12, 20 And 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam


John A. Parrish - 1972
    

What Now, Lieutenant?


Robert Babcock - 2011
    Such is this work by Bob Babcock. What makes this work unique is that it is based upon his wartime writing as it occurred, without the softening of time and the refining of modern memory applied to past experience. In it you will find the thinking of a young officer as he struggles to take in all that he is responsible for while experiencing everything himself for the first time. It is an honest, unvarnished look at Soldiering in 1966-1967 and is as fine an example of the early American experience in Vietnam that one is likely to come across...” The personal account of Bob Babcock’s experiences as a platoon leader and executive officer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967.

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters


Dick Winters - 2006
    Dick Winters was their commander—"the best combat leader in World War II" to his men. This is his story—told in his own words for the first time.On D-Day, Dick Winters parachuted into France and assumed leadership of the Band of Brothers when their commander was killed. He led them through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany, by which time each member had been wounded. They liberated an S.S. death camp from the horrors of the Holocaust and captured Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat. After briefly serving during the Korean War, Winters was a highly successful businessman. Made famous by Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers—and the subsequent award-winning HBO miniseries—he is the object of worldwide adulation, Beyond Band of Brothers is Winters's memoir—based on his wartime diary—but it also includes his comrades' untold stories. Virtually all this material is being released for the first time. Only Winters was present from the activation of Easy Company until the war's end. Winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, only he could pen this moving tribute to the human spirit.

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam


Nick Turse - 2011
    Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of official orders to "kill anything that moves."Drawing on more than a decade of research into secret Pentagon archives and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time the workings of a military machine that resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded-what one soldier called "a My Lai a month." Devastating and definitive, Kill Anything That Moves finally brings us face-to-face with the truth of a war that haunts America to this day.

The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War


Denise Chong - 1999
    Her photograph - one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century - was seen around the world and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.This book is the story of how that photograph came to be - and the story of what happened to that girl after the camera shutter closed. Award-winning biographer Denise Chong's portrait of Kim Phuc - who eventually defected to Canada and is now a UNESCO spokesperson - is a rare look at the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point-of-view and one of the only books to describe everyday life in the wake of this war and to probe its lingering effects on all its participants.

Patton And His Third Army


Brenton G. Wallace - 1979
    Patton At the start of the war the Nazi armed forces was one of the most feared war machines in history. It had swept away all opposition and threatened all of Europe with its dominating force. But its supremacy was not to last. In fact the gains made by Nazi Germany over the course of 1940 to 1942 were rolled back in ten short months as Patton and the Third Army roared through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. Through the course of this offensive Patton and his men faced some of the toughest fighting of World War Two, most notably when the Germans attempted to reverse the tide in the Battle of the Bulge. Colonel Brenton G. Wallace was there to witness all of this as he served, and went on to earn five battle stars, with the Third Army through the course of its movements into Germany. His book, Patton and his Third Army is a remarkable account of this fascinating leader and his troops that changed the course of World War Two and revolutionized warfare. Wallace uncovers the actions of the Third Army from its preparations in Britain, to its first engagements with the enemy, through to the major battles around the Falaise Pocket and countering the German offensives, breaking across the Moselle into Germany until they eventually subdued the Nazi forces. This book provides fascinating insight into the strategies used by Patton to defeat the Germans. It is full of direct quotes from Patton that demonstrate his determination to win, such as: “When you have an adversary staggering and hanging on the ropes, don’t let up on him. Keep smashing, keep him off balance and on the run until you have knocked him out completely. That is the way to get this dirty business over quickly and at the smallest cost.” Patton and his Third Army is essential reading for anyone interested in the European Theater of war and finding out more about this remarkable figure who Eisenhower said was “born to be a soldier”. Brenton G. Wallace was an American army officer and architect. Through the course of the war he was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star from the United States, the Croix de Guerre with Star of Vermeil from France and also made part of the Order of the British Empire. He served under Patton as an assistance chief of staff and retired from the army as a Major General in the United States Army Reserve. His work Patton and his Third Army was first published in 1946. He passed away in 1968.

