Misty: First Person Stories of the F-100 Fast FACs in the Vietnam War Review
First person stories of 155 fighter pilots who flew in a special Top Secret mission during the Vietnam War. There has never been a book like this. These are their personal stories - full of emotion, drama, tragedy and humor.
Tet!: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War Review
Finalist for the 1971 National Book Award
In early 1968, Communist forces in Vietnam launched a surprise offensive that targeted nearly every city, town, and major military base throughout South Vietnam. For several hours, the U.S. embassy in Saigon itself came under siege by Viet Cong soldiers. Militarily, the offensive was a failure, as the North Vietnamese Army and its guerrilla allies in the south suffered devastating losses. Politically, however, it proved to be a crucial turning point in America's involvement in Southeast Asia and public opinion of the war. In this classic work of military history and war reportage—long considered the definitive history of Tet and its aftermath—Don Oberdorfer moves back and forth between the war and the home front to document the lasting importance of this military action. Based on his own observations as a correspondent for the Washington Post and interviews with hundreds of people who were caught up in the struggle, Tet! remains an essential contribution to our understanding of the Vietnam War.
The Complete History of the Vietnam Conflict (Le Comédie Vietnamien): A "Popular" War That Won't Go Away Review
SUMMATION OF A "POPULAR" WAR
Author V. I. Brown wrote this memoir from authority. He grew up with the war, participated as a member of the military and then observed its aftermath. He provides a penetrating, chronological examination of the war's policies, politics, judicial decisions, public opinion and reflection in the popular culture. As he examines such complex topics as anti-war sentiment, dissent within the military and the galvanizing of the clergy against the war, Brown offers an in-depth glimpse into the turmoil and emotions spawned by the war that gripped the nation for over a decade.
Herein one will find a more complete chronological examination of the Vietnam Conflict than has previously been available. All of the factors which compelled the U. S. to intervene in a foreign civil war are spelled out in vivid detail from the war's inception to its termination. Also examined is the climate within the national and international communities which led up to the conflict. This book details how the war was an exercise in deception, in futility, in the power of ego and also a lesson in how the U.S. contradicted its own ideals. Further, the author affirms what others including CBS News and The New York Times contended during and after the conflict: that the government almost continually promulgated deceptive information in order to justify continued pursuit of the war. In the end the reader will comprehend that it was all for nothing, and indeed that the former enemy earned what a U. S. President wanted for Vietnam.
Herein one will further observe the war's impact on the lives of the many "players" in the "comédie", both major and minor, who were elevated to the stage of one of the great events of history. The degree to which the war reverberates in U. S. society is also examined in detail. As of this writing, the war is still in the national consciousness.
On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War Review
Summer's inspired analysis of America's war in Vietnam answers the most pressing questions remaining from that terrible conflict more than a decade before Robert McNamara's painful admissions.
Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict Review
Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller.
In this groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context -- as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war.
In an era when the United States often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.
We Won: And then there was Linebacker II: Strategic and political issues surrounding the bombing campaign Review
For the last decade, Dr. Albert Atkins has conducted extensive research on the Vietnam War. This research has taken him to the cockpit of a B-52 where he could see and feel the cramped battle stations for the pilot and co-pilot. As a former military pilot, he saw and understood the complexity of the eight engine bombers' instrument panel, hundreds of switches, and the circuit breaker panels that these B-52 pilots had to master to fly a successful combat mission. He attended reunions and seminars where he had the opportunity to listen and talk to general officers and combat crew members of the Strategic Air Command relate their personal experiences in the air war over North Vietnam. Dr. Atkins researched material relating to decisions made by presidents and their National Security Advisors during the Vietnam War. Under the freedom of Information Act, he obtained CIA documents with information about North Vietnam and China that could have altered the course of the war. He has uncovered new material on Operation Linebacker II, the B-52 bombing missions of Hanoi that were responsible for freeing our Prisoners of War. Dr. Atkins is to be commended for his 10 years diligent research. He makes a strong case that after 11 Days of the B-52 bombing the Hanoi area, "WE HAD WON THE WAR". The problem was the only people that understood this were the combat crews who flew the missions and support personnel who made Linebacker II a success. Unfortunately no one in Washington asked their opinion. As Dr. Atkins book points out, a similar mistake happened in another war. James R. McCarthyBrig. /Gen. (USAF ret.)
Not a Gentleman's War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War Review
Wars are not fought by politicians and generals--they are fought by soldiers. Written by a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, Not a Gentleman's War is about such soldiers--a gritty, against-the-grain defense of the much-maligned junior officer.
Conventional wisdom holds that the junior officer in Vietnam was a no-talent, poorly trained, unmotivated soldier typified by Lt. William Calley of My Lai infamy. Drawing on oral histories, after-action reports, diaries, letters, and other archival sources, Ron Milam debunks this view, demonstrating that most of the lieutenants who served in combat performed their duties well and effectively, serving with great skill, dedication, and commitment to the men they led. Milam's narrative provides a vivid, on-the-ground portrait of what the platoon leader faced: training his men, keeping racial tensions at bay, and preventing alcohol and drug abuse, all in a war without fronts. Yet despite these obstacles, junior officers performed admirably, as documented by field reports and evaluations of their superior officers.
More than 4,000 junior officers died in Vietnam; all of them had volunteered to lead men in battle. Based on meticulous and wide-ranging research, this book provides a much-needed serious treatment of these men--the only such study in print--shedding new light on the longest war in American history.
The Only War We've Got: Early Days in South Vietnam Review
It's the summer of 1964. The bush hat, not the steel helmet, is the favored headgear of the 16,000 American advisors in South Vietnam. They love their work, and they're very good at it. How can they possibly fail?Covering their war are 40 foreign reporters, including novelist Daniel Ford. Armed with a camera and a notebook, he wanders the country on foot and by military transport--helicopter, jeep, landing craft, junk, armored personnel carrier, and an Air Force flare ship--from the Mekong Delta to the Central Highlands. Once or twice a week, or whenever he is reunited with his Hermes portable, he types up an account of what he has seen and done. Here is that journal, 36 years after it was written. It is a freeze-frame picture of the Vietnam War before it became a quagmire. "How good-hearted we were!" Ford says of himself and the men he met in his travels. "And how badly it all turned out."
The War Everyone Lost-And Won: America's Intervention in Vietnam's Twin Struggles Review
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam Review
