Book picks similar to
The Old Corps (The Old Corps & No Better Way to Die Book 1) by Johnnie M. Clark
military
vietnam-war
war-fiction
war-memoirs
The Expendables
Leonard B. Scott - 1991
This is the story of the men who fought with them -- and the 304 who didn't return.
Rattler One-Seven: A Vietnam Helicopter Pilot's War Story
Chuck Gross - 2004
When Chuck Gross left for Vietnam in 1970, he was a nineteen-year-old Army helicopter pilot fresh out of flight school. He spent his entire Vietnam tour with the 71st Assault Helicopter Company flying UH-1 Huey helicopters. Soon after the war he wrote down his adventures, while his memory was still fresh with the events. Rattler One-Seven (his call sign) is written as Gross experienced it, using these notes along with letters written home to accurately preserve the mindset he had while in Vietnam. During his tour Gross flew Special Operations for the MACV-SOG, inserting secret teams into Laos. He notes that Americans were left behind alive in Laos, when official policy at home stated that U.S. forces were never there. He also participated in Lam Son 719, a misbegotten attempt by the ARVN to assault and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail with U.S. Army helicopter support. It was the largest airmobile campaign of the war and marked the first time that the helicopter was used in mid-intensity combat, with disastrous results. Pilots in their early twenties, with young gunners and a Huey full of ARVN soldiers, took on experienced North Vietnamese antiaircraft artillery gunners, with no meaningful intelligence briefings or a rational plan on how to cut the Trail. More than one hundred helicopters were lost and more than six hundred aircraft sustained combat damage. Gross himself was shot down and left in the field during one assault. Rattler One-Seven will appeal to those interested in the Vietnam War and to all armed forces, especially aviators, who have served for their country.
Force Recon Diary, 1970
Bruce H. Norton - 1992
. . The possibility of encountering more NVA troops moving through our area was high, as we had pushed a very great stick into their nest. But our demonstrated ability to find the enemy and wait for the most opportune time to hit him, while remaining totally undetected, gave us reason to be pleased. It also gave the NVA reason for concern.In Force Recon Diary, 1970, Bruce "Doc" Norton offers a harrowing sequel to his best-selling Force Recon Diary, 1969, continuing the true story of a navy corpsman who became a Force Recon Team Leader behind enemy lines in the jungles of Vietnam. In the midst of a war set deep in the jungle, the Force Recon Marines often found themselves lacking food, drinkable water, explosives, or even enough radio batteries. Armed with only their own courage, skills, and loyalty to their brothers in arms, the Marines used stealth and cunning to survive in the harsh conditions of Vietnam, where one mistake could prove fatal not just for an individual Marine, but for the entire unit."
DelCorso's Gallery
Philip Caputo - 1980
When he is called back to Vietnam on assignment during a North Vietnamese attempt to take Saigon, he is faced with a defining choice: should he honor the commitment he has made to his wife not to place himself in any more danger for the sake of his career, or follow his ambition back to the war-torn land that still haunts his dreams? What follows is a riveting story of war on two fronts, Saigon and Beirut, that will test DelCorso’s faith not only in himself, but in the nobler instincts of men.
The Easy Day Was Yesterday: The Extreme Life of an SAS Soldier
Paul Jordan - 2012
His childhood, marred by the loss of his father and brother, produce a young man hell bent on being the best of the best - an ambition he achieves by being selected to join the elite SAS. He survives the gut-wrenching training regime, deployment to the jungles of Asia and the horrors of genocide in Rwanda before leaving the army to embark on a career as a security adviser. His new life sees him pursuing criminals and gun-toting bandits in Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, protecting CNN newsmen as the US 7th Cavalry storms into Baghdad with the outbreak of the Iraq War, and facing death on a massive scale as he accompanies reporters into the devastated Indonesian town of Banda Aceh, flattened by the Boxing Day tsunami. During his 24 days in an Indian gaol, Paul Jordan discovers that friendship and human dignity somehow survive the filth and deprivation. This is a personal account of a tough, hardened fighter who suddenly finds himself totally dependent on others for his every need. The Easy Day was Yesterday is fast paced, brutally honest and raw, but laced with dark humour. The core of Paul Jordan's eventful life, however, is the strength of his bonds with family and friends and the ability of the human spirit to survive even the direst adversity.