Long Range Patrol


Dennis Foley - 1992
    The special volunteers who make up Long Range Patrols are tasked with setting up ambushes and conducting dangerous night patrols, helicopter insertions behind enemy lines, and fire support in the hottest of fights.Enriched with a memorable cast of characters and thrilling details that only a Vietnam veteran could capture, Long Range Patrol is a powerhouse tale of a band of heroes fighting to keep their brothers alive.

The Vietnam Air War: From The Cockpit


Dennis M. Ridnouer - 2018
    Showcasing seventy-two true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. There is no political agenda. There is no partisan opinion. There is no romanticizing. These are simply tales from the thick of an endlessly complex conflict, raw and uncut, told directly by the men who were foisted into its napalm- and sweat-soaked clutches. Occasionally funny, sometimes tragic, and often harrowing, these true accounts bring new and personal perspectives to one of the most studied and most maligned wars in America’s history, revealing with no Hollywood glamorizing what the war was really like for members of the US Air Force of all ranks and myriad functions who answered the call to fight. They saw no choice but to follow the orders they were given. And for better or for worse, by the time they returned, each of them would be changed forever.

Seven Years in Hanoi


Larry Chesley - 1973
    But less than an hour later he had been shot down over North Vietnam with three broken vertebra, stripped of his clothing and equipment, and was sitting handcuffed and blindfolded in a hole in the ground.Twenty-one days later he was in another hole - the "hell hole" of Hoa Lo, the prison the POWs nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. He would be in and out of that prison and eight others for nearly seven years.In Seven Years In Hanoi, Larry Chesley unveils the story of POW life in North Vietnam. His absorbing first-hand account relates his personal experiences as he tells of conditions in the prison camps; the treatment the POWs received, including the tortures; the means by which they frustrated their captors' design of breaking their spirit; and the educational, patriotic and religious activities by which they helped to sustain faith and courage and keep morale high.Finally he describes the moving experience of the POWs' release from captivity and their warm and wonderful welcome in America.Reading this book will do more than interest and inform the reader. It will measurably recapture the surge of emotion America felt at the POWs' homecoming. It will stir again the patriotic pride in that band of men who like many others caught up in the Vietnam War, asked "not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country.

Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline


James Cartwright - 2012
    As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows - and the enemy. The Author is one such man who recently served a full tour of duty with 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. James describes the highs and lows of almost daily front line action experienced by our soldiers deployed on active service in arguably the most dangerous area of the world. As part of the Battle Groups crack Mobile Operations Group, Jamess mission was to liquidate as many Taliban as possible. The reader experiences sniper tactics and actions, whether in ambush or quick pre-planned strikes, amid the ever present lethal danger of IEDs. His book, the first to be written by a trained sniper in Afghanistan, reveals the psychological pressures and awesome life-and-death responsibility of his role and, in particular, the deadly cat-and-mouse games with the enemy snipers intent on their own kills. These involved the clinical killing of targets at ranges of 1,000 meters or greater. Sniper in Helmand is a thrilling action-packed, yet very human, account of both front line service in the intense Afghanistan war and first-hand sniper action. Andy McNab inspired James to join the army and has written a moving foreword.

Devil's Own Luck: Pegasus Bridge to the Baltic 1944-45


Denis Edwards - 1999
    He brilliantly conveys what it was like to be facing death, day after day, night after night, with never a bed to sleep in nor a hot meal to go home to. This is warfare in the raw ' brutal, yet humorous, immensely tragic, but sadly, all true.

On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam


John B. Nichols - 1987
    naval airpower in the Vietnam War. Coauthors John Nichols, a fighter pilot in the war, and Barrett Tillman, an award-winning aviation historian, make full use of their extensive knowledge of the subject to detail the ways in which airpower was employed in the years prior to the fall of Saigon. Confronting the conventional belief that airpower failed in Vietnam, they show that when applied correctly, airpower was effective, but because it was often misunderstood and misapplied, the end results were catastrophic. Their book offers a compelling view of what it was like to fly from Yankee Station between 1964 and 1973 and important lessons for future conflicts. At the same time, it adds important facts to the permanent war record. Following an analysis of the state of carrier aviation in 1964 and a definition of the rules of engagement, it describes the tactics used in strike warfare, the airborne and surface threats, electronic countermeasures, and search and rescue. It also examines the influence of political decisions on the conduct of the war and the changing nature of the Communist opposition. Appendixes provide useful statistical data on carrier deployments, combat sorties, and aircraft losses.

