It tells of the torture room with walls built to muffle human screams, of the 'rope trick' and 'fanbelt' techniques designed to make a man talk, of illness, of insanity. But it also tells of the ingenuity and creativity which allowed the men to outsmart their guards and to set up communication systems, classes, escape plans, and to maintain their chain of command.It is a revealing story. It pictures men who are reduced to the basics physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It shows how these situations can be survived with individual integrity and pride intact.It tells of growing relationships with God which came as a result of desperate need. It outlines a closed society's methods of developing rules which allow members to live together in harmony.It is a story of hope, for it suggests that the techniques used by POWs to survive their conditions can be used by others to overcome similar situations faced in day-to-day living.

    

    America's top military leaders are scrutinized as Puryear ponders what prepared our generals for the terrible responsibilities they bore during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and on to today.

    The U.S. Navy SEALs have long been considered among the finest, most courageous and professional soldiers in American military history– an elite fighting force trained as parachutists, frogmen, demolition experts and guerrilla warriors, and ready for combat on the Sea, Air and Land. Born out of a proud naval tradition dating back to World War II, the first SEAL teams were commissioned in the early 1960s. Vietnam was their proving ground.In this remarkable volume, fifteen former SEALs share their vivid, first–person remembrances of action in Vietnam– brutal, honest and thrilling stories of covert missions and ferocious firefights, of red–hot chopper insertions and extractions, revealing astonishing truths that will only add strength to the SEAL legend.

    Her battle is not against soldiers but against her neighbors and a thousand years of tradition. Born during Ho Chi Minh’s revolution against the French, she was just a baby when his followers in the village, out of spite, came to her home one night and murdered the men in the family, driving her mother mad with fear and rage. She was fourteen when her mother forced her to marry and have a child with a brutal man who beat and tortured her, finally leaving her for dead beside the road. Recovered, she ran away with her infant son, only to discover there was no place for them. To save her baby’s life, she returned home in disgrace, only to face the Viet Cong. In desperation she escaped again, leaving her child in safety, she thought. On Saigon’s deadly streets, with no identity papers, she became an outlaw, hiding from her ex-husband, grieving for her lost child. Homeless, penniless and pursued, only her dream of freedom kept her alive. Then one day she would meet a saintly woman, who gave her hope, and an Irish-American naval officer, who gave her love. Crossing the Bamboo Bridge is a tale of mothers and daughters, and of their children. It is a tale of war, and grief, and a young girl’s dreams. It is a stunning epiphany of hope where there is none, of courage in the face of despair, of love, respect and freedom.

    Now Bury Us Upside Down reveals the never-before-told story of the Vietnam War’s top-secret jet-fighter outfit–an all-volunteer unit composed of truly extraordinary men who flew missions from which heroes are made.In today’s wars, computers, targeting pods, lasers, and precision-guided bombs help FAC (forward air controller) pilots identify and destroy targets from safe distances. But in the search for enemy traffic on the elusive Ho Chi Minh Trail, always risking enemy fire, capture, and death, pilots had to drop low enough to glimpse the telltale signs of movement such as suspicious dust on treetops or disappearing tire marks on a dirt road (indicating a hidden truck park). Written by an accomplished journalist and veteran, Bury Us Upside Down is the stunning story of these brave Americans, the men who flew in the covert Operation Commando Sabre–or “Misty”–the most innovative air operation of the war.In missions that lasted for hours, the pilots of Misty flew zigzag patterns searching for enemy troops, vehicles, and weapons, without benefit of night-vision goggles, infrared devices, or other now common sensors. What they gained in exhilarating autonomy also cost them: of 157 pilots, 34 were shot down, 3 captured, and 7 killed. Here is a firsthand account of courage and technical mastery under fire. Here, too, is a tale of forbearance and loss, including the experience of the family of a missing Misty flier–Howard K. Williams–as they learn, after twenty-three years, that his remains have been found.Now that bombs are smart and remote sensors are even smarter, the missions that the Mistys flew would now be considered no less than suicidal. Bury Us Upside Down reminds us that for some, such dangers simply came with the territory.From the Hardcover edition.

    Under constant bombardment from the enemy, Michael Archer and his cadre of young Marines Orr, Pig, Old Woman and Savage, just to name a few managed to survive and, in the process, learn about manhood, sacrifice and the darkest recesses of fear and loneliness.

