. ."By 1969, the NVA had grown more experienced at countering the tactics of the long range patrols, and SIX SILENT MEN: Book Three describes some of the fiercest fighting Lurps saw during the war. Based on his own experience and extensive interviews with other combat vets of the 101st's Lurp companies, Gary Linderer writes this final, heroic chapter in the seven bloody years that Lurps served God and country in Vietnam. These tough young warriors--grossly outnumbered and deep in enemy territory--fought with the guts, tenacity, and courage that have made them legends in the 101st.

    It was a battle that pitted Five hundred 1st Infantry Division soldiers against 800 to 2000 Viet Cong from the 271st Regiment. The bloody clash took the lives of 39 Americans and seriously wounded 150 more. It is the minute by minute story of what happened that day in the steamy jungle and the story of the men who fought so valiantly to survive the ambush. It is the story of the loved ones left behind and the wounded who struggled to become whole again. It's a story that is the result of talking to many of the survivors of the battle and the wives, brothers, sisters, or friends of those who were there when over 8000 artillery rounds rained down around LZ X-Ray to dislodge the entrenched Viet Cong. June 17, 1967 is a story of war, men, and the loved ones. It is the story of the youth, culture and happenings that made the battle of Xom Bo II such an enigma for the summer of love in 1967. It is an angry story and a healing story that will bring feelings to the surface and tear at your heart.

    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.

    Going Downtown: The War Against Hanoi and Washington

    One of the first to come out of the famed Underwater Demolition Team 21, he was an initial member -- a "plank owner" -- of America's deadliest and most elite fighting force, the U.S. Navy SEALs.Through three tours in the jungle hell of Vietnam, he walked the point -- staying alert to trip wires, booby traps and punji pits, guiding his squad of amphibious fighters on missions of rescue, reconnaissance and demolition -- confronting a war's unique terrors head-on, unprotected . . . and unafraid.This is the story of a hero told from the heart and from the gut -- an authentic tour of duty with one of the most legendary commandoes of the Vietnam War.

    It is primarily a story to share with family and friends about my personal involvement in the conflict and the turbulent decade of the 60s and does not attempt to question the politics of the era. It begins with a brief description of my quest to gain admittance to the United States Air Force Academy, my four years at the Academy, and the subsequent year of pilot training. I flew three different types of aircraft in combat and the book provides insight into the training that took place for the C-130 Hercules, the F-105 Thunderchief, and the A-1 Skyraider. Each of the three tours in combat over Laos and Vietnam is described with emphasis on the more memorable flights including a bailout in the A-1 and the final crash on takeoff that ended my active duty Air Force career. My time in various hospitals is described at the end of the book and the epilogue tells briefly of my life after retirement from the United States Air Force. The book has been described as a combination of Band of Brothers, Top Gun, and Forrest Gump.

    Michael Helms boarded a bus to the legendary grounds of Parris Island, where mere boys were forged into hardened Marines—and sent to the jungles of Vietnam. It was the first stop on a journey that would forever change him—and by its end, he would be awarded the Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit Citation, and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. From the brutality and endurance-straining ordeals of boot camp to the endless horror of combat, Helms paints a vivid, unflinchingly realistic depiction of the lives of Marines in training and under fire. As powerful and compelling a battlefield memoir as any ever written, Helms's “grunt's-eye” view of the Vietnam War, the men who fought it, and the mindless chaos that surrounded it, is truly a modern military classic.

    They take us from firefights on the Cambodian border during the Vietnam War to the streets and alleyways of Iraq today. They teach us what it was really like to patrol the streets of Mogadishu in the days of Black Hawk Down. They show the horror that was Saddam’s Iraq during the first Gulf War. They take us to the moonscape that is Afghanistan in search of the Taliban. The Wars of the Green Berets continues the saga of Moore’s classic The Green Berets, revealing more than a few tantalizing secrets and anecdotes for the first time.

    Black Cat 2-1 is the story of one pilot who made it home and the valiant men he served with who risked their lives for the troops on the ground. Bob Ford invites readers into the Huey helicopters he flew on more than 1,000 missions when he and his men dared to protect and rescue. For those whose voices were silenced in that faraway place or who have never told their stories, he creates a tribute that reads like a thriller, captures the humor of men at war, and resounds with respect for those who served with honor.

    You couldn't live thirty minutes 'out there' with only six men."                [pg. 13]In 1965 nearly four hundred men were interviewed and only thirty-two selected for the infant LRRP Detachment of the lst Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. Old-timers called it the suicide unit. Whether conducting prisoner snatches, search and destroy missions, or hunting for the enemy's secret base camps, LRRPs depended on one another 110 percent. One false step, one small mistake by one man could mean sudden death for all.Author Reynel Martinez, himself a 101st LRRP Detachment veteran, takes us into the lives and battles of the extraordinary men for whom the brotherhood of war was and is an ever-present reality: the courage, the sacrifice, the sense of loss when one of your own dies. In the hills, valleys, and triple-canopy jungles, the ambushes, firefights, and copter crashes, LRRPs were among the best and bravest to fight in Vietnam.

    SOG's chain of command for missions and after-action reports extended to the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Small Green Beret-lead teams ran missions into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam without assistance from conventional artillery, tank or infantry units. Once on the ground, their sole support was provided by Air Force Tactical Air and helicopter units, U.S. Army and Marine helicopter aviation personnel and aircrews, and from the South Vietnam Air Force's 219th Special Operations Squadron, code named Kingbees. In Laos, the communists dedicated 50,000 troops to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, including highly trained sappers from the 305th Sapper Battalion, its sole mission: attack SOG teams.

    Army's UH-1H "Huey" Iroquois helicopter. He experiences screaming descents into hot landing zones to place military assault troops and rescue wounded soldiers. He has the clarity of mind to survive seven days of horror in a Vietnamese jungle swamp while the psychology of a fellow soldier is severely tested. He's got the guts to buck military orders and battle his own brass to pursue an investigation when a botched operation spells disaster for the men under him. Based on the authors' personal experiences in the Vietnam War, Huey is an authentic, action-filled book of historical fiction. Originally published 30 years ago, this moving novel became a New York Timesbestseller within days of publishing. Now it's available again on Kindle.

    He volunteered for the job well aware that hanging out of slow-moving choppers over hot LZs blazing with enemy fire was not conducive to a long life. But that wasn’t going to stop Specialist Sever.From Da Nang to Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta, Sever spent thirty-one months in Vietnam, fighting in eleven of the war’s sixteen campaigns. Every morning when his gunship lifted off, often to the clacking and muzzle flashes of AK-47s hidden in the dawn fog, Sever knew he might not return. This raw, gritty, gut-wrenching firsthand account of American boys fighting and dying in Vietnam captures all the hell, horror, and heroism of that tragic war.From the Paperback edition.

    Brings together interviews with more than eighty survivors to recount one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, the 1967 campaign in the mountains of Dak To, during which members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade found themselves caught up in a deadly struggle against overwhelming odds, often cut off from supplies, communications, and reinforcements.

    We and the 1st Battalion."A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only twenty-three years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles.The bloodiest conflict of all began November 12, 1965, after 2nd Battalion was flown into the Ia Drang Valley west of Pleiku. Acting as point, Alpha Company spearheaded the battalion's march to landing zone Albany for pickup, not knowing they were walking into the killing zone of an NVA ambush that would cost them 10 percent casualties.Gwin spares no one, including himself, in his gut-wrenching account of the agony of war. Through the stench of death and the acrid smell of napalm, he chronicles the Vietnam War in all its nightmarish horror.