Alpha One Sixteen: A Combat Infantryman's Year in Vietnam


Peter Clark - 2018
    Clark was assigned to the Alpha Company. Clark gives a visceral, vivid and immediate account of life in the platoon, as he progresses from green recruit to seasoned soldier over the course of a year in the complexities of the Vietnamese conflict.Clark gradually learns the techniques developed by US troops to cope with the daily horrors they encountered, the technical skills needed to fight and survive, and how to deal with the awful reality of civilian casualties. Fighting aside, it rained almost every day and insect bites constantly plagued the soldiers as they moved through dense jungle, muddy rice paddy and sandy roads. From the food they ate (largely canned meatballs, beans and potatoes) to the inventive ways they managed to shower, every aspect of the platoon's lives is explored in this revealing book. The troops even managed to fit in some R&R whilst off-duty in the bars of Tokyo.Alpha One Sixteen follows Clark as he discovers how to cope with the vagaries of the enemy and the daily confusion the troops faced in distinguishing combatants from civilians. The Viet Cong were a largely unseen enemy who fought a guerrilla war, setting traps and landmines everywhere. Clark's vigilance develops as he gets used to 'living in mortal terror, ' which a brush with death in a particularly terrifying fire fight does nothing to dispel. As he continues his journey, he chronicles those less fortunate; the heavy toll being taken all round him is powerfully described at the end of each chapter.

Combat Corpsman: A Navy SEAL Medic in Vietnam


Greg McPartlin - 2005
    AND TO KILL All his life Greg McPartlin wanted to be a Marine corpsman, a medic skilled at saving lives. Three months of bagging-and-tagging bodies during Vietnam s Tet Offensive took the luster off of being a Marine but not off McPartlin’s desire to serve his country. After assisting in the sea recovery of Apollo 11 the first ship to bring men to the moon the twenty-year-old McPartlin was redeployed to Vietnam as an elite Navy SEAL. Barred as a medic from the make-or-break training of BUD/S considered vital to service as a Navy SEAL, McPartlin had to show he had what it took. But McPartlin had been in country before. In a war where you partied with your buddies in Saigon one day and crawled through an enemy-infested jungle hell the next, he proved that he was not only an outstanding medic but a real Navy SEAL the toughest of the tough. Combat Corpsman is McPartlin’s often humorous—and terrifying—account of his year of combat in what had been a Viet Cong stronghold until the SEALs took control and Charlie placed bounties on the men with green faces. It is the first inside story of a Navy SEAL medic, a man who wanted to heal, not to kill, but did both to save lives. This edition is heavily illustrated with 100 historical and personal photographs from Greg McPartlin’s tour of duty in Vietnam. Editorial Reviews: I wish I could make up anything as riotously wonderful yet starkly realistic as this book. —H. Jay Riker, author of The Silent Service: Virginia Class An accurate and humorous account of an early Navy SEAL platoon in Vietnam. —Frank Thornton, the most decorated SEAL from Vietnam era You would be hard-pressed to find a more gritty, realistic, tale of the rigors of combat and the actions of a SEAL Corpsman. The action on these pages is so real you can smell the mud, feel the sweetish taste of the powder smoke in the back of your mouth, hear the fragments whiz by and the bullets snap past - and know in a small way just what it is like to be one of the best. —Kevin Dockery, author of Hunters and Shooters and The Complete History of the Navy SEALs

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers


Daniel Ellsberg - 2002
    decision-making in Vietnam-to the New York Times and Washington Post. The document set in motion a chain of events that ended not only the Nixon presidency but the Vietnam War. In this remarkable memoir, Ellsberg describes in dramatic detail the two years he spent in Vietnam as a U.S. State Department observer, and how he came to risk his career and freedom to expose the deceptions and delusions that shaped three decades of American foreign policy. The story of one man's exploration of conscience, Secrets is also a portrait of America at a perilous crossroad.