    It is must-read on every page.” ----THOMAS FLEMING: Author of A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of the Civil War“The Forest of Assassins is a great read, a novel as good as the best journalism, with vivid and accurate details driving a tale of danger and deception and betrayal during the Vietnam War. This book doesn't just feel researched, it feels lived. Whether tightening the suspense – our protagonist, Navy Lieutenant Hank Dillon eyeball to eyeball with a VC soldier and watching for the skin to whiten on the man’s finger curled around the trigger of his AK-47 – or describing the oppressive heat of an innocent afternoon on the Mekong Delta, David Forsmark and Timothy Imholt make you believe every word of it. I couldn't recommend it more highly.-ROBERT FERRIGNO, NY Times best-selling novelist, Prayers for the AssassinAs real as fiction gets. A non-stop ride into combat told with perfection.-BOB HAMER, veteran FBI undercover agent and the author of The Last UndercoverThe Forest of Assassins is a historic thriller set in the earliest days of the American involvement in the Vietnam War. It involved the earliest of Navy SEAL teams. It is set in a time when the NAVY still did not admit these men existed, much less had they determined if those units would survive until the next conflict, or if the experiment would be abandoned. The Forest of Assassins tells the story of Navy SEAL Lieutenant Hank Dillon, a squad commander, deep in the jungles of South Vietnam when America’s involvement in the war was still in the “advisor” stage. Dillon’s mission is to wreak havoc among the Viet Cong guerillas who are terrorizing the countryside.Their mission—and even their presence in the region—is top secret. But Hank has a problem even bigger than a deadly and determined enemy; he has a traitor in the ranks.Meanwhile, a suspicious NCIS cop is nosing around Hank’s mysterious operation, certain that it is a front for drug running and other illegal activities.Things are tense for the young Lieutenant who just wants to go home to his wife…intact.

    Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

    Then Jan was left alone to survive in the dangerous jungle. An inspiring story.

     It was these ships that carried the bulk of the troops and equipment to the bloody assault beaches of the overseas landings. The Japanese military had swept across Pacific Ocean conquering and fortifying hundreds of small islands that the Allied forces would have to conquer one by one in order to defeat their enemy. Despite being unarmored and having little fire power, attack transports continued to make a monumental impact in the fate of the war. Not because they could defeat the Japanese on their own but because they carried in their hulls the war’s one essential combat element: the troops that fought on the ground. U.S.S. Doyen was one such attack transport that served with honor and made its contribution felt through the course of the war. Lawrence Marsden’s fascinating history of this ship uncovers the action of the Doyen from commissioning through to her last operation in World War Two and of course exposes the lives of the men who sailed her through treacherous waters to do their duty. This book provides brilliant insight into the Pacific War as it was seen from one small unit in the fleet as they were involved in some of the most important operations of that front, including the invasions of Kiska, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Guam, Leyte, Lingayen Gulf and Iwo Jima. “In war, transports seldom rest. Between assaults, on long and dreary voyages they carry out to distant bases replacement and service troops and freight, and carry back to home ports our casualties and essential war materials. They are the unsung, battle-scarred work horses of the Navy.” Richmond K. Turner, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Former Commander Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet. This book is perfect for readers who wish to learn more about these fascinating boats, the men who fought aboard them and the impact that they made throughout the war. Lieutenant Commander Lawrence A. Marsden served on the U.S.S. Doyen from May 1944 through to the end of the war, and was involved in the landings at Saipan, Guam, Leyte Gulf, Luzon and Iwo Jima. After the war he resigned his commission and became a textile company executive. His book Attack Transport: The Story of The USS Doyen was first published in 1946 and he passed away in 2005.

    More than 60 Army and Marine Corps infantrymen speak of their experiences during their year-long tours of duty.

    But respected historian David A. Howarth confirmed the details of Jan Baalsrud's riveting tale. It begins in the spring of '43, with Norway occupied by the Nazis and the Allies desperate to open the northern sea lanes to Russia. Baalsrud and three compatriots plan to smuggle themselves into their homeland by boat, spend the summer recruiting and training resistance fighters, and launch a surprise attack on a German airbase. But he's betrayed shortly after landfall. A quick fight leaves Baalsrud alone and trapped on a freezing island above the Arctic Circle. He's poorly clothed (one foot entirely bare), has a head start of only a few hundred yards on his Nazi pursuers and leaves a trail of blood as he crosses the snow. How he avoids capture and ultimately escapes—revealing that much spoils nothing in this white-knuckle narrative—is astonishing stuff. Baalsrud's feats make the travails in Jon Krakauer's Mount Everest classic Into Thin Air look like child's play. This amazing book will disappoint no one. —John J. Miller (edited)

    Her husband having died of heart disease, Martha Weinman Lear articulates her feelings toward the medical treatment, her personal strengths and weaknesses, and how she survived her own fears.

    Manekshaw rose to become the 8th Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army in 1969 and under his command, Indian forces conducted victorious campaigns against Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 that led to the liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971.