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!

    The book that finally cracks the case. Ben Smart. Olivia Hope. Scott Watson. Unmissable. Undeniable. Unprecedented. Unexpected. Note from author: "This book contains quotes from original police witness statements. No two witnesses ever see the crime from exactly the same angle, so differences between statements are expected. Sometimes one statement can have a crucial detail that others have missed. That's why I included what appear to be 'repetitive' statements by a number of witnesses. So you can see the overall similarities and weight of evidence, but also any unique details. Sometimes witness statements are relevant to different parts of the story, so just as in a murder trial, readers may find a statement being referred to more than once.In a crime story, the devil can be in the detail. The statements are quoted in the authentic spelling of the witness - as important legal records they don't get 'proofed'. The court trial lasted 12 weeks and involved 30,000 pages of documents. I have distilled that down to 372 pages but it is still a complex story. Think of yourself as a juror, sifting the evidence."Previous books on this case have concentrated on picking apart the police version of events given in Court. That's a legalistic technique of creating 'doubt'. I ask a different question: Forget about the court case, do the original witness statements including ones never used in court show us what happened? The answer, I suggest, is "Yes", and you are about to find out for yourself..."

    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.

    Such is this work by Bob Babcock. What makes this work unique is that it is based upon his wartime writing as it occurred, without the softening of time and the refining of modern memory applied to past experience. In it you will find the thinking of a young officer as he struggles to take in all that he is responsible for while experiencing everything himself for the first time. It is an honest, unvarnished look at Soldiering in 1966-1967 and is as fine an example of the early American experience in Vietnam that one is likely to come across...” The personal account of Bob Babcock’s experiences as a platoon leader and executive officer with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967.

    The chilling words are followed by a confession to a murder committed nearly 13 years earlier. The chance discovery of the letter on 31 March 2012 reawakens a case long considered to have run cold, and a hunt begins for the men who kidnapped and killed Betty Ketani – and were convinced they had gotten away with it. The investigation spans five countries, with a world-renowned DNA laboratory called in to help solve the forensic puzzle. The author of the confession letter might have feared death, but he is very much alive, as are others implicated in the crime.Betty Ketani, a mother of three, came to Johannesburg in search of better prospects for her family. She found work cooking at one of the city’s most popular restaurants, and then one day she mysteriously disappeared. Those out to avenge her death want to bring closure to Betty’s family, still agonising over her fate all these years later.The storyline would not be out of place as a Hollywood movie – and it’s all completely true. Written by the reporter who broke the story, Cold Case Confession goes behind the headlines to share exclusive material gathered in four years of investigations, including the most elusive piece of the puzzle: who would want Betty Ketani dead, and why?‘Wonderful, evocative and vivid writing. Eliseev is a very exciting new talent.’ – Peter James‘This case is like an Agatha Christie whodunnit: abduction, murder and a confession.’ – Carte Blanche‘A relentless search for truth and justice. Cold Case Confession is a story that inspires confidence in the system and affirms that, indeed, we are all equal before the law.’ – Thuli Madonsela

     Attu was the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain, located one thousand miles from Alaska, and subject to brutal weather all year round. Prior to the war it had been home to two Americans and forty-five Aleut hunters and their families, but in June 1942 the Japanese had seized the island and now had over two-thousand troops on the barren island threatening the security of the U.S. mainland. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the Bering Sea on March 26, 1943, cleared the way for attempt to retake the island of Attu. Code-named Operation Landgrab, the U.S. military planned for the invasion to take place in May. Army planners had initially thought this would be a quick operation, but instead of being a short invasion it dragged on for over two weeks. The Japanese had realized that their options were limited and so launched a last-ditch banzai charge against the American frontline that was suffering from brutal Arctic conditions, equipment failures and food shortages. Although the U.S. military was able to recapture the island it had cost the lives of over five hundred American soldiers. Robert J. Mitchell, Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond’s book The Capture of Attu provides fascinating insight into this ferocious conflict. Part One of the book provides an overview of the military campaign while Part Two provides personal narratives of the soldiers who fought. This book attempts to put the reader on the battlefield with the ground soldier. Men who fought on Attu, officers and enlisted men, told their stories to Lieutenant Robert J. Mitchell of the 32d Infantry, one of the regiments engaged. These stories tell of the discomforts and perils, the failures and successes, the fear and courage, the many fights between small groups and the occasional humor, of which battle consists. Robert J. Mitchell served as a lieutenant in the US Army's 7th Infantry Division in World War II, being stationed on Attu Island off of Alaska as well as other areas of the Pacific. He was shot in the chest while on Attu and carried the bullet for the rest of his life. While recuperating, he wrote the stories of the other men in his hospital tent. For this he was made an aide to the general in charge of media for the rest of the war. He passed away in 1992. His co-authors Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond also served on Attu and passed away in 1946 and 1999 respectively. Their book The Capture of Attu was first published in 1944.

    Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.

