Search results

The Vietnam War is unique in its continued influence upon American consciousness. It was the USA's most prolonged military engagement since World War II, and the first war to receive wide-spread television coverage. This study of the Vietnam War attempts to combine a broad understanding of the background to the conflict in Vietnamese and world history with detailed material on US military tactics and the failure of pacification. There are chapters on the US presidential administrations of Johnso...

This thoughtful memoir recounts one man's transformation from a glory-seeking, gung-ho Kansas teenager to a weary, twice-wounded grunt who had volunteered for a second tour of duty. Enlisting in the Army in June 1964 at age 17, Micheal Clodfelter was assigned to an artillery battalion of the 101st Airborne Division and arrived at Cam Ranh Bay on July 29, 1965; on August 9, 1966, after having requested a transfer to the infantry, he was assigned to Charlie Company, 2/502nd Airborne, serving in Ph...

A cultural history of how white men exploited the image of the Vietnam veteran to roll back civil rights and restake their claim on the nation. "If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to the blacks," Frederick Douglass asked in 1875, peering into the nation's future, "what will peace among the whites bring?" The answer then and now, after civil war and civil rights: a white reunion disguised as a veterans' reunion. How White Men Won the Culture Wars shows how a broad contingent o...

Since the first days of the Iraqi invasion, supporters of the war have cautioned the public not to view this conflict as another Vietnam. They rightfully point to many important distinctions. There is no unified resistance in Iraq. No political or religious leader has been able to galvanize opposition to U.S. intervention the way that Ho Chi Minh did in Vietnam. And it is not likely that 580,000 American troops will find their way to Iraq. However, there are two similarities that may dwarf the t...

After the American withdrawal from the Vietnam War, communism descended on Indochina. Those who cooperated with the United States faced imprisonment, torture, and death under the new regimes. Among those seeking asylum was the Tai Dam, an understudied ethnic group from northern Vietnam. Read about how the Tai Dam escaped communist persecution and shrewdly campaigned for sanctuary. In 1975, they wrote letters to thirty U.S. governors in the hopes of finding a new place to call home. Only Robert D...

In 1968 Nguyen Qui Duc was nine years old, his father was a high-ranking civil servant in the South Vietnamese government, and his mother was a school principal. Then the Viet Cong launched their Tet offensive, and the Nguyen family's comfortable life was destroyed. The author's father was taken prisoner and marched up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam's highest-ranking civilian prisoner, he eventually spent twelve years in captivity, composing poems in his head to maintain his sanity. Nguyen...

A world where little light penetrates. Of dense vegetation, tangled roots, fetid mud and swamps. Where the helicopter, sophisticated weaponry and technology have revolutionized military combat. But where survival still depends on acute observation and listening for the slightest sound. The jungle. Backdrop to one of the most gruelling of all forms of warfare. To wars that in recent times have changed the course of history. The subject of this expert, extensively illustrated study by Bryan Perret...

This is a new edition of the radical social history of America from Columbus to the present. This powerful and controversial study turns orthodox American history upside down to portray the social turmoil behind the "march of progress". Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the wor...

The My Lai massacre of March 16, 1968 and the court martial of Lt. William Calley a year and a half later are among the bleakest episodes in American history and continue to provide a volatile focus for debates about the Vietnam War. Other books have exposed the facts surrounding the incident; Facing My Lai now examines its haunting legacy through a unique exchange of contemporary viewpoints. This powerful book emerges from a stellar gathering of historians, military professionals, writers, ment...

The truth about the battle that came to define our Vietnam War - from the men who were there. 18th August, 1966. 1pm...D Company entered the plantation. They thought that, if they were lucky, they were closing in on perhaps 30 or 40 VC. They were horribly wrong. Over twelve long, bloody and brutal hours, 105 Australian soldiers and three New Zealanders fought off mortar attacks and heavy machine-gun fire, unaware they were facing up to 2500 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. The first maj...