be felt on both sides of the US-Mexico border for generations to come. Though not intended as a direct threat to the United States, the insurgency, in using Texas as a staging area, threatened US neutrality laws, forcing the United States to honor its treaty obligations to the Porfirio DÍaz government in Mexico City—a proposition further complicated by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevented soldiers from acting as law enforcement. Smith describes how what began as a measured and somewhat limited effort by the United States to enforce the Neutrality Act in Texas eventually escalated into an all-out shooting war between the army and the Garzistas, elevating the counterinsurgency campaign into the highest military, diplomatic, and political echelons of both America and Mexico. The Garza War in South Texas profiles central characters in the conflict—such as Captain John Gregory Bourke, famed for his service with Major General George Crook in the Indian Wars; the biracial, bilingual Shely brothers, former Texas Rangers who ran the army’s secret spy network; and Francisco Benavides, aka El Tuerto (One-Eye), leader of the 1892 raid that resulted in the brutal slaughter and burning of a Mexican federal cavalry outpost across the river from San Ygnacio, Texas. These revolutionaries provided a cornerstone ideology, and a historic legacy, for the Mexican Revolution two decades later.

"Our mission continues . . . Until They Are Home "--Motto of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command

At the end of the Vietnam War--or American War, as it is called in Hanoi--2,585 Americans were unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. In 1992, a joint task force was established to continue the work of recovery, and its members became the first U.S. government representatives to return full-time to Vietnam.

Army Lt. Col. Thomas ("Ty") Smith arrived in Hanoi a decade later, in 2003. "Until They Are Home" is both a heartfelt memoir and a fascinating inside look at his tour of duty in Vietnam, "a place of shadows within shadows, secrets within secrets."

Smith takes the reader on an extraordinary personal voyage from the shaded French boulevards of Hanoi to the remotest jungle trails of the border highlands. Written with a keen eye and touches of humor, "Until They Are Home "recounts life in the very heart of the mission to find and return to the families the remains of their loved ones. It offers equal parts historical context, political insight, social commentary, travelogue, and adventure chronicle.

From describing everything from his diplomatic negotations between the Vietnamese and American governments to presenting his view of commanding a remarkably complex mission in an unforgiving environment, Smith draws on memory, e-mails, letters, and journal entries to recreate the story of his mission in Vietnam. Smith and the forces serving under him found the remains of fourteen lost American servicemen--including two graduates of Texas A&M University.

The gripping, intensely personal narrative of "Until They Are Home "will fascinate general readers interested in the Vietnam War and its aftermath and will prove helpful to historians seeking primary information. It will also have great appeal to those with continuing involvement in POW/MIA issues and concerns.