    So begins The Dying Place, David Maurer’s unflinching look at MACV-SOG, Vietnam, and a young man’s entry into war. Fresh from the folds of the Catholic Church, Sgt. Sam Walden is quickly embraced by another religion, jungle warfare. After four years there may be no resolution between the two; God knows Sam has tried. But how many Hail Mary’s will absolve him of what he has done in Laos? Walden is a war-weary Green Beret, regularly tested beyond normal limits by the ever-changing priorities of the puzzle palace in Saigon. And yet he overcomes, staying alive to go on mission after mission with his one-one and his little people. To them he is everything – strength, compassion, courage. He will not let them down. David Maurer’s own experiences at MACV-SOG’s Command and Control North come to life in this tense action-packed story. The U.S. was not supposed to be in Laos during the Vietnam War and by all accounts, we weren’t. Some know better, and fortunately, Maurer is one of those. With a fine ear for dialogue Maurer takes you back and sets you down squarely on the LZ, where inner turmoil is quelled and external conflict takes over, if only for awhile. If you’re lucky, you just might make it out alive.

    Birthplace of the Taliban decades earlier, this fertile region had since become Afghanistan's most deadly turf. It would soon turn deadlier still. Advised in the night by his intelligence officers that the Taliban had secretly amassed for a full-scale military assault, Fraser knew it would fall to him, his Canadians and their allies to avoid the wholesale slaughter of NATO troops, keep the Taliban from laying siege to Kandahar and restore control of the south of the country to a newly formed, democratic Afghan government.     The odds were solidy against Fraser's forces. The Taliban knew every millimetre of their own terrain. During the months of secret manoeuvres they had stocked every farmhouse, school, grape hut and tunnel with weapons and ammunition. They had drilled Soviet-era landmines into all of the marijuana and poppy fields, and dug IEDs into every roadway. Protected from detection by corrupt officials, their sophisticated warfare schools had successfully readied an army of zealous fighters to attack and fight to the death. And now their top commanders were poised to launch decisive military operations against freshly arrived troops who had never seen combat.     The bloodiest battle in NATO's history was about to begin.

    

    . ."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.

    Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan has just won an electoral mandate to become the prime minister of Pakistan. Accustomed to treating the eastern wing of the country as a colony, the ruling disposition in West Pakistan is not pleased, and launches a genocide against the residents of East Pakistan, flooding India with lakhs of refugees. With the violence in East Pakistan reaching a crescendo, the Indian government is faced with a difficult option: remain a mute spectator to the savagery on its eastern borders, or take action and go to war against its western neighbour. Thus was born Naval Commando Operation (X) - comprising Indian navy officers and divers, eight deserters from a Pakistani submarine and a ragtag bunch of Bengali youth fleeing the genocide - one of India's largest clandestine operations, meant to destabilize the West Pakistani efforts to bring East Pakistan to its knees. Revealed for the very first time, here is the explosive authentic account of the guerrilla operation that went for the maritime jugular of Pakistan, and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh.

    Wilbur E. Bowe was living on his family’s farm when he was drafted in 1965 and assigned to Alpha Company, 5th Battalion, 7th Calvary. The 5/7th Cavalry was formed as a brand-new battalion in order to fill out the 1st Air Cavalry Division’s 3rd Brigade. The young men of the battalion were largely drafted together in 1965 as the build-up of regular Army forces in Vietnam had just begun. Together, these impossibly young men would be trained in the airmobile infantry and become what were known as “skytroopers”. They would then be sent deep into the jungles of Vietnam, where together they would learn what “search and destroy” meant and face the reality of this new war.The story features many of the letters and photographs my dad sent home from the war zone. His dispatches were sent from some of the most remote valleys and outposts in Vietnam, written under the most austere of conditions, often scribbled in haste before another mission, or by flashlight, under a poncho in the rain. They would travel over 8,000 miles across the ocean, to be placed in a mailbox that stood across from a farmhouse, along a rural county road in Wisconsin.Many former skytroopers of Alpha Company were interviewed for this story, and their personal accounts recall much of the humor and friendship they shared, along with the sadness and tragedy that would accompany a year spent in the jungles of Vietnam. The story also draws upon the 5/7th Cavalry’s daily staff journals and situation reports for every day of the battalion’s first year in Vietnam.This is their story, told in great detail from their time spent training together at Fort Carson – through their historic journey across the ocean aboard the USNS Gaffey, where they would encounter a massive typhoon – through their many battles fought together in Vietnam – and eventually, their final patrol.

    And the humanitarianism took place during the heat of the battle. The GI fixed as he fought, he cured and educated and built in the middle of the battle. He truly cared for, and about, those people. What other Army has ever done that? Humanitarianism was America's great victory in Viet Nam. Spearheading the humanitarian efforts were the air ambulance operations, call-sign Dust Off, the most dangerous of all aviation operations, which rescued some one million souls in Viet Nam. Dead Men Flying is the story of Charles Kelly, the father of Dust Off, who gave his life to save Dust Off -- the greatest life-saver ever. His dying words -- "When I have your wounded" -- set the standard for combat medicine to this day. It is also the story of the author, Medal of Honor recipient General Patrick Brady, who learned from Charles Kelly and struggled to meet his standard. Brady led the 54th Medical Detachment as it rescued over 21,000 wounded -- enemy and friendly -- in 10 months, while sustaining 26 Purple Hearts. Finally, Dead Men Flying is the story of salvation in the midst of horror, courage in the face of adversity, and the miracle of faith in the heat of combat. A riveting tale from America's most decorated living soldier, this is a book that no American can afford to ignore.

    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.