Two years later she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. At times raw, at times lyrical and youthfully sentimental, her voice transcends cultures to speak of her dignity and compassion and of her challenges in the face of the war’s ceaseless fury.The American officer who discovered the diary soon after Dr. Tram’s death was under standing orders to destroy all documents without military value. As he was about to toss it into the flames, his Vietnamese translator said to him, “Don’t burn this one. . . . It has fire in it already.” Against regulations, the officer preserved the diary and kept it for thirty-five years. In the spring of 2005, a copy made its way to Dr. Tram’s elderly mother in Hanoi. The diary was soon published in Vietnam, causing a national sensation. Never before had there been such a vivid and personal account of the long ordeal that had consumed the nation’s previous generations.Translated by Andrew X. Pham and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Frances FitzGerald, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is an extraordinary document that narrates one woman’s personal and political struggles. Above all, it is a story of hope in the most dire of circumstances—told from the perspective of our historic enemy but universal in its power to celebrate and mourn the fragility of human life.

    An oral history unlike any other, BLOODS features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off in disproportionate numbers and the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, BLOODS is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective.Cited by THE NEW YORK TIMES as One of the Notable Books of the Year"Superb."TIME

    The battle for Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), was one of the fiercest of the entire Vietnam War.

    W4964 was the seventieth Lanc to arrive on squadron, in mid April 1943. She flew her first op on the 20th, by which time No 9 had lost forty one of their Lancs to enemy action and another five had been transferred to other squadrons and lost by them. A further thirteen of the seventy would soon be lost by No 9. All of the remaining eleven would be damaged, repaired, transferred to other squadrons or training units, and lost to enemy action or crashes except for three which, in some kind of retirement, would last long enough to be scrapped after the war. Only one of the seventy achieved a century of ops or anything like it: W4964 WS-J. Across all squadrons and all the war, the average life of a Lancaster was 22.75 sorties, but rather less for the front-line squadrons going to Germany three and four times a week in 1943 and '44, which was when W4964 was flying her 107 sorties, all with No 9 Squadron and all from RAF Bardney. The first was Stettin (Szczecin in modern Poland), and thereafter she went wherever 9 Squadron went, to Berlin, the Ruhr, and most of the big ops of the time such as Peenemunde and Hamburg. She was given a special character as J-Johnny Walker, 'still going strong' and on September 15 1944, skippered by Flight Lieutenant James Douglas Melrose, her Tallboy special bomb was the only one to hit the battleship Tirpitz. During her career, well over two hundred airmen flew in J. None were killed while doing so, but ninety-six of them died in other aircraft. This is their story, and the story of one lucky Lancaster.

    Glory Denied: The Saga of Jim Thompson, America's Longest-Held Prisoner of War

    When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is the haunting memoir of a girl on the verge of womanhood in a world turned upside down.The youngest of six children in a close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly Hayslip was twelve years old when U.S. helicopters landed in Ky La, her tiny village in central Vietnam. As the government and Viet Cong troops fought in and around Ky La, both sides recruited children as spies and saboteurs. Le Ly was one of those children. Before the age of sixteen, Le Ly had suffered near-starvation, imprisonment, torture, rape, and the deaths of beloved family members—but miraculously held fast to her faith in humanity. And almost twenty years after her escape to America, she was drawn inexorably back to the devastated country and family she left behind. Scenes of this joyous reunion are interwoven with the brutal war years, offering a poignant picture of Vietnam, then and now, and of a courageous woman who experienced the true horror of the Vietnam War—and survived to tell her unforgettable story.

    His brother in Korea. When his own draft card arrived, he knew he would have to fight in Vietnam. But he could not bring himself to kill another man.

    First deployed in Vietnam in 1967 and loaded with a formidable arsenal of weaponry, the Cobra was the first helicopter designed from inception as an attack aircraft. It dramatically changed the nature of the war in Vietnam by offering the Army, for the first time, its own powerful and highly accurate weapons platform for close-air-support missions. Randy Zahn arrived in Vietnam shortly before the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, one of the most impressive demonstrations by the Cobra in the war. He describes his stunning transformation from a naive, middle-class teenager from southern California to a hardened killer during his tour in Vietnam. Unlike the pilots who flew the fast-moving strike jets, Zahn experienced the war “up close and personal,” witnessing the grisly effects of the Cobra’s firepower on enemy soldiers. The author does not glorify killing but rather explains in sharp relief the kaleidoscope of emotions associated with combat: fear, revenge, hate, remorse, pity, and even ecstasy. He captures many of the ironies and nuances inherent in Vietnam, especially during the final years of the conflict. Zahn displays a sensitivity rarely found in memoirs written by battle-hardened warriors. This human element, combined with the vast amount of archival research and interviews with members of his former unit, ensures that Snake Pilot will become the definitive account of the role helicopters played in Vietnam.

