Book picks similar to
My Secret War by Richard S. Drury


military
vietnam
memoir
military-history

The Man in the Black Fur Coat: A Soldier's Adventures on the Eastern Front


Oskar Scheja - 2014
    The Russian army was camped on the other side. When the signal came to begin Operation Barbarossa he and his comrades from the German Wehrmacht stormed over the River and began an assault that took millions of Germans deep into Russian territory. For some the journey was brief. For others, like Oskar, it would last for years, and the struggle did not end when the fighting was over. This is the story of one German soldier’s experience in combat and captivity. It is the story of bravery, despair, deception, and survival.

Joint Force Harrier


Ade Orchard - 2008
    . their lives too often depended on the success of danger-close. pin-point attacks pressed home from the air. When 800 Naval Air Squadron - callsign 'Recoil' - arrived in theatre. their Boss. Commander Ade Orchard. knew there could be no slip-ups. Day and night. the Fleet Air Arm crews were on constant alert. ready to scramble their heavily armed Harrier attack jets at a moment's notice in support of the men on the ground. The call wasn't slow in coming. Just fifteen minutes after getting airborne for the first time. Orchard and his wingman were in the thick of it. called in when an Apache helicopter gunship was forced back by heavy fire...

Fate Is the Hunter


Ernest K. Gann - 1961
    Gann’s classic pilot's memoir is an up-close and thrilling account of the treacherous early days of commercial aviation. “Few writers have ever drawn readers so intimately into the shielded sanctum of the cockpit, and it is hear that Mr. Gann is truly the artist” (The New York Times Book Review).“A splendid and many-faceted personal memoir that is not only one man’s story but the story, in essence, of all men who fly” (Chicago Tribune). In his inimitable style, Gann brings you right into the cockpit, recounting both the triumphs and terrors of pilots who flew when flying was anything but routine.

Death in the Jungle: Diary of a Navy Seal


Gary R. Smith - 1994
    He worked with some of the toughest and most highly motivated men in the world, executing missions in the murderous terrain of Rung Sat Special Zone and Dung Island. The key to their success: go where no ordinary soldier would go and no VC would expect them.Though death reigned as king in the jungles of Vietnam, Gary Smith considered it a privilege and an honor to serve under the officers and with the men of Underwater Demolition Team Twelve and SEAL Team 1. Because he and his teammates, trained to the max, gave each other the courage to attain the unattainable . . . .

Deliver Us from Evil


Thomas A. Dooley - 1956
    This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Land With No Sun: A Year in Vietnam With the 173rd Airborne (Stackpole Military History Series)


Ted G. Arthurs - 2006
    From May 1967 through May 1968, Ted Arthurs was in the thick of it, humping an eighty-pound rucksack through triple canopy jungle, chasing down the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. As sergeant major for a battalion of 800 men, it was his job to see them through this jungle hell and get them back home again.

A Rumor of War


Philip Caputo - 1977
    Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home—physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone.A Rumor of War is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as the author writes, of "the things men do in war and the things war does to them.""Heartbreaking, terrifying, and enraging. It belongs to the literature of men at war."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day


Robert Coram - 2007
    He went on to sue the US government on behalf of 1.5 million powerless veterans.

Wing Leader (Fighter Pilots)


J.E. Johnson - 1956
    From the moment the author joins his first operational Spitfire squadron in August 1940, the reader is taken on an epic journey through the great aerial fighter actions of the war including the Battle of Britain, sweeps across the Channel and over France, Dieppe and Normandy; and finally, operations across the Rhine and into Germany itself.

That Close: a memory of combat in Vietnam


Robert Driskill - 2017
    The memoir tells his story starting from the ambivalence he had about being drafted through the firefights and wounds he experienced in Vietnam to the estrangement he felt as he walked out of Walter Reed hospital into a civilian world not very interested in a faraway war. It also tells a tale of the commonplace courage of the twenty-year-old infantrymen of Charley Company, 5th of the 12th, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, and of the cowardice and character flaws of a Lieutenant more interested in his own glory and advancement than the well-being of his platoon. The good, the bad, and the ugly of a country and an army fighting a distant war for unclear purposes are all on display in this account focused on nine months of war in 1969.

Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix: A Personal Account


Stuart A. Herrington - 1997
    Herrington was an American intelligence advisor assigned to root out the enemy in the Hau Nghia province. His two-year mission to capture or kill Communist agents operating there was made all the more difficult by local officials who were reluctant to cooperate, villagers who were too scared to talk, and VC who would not go down without a fight. Herrington developed an unexpected but intense identification with the villagers in his jurisdiction–and learned the hard way that experiencing war was profoundly different from philosophizing about it in a seminar room.

It Doesn't Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf


Norman Schwarzkopf - 1992
    Only rarely does history grant a single  individual the ability, personal charisma, moral  force, and intelligence to command the respect,  admiration, and affection of an entire nation. But such a man is General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander  of the Allied Forces in the Gulf War. Now, in this  refreshingly candid and typically outspoken autobiography, General Schwarzkopf reviews his  remarkable life and career: the events, the adventures, and  the emotions that molded the character and shaped  the beliefs of this uniquely distinguished American leader.

CW2


Layne Heath - 1990
    But an unsettled score from his first posting leads to a bloody destiny that explodes at the climax of this riveting military adventure. CW2 is a blend of technological wizardry and gritty realism that signals a whole new direction in military fiction.

First Seal


Charles W. Sasser - 1997
    Navy SEALs shares his personal story, from the events that molded him as a warrior to the insights he acquired in combat, defining his role in the shaping of twentieth century warfare.

As if it were yesterday: An old fat man remembers his youth as a Marine in Vietnam


Lee Suydam - 2017
    I try to tell what it was like for me and my brother Marines without fanfare or bravado and give the reader a vivid description of my 13 months.