John Edmund Delezen felt a kinship with the people he was instructed to kill in Vietnam; they were all at the mercy of the land. His memoir begins when he enlisted in the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam in March of 1967. He volunteered for the Third Force Recon Company, whose job it was to locate and infiltrate enemy lines undetected and map their locations and learn details of their status. The duty was often painful both physically and mentally. He was stricken with malaria in November of 1967, wounded by a grenade in February of 1968 and hit by a bullet later that summer. He remained in Vietnam until December, 1968. Delezen writes of Vietnam as a man humbled by a mysterious country and horrified by acts of brutality. The land was his enemy as much as the Vietnamese soldiers. He vividly describes the three-canopy jungle with birds and monkeys overhead that could be heard but not seen, venomous snakes hiding in trees and relentless bugs that fed on men. He recalls stumbling onto a pit of rotting Vietnamese bodies left behind by American forces, and days when fierce hunger made a bag of plasma seem like an enticing meal. He writes of his fallen comrades and the images of war that still pervade his dreams. This book contains many photographs of American Marines and Vietnam as well as three maps.

    By July, the activities of the artillery and infantry of Ripcord had caught the attention of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and a long and deadly siege ensued. Ripcord was the Screaming Eagles’ last chance to do significant damage to the NVA in the A Shau Valley before the division was withdrawn from Vietnam and returned to the United States. At Ripcord, the enemy counterattacked with ferocity, using mortar and antiaircraft fire to inflict heavy causalities on the units operating there. The battle lasted four and a half months and exemplified the ultimate frustration of the Vietnam War: the inability of the American military to bring to bear its enormous resources to win on the battlefield. In the end, the 101st evacuated Ripcord, leaving the NVA in control of the battlefield. Contrary to the mantra “We won every battle but lost the war,” the United States was defeated at Ripcord. Now, at last, the full story of this terrible battle can be told.

    America in the antebellum years was a deeply troubled country, divided by partisan gridlock and ideological warfare, angry voices in the streets and the statehouses, furious clashes over race and immigration, and a growing chasm between immense wealth and desperate poverty.The Civil War that followed brought America to the brink of self-destruction. But it also created a new country from the ruins of the old one—bolder and stronger than ever. No event in the war was more destructive, or more important, than William Sherman’s legendary march through Georgia—crippling the heart of the South’s economy, freeing thousands of slaves, and marking the beginning of a new era.This invasion not only quelled the Confederate forces, but transformed America, forcing it to reckon with a century of injustice. Dickey reveals the story of women actively involved in the military campaign and later, in civilian net- works. African Americans took active roles as soldiers, builders, and activists. Rich with despair and hope, brutality and compassion, Rising in Flames tells the dramatic story of the Union’s invasion of the Confederacy, and how this colossal struggle helped create a new nation from the embers of the Old South.

    What started as protest and unrest in the colonies soon escalated to a world war with devastating casualties. O’Reilly and Dugard recreate the war’s landmark battles, including Bunker Hill, Long Island, Saratoga, and Yorktown, revealing the savagery of hand-to-hand combat and the often brutal conditions under which these brave American soldiers lived and fought. Also here is the reckless treachery of Benedict Arnold and the daring guerilla tactics of the “Swamp Fox” Frances Marion.

    

    Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each. What emerges is not only the brutal economics of trading but the vast and surprising interdependencies among the actors involved.Using recently discovered court records, slaveholders' letters, nineteenth-century narratives of former slaves, and the financial documentation of the trade itself, Johnson reveals the tenuous shifts of power that occurred in the market's slave coffles and showrooms. Traders packaged their slaves by "feeding them up," dressing them well, and oiling their bodies, but they ultimately relied on the slaves to play their part as valuable commodities. Slave buyers stripped the slaves and questioned their pasts, seeking more honest answers than they could get from the traders. In turn, these examinations provided information that the slaves could utilize, sometimes even shaping a sale to their own advantage.Johnson depicts the subtle interrelation of capitalism, paternalism, class consciousness, racism, and resistance in the slave market, to help us understand the centrality of the "peculiar institution" in the lives of slaves and slaveholders alike. His pioneering history is in no small measure the story of antebellum slavery.

    The lynchpin of Tet was the capture of Hue, Vietnam?s intellectual and cultural capital, by 10,000 National Liberation Front troops who descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. Within hours the entire city was in their hands save for two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the Front?s presence, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II.With unprecedented access to war archives in the U.S. and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over 24 days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. Hue 1968 is a gripping and moving account of this pivotal moment.

    Tom Chaffin's important new biography demonstrates Frémont's vital importance to the history of American empire, and his role in shattering long-held myths about the ecology and habitability of the American West.As the most celebrated American explorer and mapper of his time, Frémont stood at the center of the vast federal project of Western exploration and conquest. His expeditions between 1838 and 1854 captured the public's imagination, inspired Americans to accept their nation's destiny as a vast continental empire, and earned him his enduring sobriquet, the Pathfinder. But Frémont was more than an explorer. Chaffin's dramatic narrative includes Frémont's varied experiences as an entrepreneur, abolitionist, Civil War general, husband to the remarkable Jessie Benton Frémont, two-time Republican presidential candidate, and Gilded Age aristocrat. Chaffin brings to life the personal and political experiences of a remarkable American whose saga offers compelling insight into the conflicts, tensions, and contradictions at the core of America's lust for empire and its conquest of the trans-Missouri West.