    It is not mainly a military history, but seeks to integrate military, diplomatic, and political factors in order to clarify Americaâ��s involvement and ultimate failure in Vietnam. While it focuses on the American side of the equation, it provides sufficient consideration of the Vietnamese side to make the events comprehensible.

    

    In an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of duty in Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the first time about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to become a classic.Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out of college and expecting a stateside assignment, when his orders arrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, he tried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eight more-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radio locations.He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh and drink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fear of war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radio transmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidder realized that he would spend his time in Vietnam listening in on battle but never actually experiencing it.With remarkable clarity and with great detachment, Kidder looks back at himself from across three and a half decades, confessing how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero. Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies–they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.

    Features over 200 incredible photos. Flying to a coffee table near you comes the new paperback edition of this authoritative and illustrated history of the most mind-bending military aircraft ever flown! Developed by the renowned Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 was an awesome aircraft in every respect, setting world records for altitude and speed: an absolute altitude record of 85,069 feet on July 28, 1974, and an absolute speed record of 2,193.2 miles per hour on the same day.Written by a former Blackbird pilot, SR-71 covers every aspect of the aircraft's development, manufacture, and active service, all lavishly illustrated with more than 200 photos. The SR-71 remained in service with the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1998, when it was withdrawn from use, superseded by satellite technology. This authoritative history covers the spylane's entire phenomenal service.

    Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as one of the major figures in the "fight for liberation" -- and one of the most determined adversaries of the United States. He became the Vietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fled the country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exile in Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnam to the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettable autobiography.

    A band of paratroopers that defied the odds. A bond that couldn’t be broken. In the bloodiest year (1968) of a decade long war, a company called “Tiger Bravo” fought across the battlefields of Vietnam, as part of an elite Strike Force nicknamed the “Wandering Warriors.” By the time the last chopper departed, Tiger Bravo had amassed a staggering 150 Purple Hearts and mourned the loss of 30 brothers in arms. In Tiger Bravo’s War, you’ll discover the trials and tribulations of life in the combat zone from soldiers’ letters and the personal stories of survivors. You’ll learn what it was like to trudge through the dark heart of the jungle, take to the streets in the Tet Offensive, launch a daring rescue mission, and dodge booby-traps deep within enemy territory. Through unbearable hardships, gut wrenching losses and rare moments of joy and laughter, you’ll watch as a company of America’s youth transforms itself from a collection of total strangers in civilian life to an elite unit of highly trained paratroopers and, as their Vietnam odyssey unfolds, to battle-hardened, war-weary veterans willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their brothers. In St John's compelling memoir, you’ll discover: - An episodic narrative taking the reader on a journey with Tiger Bravo, from stateside training through its first year of combat. - Light-hearted antics between missions, featuring rock n’ roll in the mess hall and drunken hijinks. - Personal stories from surviving veterans, including a west Texas oilfields high school dropout, a medic abandoned by his mother, and the son of a World War II Japanese fighter pilot turned Silver Star recipient.- A glimpse of the lasting impact of the war, including failed marriages, alcoholism, and PTSD.- In-depth research, including interviews from more than 20 veterans, battlefield journals and letters, seven hundred plus primary source footnotes and much, much more!

    This is a fighter pilot's story of eight memorable months from May to December 1940. When the Germans were blitzing their way across France, Pilot Officer Tom Neil had just received his first posting - to 249 Squadron, in process for forming at RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire. Nineteen years old, fresh from training at Montrose on Hawker Audax biplanes he was soon to be pitch forked into the maelstrom of air fighting on which the survival of Britain was to depend. By the end of the year he had shot down 13 enemy aircraft, seen many of his friends killed, injured or burned, and was himself a wary and accomplished fighter pilot. Tom Neil is one of only a handful of veterans still alive today. The average age of surviving veterans is 91. Only 20 veterans out of 2947 official Battle of Britain pilots are fit enough to attend Battle of Britain Fighter Association events (although around 90 are still alive in total). He is 89 and lives in Suffolk with his wife who was a Fighter Command plotter when they met in 1940. He flew 141 combat missions (few pilots reached 50) mostly from North Weald airfield in Essex, and shot down 13 enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain. Tom Neil was one of the pilots the War Ministry used in their propaganda at the time of the Battle of Britain partly because of his height (6 ft 4) and his good looks. Tom Neil flew with James Nicolson at the time he won the only Battle of Britain Victoria Cross.