Omega Five
Kenna Coulby - 2017
Chasing Wendy Chase Owen doesn’t sleep much. What he does do is watch the world very carefully, keeping a wary eye out to make sure that his Marine brothers, recently returned with him from Iraq and Afghanistan, are safe. Another thing Owen doesn’t do much of is open up to anyone about the painful scars he bears from losing his dear friend overseas. Then Wendy walks into his life one night at a diner, and Owen’s life takes a sharp right turn. So does Wendy’s, for that matter. Neither the diner waitress nor the Marine have any idea that, together, they will begin to rebuild each other’s lives—and each other. There’s just the matter of Wendy’s abusive ex to be dealt with, along with the stalker terrorizing Owen’s deceased brother-in-arm’s wife. Hacking Taylor Brynn Hardy made a mistake in high school that has haunted her into her twenties. Arriving at Walsh Technologies, she is in no way looking for a new start—the same demons that have always ridden her are right there in the cubicle beside her. When Bradley Taylor, head of the contract team Brynn will be working with, starts asking dangerous questions, Brynn knows it’s only a matter of time before her shady past comes to light. Will Taylor trust the rapport they’ve built between each other enough to listen to Brynn’s side of things, or will he turn her in and blow up her carefully reconstructed life? Finding Thomson Ever since returning from Iraq, Rory Thomson has been making his way through life day by day, basically at survival level. He’s found fulfillment in his work at a rec center with urban teenagers, but it doesn’t fill the void that his experiences in the war have left in him. Then Beth walks in, desperately searching for a student in her class who has gone missing, and Thomson is drawn into not only the mystery of Aiden’s disappearance, but of how he can develop a relationship with the beautiful, caring woman. Ultimately, Beth’s love might just prove the anchor that saves Aiden and Thomson from their demons. And they just might her saviors, too. Chasing Jensen Chloe’s evenings as a bartender, working to pay for grad school, are fairly routine. Loud music, drunk people, and obnoxious jerks who hit her on nonstop are the norm. But when one particular guy’s flirtation turns into protection when he defends her from an assault by a customer, Chloe starts to look at the handsome Marine differently. She has no idea that, in starting to explore a relationship with Byrne Jensen, she is putting her life in danger. Nor does she have any idea that he will put himself in the line of fire again and again, to defend the beautiful woman who is helping him begin to heal from the trauma of war. Loose Ends After months of living rough on the streets and in sleazy motels, Chelsea is more than ready for some kind of a break. She doesn’t anticipate that it will come in the form of Garrett Moss, a former Marine who is hot on the trail of her former boyfriend’s boss—a crime boss, to be more precise. Joining forces with Moss has the unexpected side effect of giving Chelsea a warm, clean bed to sleep on, with a solid, protective body beside her. A less pleasant side effect is the arrival of the crime boss’s goons, hell-bent on ending Moss—and now Chelsea, too, due to her association with him.
Days of Valor: An Inside Account of the Bloodiest Six Months of the Vietnam War
Robert Tonsetic - 2006
The human courage and carnage described in these pages resonates through the centuries, from Borodino to the Bulge, but the focus here is on the Vietnam War, and a unique unit formed to take part at its height.The 199th Light Infantry Brigade was created from three U.S. infantry battalions of long lineage, as a fast reaction force for the U.S. to place in Indochina. As the book begins, in December 1967, the brigade has been in Vietnam for a year, and many of its battered 12-month men are returning home. This is timely, as the Communists seem to be in a lull, and the brigade commander, in order to whet his new soldiers to combat, requests a transfer to a more active sector, just above Saigon. Through January the battalions scour the sector, finding increasing enemy strength, NVA personel now mixed within Viet Cong units. But the enemy is lying low, and a truce has even been declared for the Vietnamese New Year, the holiday called Tet. On January 30, 1968, the storm breaks loose, as Saigon and nearly every provincial capital in the country is overrun by VC and NVA, bursting in unexpected strength from their base camps. In these battles we learn the most intimate details of combat, as the Communists fight with rockets, mortars, Chinese claymores, mines, machine guns and AK-47s. The battles evolve into an enemy favoring the cloak of night, the jungle-both urban and natural-and subterranean fortifications, against U.S. forces favoring direct confrontational battle supported by air and artillery. When the lines are only 25 yards apart, however, there is little way to distinguish between the firepower or courage of the assailants and the defenders, or even who is who at any given moment, as both sides have the other in direct sight.Many of the vividly described figures in this book do not make it to the end. The narrative is jarring, because even though the author was a company commander during these battles, he has based this work upon objective research including countless interviews with other soldiers of the 199th LIB. The result is that everything we once heard about Vietnam is laid bare in this book through actual experience, as U.S. troops go head-to-head at close-range against their counterparts, perhaps the most stubborn foe in our history.Days of Valor covers the height of the Vietnam War, from the nervous period just before Tet, through the defeat of that offensive, to the highly underwritten yet equally bloody NVA counteroffensive launched in May 1968.The book ends with a brief note about the 199th LIB being deactivated in spring 1870, furling its colors after suffering 753 dead and some 5,000 wounded. The brigade had only been a temporary creation, designed for one purpose. Though its heroism is now a matter of history, it should remain a source of pride for all Americans. This fascinating book will help to remind us.
Chasseur à Cheval
Griff Hosker - 2013
The fast moving and action packed book follows his progress in the Chasseurs from the capture of the Dutch Fleet on the Texel to the conquest of Malta. He meets Napoleon Bonaparte and serves with him in Italy. A story of the early days of the French Revolution.
To the Gate of Hell: A Memoir of a Panzer Crewman
Armin Bottger - 2012
In his very personal account, Bttger relates in a sober and realistic manner the fighting and experiences on and behind the front. He details his involvement in battles across Europe in honest terms. He describes vividly the cruelty and senselessness of war, along with the injustices and irritations of army life. The author was by no means a hero: he admits that he volunteered for the Wehrmacht to avoid sitting his school leaving exams (but obtain his Abitur leaving certificate). He also concedes that he lied about his health in an attempt to avoid being sent to the Eastern Front and was determined to stay alive at all cost.The book features almost 200 photographs taken by the author during the war and includes images taken in action.
Covert Action
Dick Couch - 2005
Now IFOR, the surgical strike team led by former Navy Seal Garrett Walker, returns in an adventure charged with authenticity and suspense.
Reluctant Warrior
Michael Hodgins - 1997
It's almost something out of a Clancy novel, yet it's true. The best thing I can say about it is I didn't want it to end."--Col. David Hackworth, New York Times bestselling author of About FaceBy the spring of 1970, American troops were ordered to pull out of Vietnam. The Marines of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel "Wild Bill" Drumright, were assigned to cover the withdrawal of 1st Marine Division. The Marines of 1st RECON Bn operated in teams of six or seven men. Heavily armed, the teams fought a multitude of bitter engagements with a numerically superior and increasingly aggressive enemy.Michael C. Hodgins served in Company C, 1st RECON Bn (Rein), as a platoon leader. In powerful, graphic prose, he chronicles his experience as a patrol leader in myriad combat situations--from hasty ambush to emergency extraction to prisoner snatch to combined-arms ambush. . . ."THIS MEMOIR IS GRIPPING."--American WayFrom the Paperback edition.
A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying With the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969
Jim Hooper - 2009
Flying over Vietnam in two-seater Cessnas, they often made the difference between a soldier returning alive to his family or having the lonely sound of “Taps” played over his grave. Based on extensive interviews, and often in the men’s own words, A Hundred Feet Over Hell puts the reader in the plane as this intrepid band of U.S. Army aviators calls in fire support for the soldiers and marines of I Corps.
Vietnam: Ground Zero: The American Special Forces are heading to the jungle... (Vietnam Ground Zero Military Thrillers Book 1)
Eric Helm - 2020
T. Ryan, Don Keith and George Wallace.The elite Green Berets carry out Operation Phoenix: pacification by assassination!Republic of Vietnam, 1965On the trail of a deadly Viet Cong force, Master Sergeant Anthony Fetterman leads his Special Forces squad on a patrol across the South Vietnamese border and into Cambodia.Their mission? To eliminate a dangerous enemy and shorten the war.When Sergeant Fetterman and Sergeant Tyme are arrested for the murder of a foreign national in a neutral country, U.S. Army Special Forces camp commander Captain Mack Gerber is not about to let them go down without a fight.Up against a tyrannical General, Gerber finds himself in a race against time to save his men from being court-martialled for doing the job they were trained to do.But will he and his A-Team succeed? Can they turn the tide of the war in their favour?Or does Camp A-555 have a spy in its midst?VIETNAM: GROUND ZERO is the first book in the Vietnam: Ground Zero Series: action-packed, authentic historical thrillers following an American battalion as they fight to survive during the brutal Vietnam War.THE VIETNAM: GROUND ZERO SERIES:BOOK 1: Vietnam: Ground ZeroBOOK 2: P.O.W.BOOK 3: Unconfirmed KillBOOK 4: The Fall of Camp A555BOOK 5: Soldier's MedalBOOK 6: The Kit Carson ScoutBOOK 7: The Hobo WoodsBOOK 8: GuidelinesBOOK 9: The VilleBOOK 10: Incident at Plei SoiBOOK 11: TetBOOK 12: The Iron TriangleBOOK 13: Red DustBOOK 14: HamletBOOK 15: Moon CusserBOOK 16: Dragon's JawBOOK 17: Cambodian SanctuaryBOOK 18: PaybackBOOK 19: MacvBOOK 20: Tan Son NhutBOOK 21: Puppet SoldiersBOOK 22: GunfighterBOOK 23: WarriorBOOK 24: TargetBOOK 25: WarlordBOOK 26: SpikeBOOK 27: Recon
Phantom Warriors: Book 2: More Extraordinary True Combat Stories from LRRPS, LRPS, and Rangers in Vietnam
Gary A. Linderer - 2001
Vastly outnumbered, the patrols faced overwhelming odds as they fought to carry out their missions, from gathering intelligence, acting as hunter/killer teams, or engaging in infamous “Parakeet” flights– actions in which teams were dropped into enemy areas and expected to “develop” the situation. PHANTOM WARRIORS II presents heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat stories from individuals and teams. These elite warriors relive sudden deadly firefights, prolonged gun battles with large enemy forces, desperate attempts to help fallen comrades, and the sheer hell of bloody, no-quarter combat. The LRRP accounts here are a testament to the courage, guts, daring, and sacrifice of the men who willingly faced death every day of their lives in Vietnam.From the Paperback edition.