    A shot rang out, and the Redcoats replied with a devastating volley.But the day that started so well for the king's troops would end in catastrophe: seventy-three British soldiers dead, two hundred wounded, and the survivors chased back into Boston by the angry colonists. Drawing on diaries, letters, official documents, and memoirs, William H. Hallahan vividly captures the drama of those tense twenty-four hours and shows how they decided the fate of two nations.

    BUT CHARLIE OWNED THE CLOCK! One morning there was nothing but hot, thick jungle and steaming swamp. And the Viet Cong. The next morning there were three hundred sweating, groaning men chopping and chain sawing a hole in that particular hunk of hell. And that's where Captain Mack Gerber and his Scorpion Squad were going to set up shop. Right in the VC's backyard. Gerber's orders were simple: Let the VC know they didn't own the delta anymore; let them know they were in a lastditch fight; and make sure it was the last thing they'd ever know. But Victor Charlie had their own plans. A clock was ticking. Soon all hell would break loose and there wouldn't be enough survivors left to do a ... body count.

    Although it did not single-handedly win WWI, this extremely bloody battle did mark the end of the last major German offensive of the war. Miracle at Belleau Wood is a thoroughly researched, intelligent, and insightful account of one of the U.S. Army's most intense and ferocious actions of the Great War. It is also the story of how the Marines were transformed from a motley crew of shipboard soldiers and embassy guards into, ultimately, one of the world's most elite fighting units. This brand new account of one of the most stirring battles of the Great War is an essential read for anyone with an interest in that particular theatre and the history of U.S. Marine Corps.

    Robert J. Darling organizes President Bush's trip to Florida on Sept. 10, 2001, he believes the next couple of days will be quiet. He has no idea that a war is about to begin. The next day, after terrorists crash airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Maj. Darling rushes to the president's underground chamber at the White House. There, he takes on the task of liaison between the vice president, national security advisor and the Pentagon. He works directly with the National Command Authority, and he's in the room when Vice President Cheney orders two fighter jets to get airborne in order to shoot down United Flight 93. Throughout the attacks, Maj. Darling witnesses the unprecedented actions that leaders are taking to defend America. As Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others make decisions at a lightning pace with little or no deliberation, he's there to lend his support. Follow Darling's story as he becomes a Marine Corps aviator and rises through the ranks to play an incredible role in responding to a crisis that changed the world in 9-11-01: The White House: Twenty-Four Hours inside the President's Bunker.

    Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" and, later, as a soldier with French forces during three years (1951-1954) in the Tonkin area, Vietnam. Paul recounts his time at the Sennheim military training base, where he was introduced to the rigorous discipline of body and mind: he then goes back to 1940, during the German invasion of France, when he was still a boy in Lorraine, hinting at his motivations for enlisting with the Waffen SS. He reveals his and many young soldiers' exciting and often humorous escapades at Greifenberg, his first love with a German girl helping refugees, his experiences and feelings during the combats at Korlin, during the strenuous defense of Kolberg, while regrouping at Neustrelitz and at the German defeat. With a companion he ends up at a castle delivering a group of women camp prisoners to a Russian officer, living in disguise among enemy soldiers until he escapes and surrender to the Americans. After his sentence, imprisonment, evasions and military service in Morocco, Paul is sent to fight in defense of bases north of Hanoi, Vietnam. He survives three years of fierce combats, assaults, ambushes, night patrols, fatal traps and mortal risks but, deep down, he compares his service with the Waffen SS during the last year of war with the inefficiency of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East and comes out deeply frustrated. At almost 26, he has fought and lost in two wars, both against the communists, be they Soviet or Viet-Minh. Unemployed, and with the ideals of a 'Nouvelle Europe' in pieces, he briefly joins the French Foreign Legion, his last hope, but in the end choses another path. This is a unique memoir, packed with incident and recounting the story of one individual caught up in a series of life-changing events."

    Meade guided his forces to victory in the Civil War's most pivotal battle. Commentators often dismiss Meade when discussing the great leaders of the Civil War. But in this long-anticipated book, Kent Masterson Brown draws on an expansive archive to reappraise Meade's leadership during the Battle of Gettysburg. Using Meade's published and unpublished papers alongside diaries, letters, and memoirs of fellow officers and enlisted men, Brown highlights how Meade's rapid advance of the army to Gettysburg on July 1, his tactical control and coordination of the army in the desperate fighting on July 2, and his determination to hold his positions on July 3 insured victory.Brown argues that supply deficiencies, brought about by the army's unexpected need to advance to Gettysburg, were crippling. In spite of that, Meade pursued Lee's retreating army rapidly, and his decision not to blindly attack Lee's formidable defenses near Williamsport on July 13 was entirely correct in spite of subsequent harsh criticism. Combining compelling narrative with incisive analysis, this finely rendered work of military history deepens our understanding of the Army of the Potomac as well as the machinations of the Gettysburg Campaign, restoring Meade to his rightful place in the Gettysburg narrative.

    In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America's anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate.