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Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2018-09-20
Total Pages: 752
ISBN-13: 000813300X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘His masterpiece’ Antony Beevor, Spectator ‘A masterful performance’ Sunday Times ‘By far the best book on the Vietnam War’ Gerald Degroot, The Times, Book of the Year
Author: Alex J. Mason
Publisher: Alex J. Mason
Published: 2024-04-21
Total Pages: 77
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDiving deep into the heart of Vietnam's turmoil, 'Beyond the Battlefield: Vietnam's Tragic Odyssey' thrusts readers into the relentless chaos of war. Alex J. Mason, a member of the elite Special Forces unit, SOG, shares his raw and unfiltered journey through the dense jungles and treacherous landscapes of Southeast Asia. From daring missions behind enemy lines to the bond forged in the crucible of combat, Mason's account spares no detail, offering a gripping portrayal of the Vietnam War's relentless brutality. But the battle doesn't end on the battlefield—Mason's narrative delves into the profound struggles of returning home, navigating the scars of war in a world forever changed. With evocative imagery, personal artifacts, and a poignant reflection on the aftermath, 'Beyond the Battlefield' is an unforgettable exploration of courage, sacrifice, and the enduring human spirit.
Author: Neil Sheehan
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2009-10-20
Total Pages: 898
ISBN-13: 0679603808
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOne of the most acclaimed books of our time—the definitive Vietnam War exposé and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won. In this magisterial book, a monument of history and biography that was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, a renowned journalist tells the story of John Vann—"the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam"—and of the tragedy that destroyed a country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.
Author: Jonathan Shay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2010-05-11
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 1439124922
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn original and groundbreaking examination of the psychological devastation of war through the lens of Homer’s Iliad in this “compassionate book [that] deserves a place in the lasting literature of the Vietnam War” (The New York Times). In this moving and dazzlingly creative book, Dr. Jonathan Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A classic of war literature that has as much relevance as ever in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Achilles in Vietnam is a “transcendent literary adventure” (The New York Times) and “clearly one of the most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged from the Vietnam War” (Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried). As a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, Shay encountered devastating stories of unhealed PTSD and uncovered the painful paradox—that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be a citizen. With a sensitive and compassionate examination of the battles many Vietnam veterans continue to fight, Shay offers readers a greater understanding of PTSD and how to alleviate the potential suffering of soldiers. Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago, Shay shows how it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets. A groundbreaking and provocative monograph, Achilles in Vietnam takes readers on a literary journey that demonstrates how we can learn how war damages the mind and spirit, and work to change those things in our culture that so that we don’t continue repeating the same mistakes.
Author: Karl Marlantes
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2010-04-01
Total Pages: 616
ISBN-13: 0802197167
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIntense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Written by a highly decorated Marine veteran over the course of thirty years, Matterhorn is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel that brings to life an entire world—both its horrors and its thrills—and seems destined to become a classic of combat literature.
Author: Jonathan Shay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2010-05-11
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13: 1439125015
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life. Seamlessly combining important psychological work and brilliant literary interpretation with an impassioned plea to renovate American military institutions, Shay deepens our understanding of both the combat veteran's experience and one of the world's greatest classics. In Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay used the story of the Iliad as a prism through which to examine how ancient and modern wars have battered the psychology of the men who fight. Now he turns his attention to the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the real problems faced by combat veterans reentering civilian society. The Odyssey, Shay argues, offers explicit portrayals of behavior common among returning soldiers in our own culture: danger-seeking, womanizing, explosive violence, drug abuse, visitation by the dead, obsession, vagrancy and homelessness. Supporting his reading with examples from his fifteen-year practice treating Vietnam veterans, Shay shows how Odysseus's mistrustfulness, his lies, and his constant need to conceal his thoughts and emotions foreshadow the experiences of many of today's veterans. He also explains how veterans recover and advocates changes to American military practice that will protect future servicemen and servicewomen while increasing their fighting power. Throughout, Homer strengthens our understanding of what a combat veteran must overcome to return to and flourish in civilian life, just as the heartbreaking stories of the veterans Shay treats give us a new understanding of one of the world's greatest classics.
Author: Jack McLean
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2009-05-19
Total Pages: 258
ISBN-13: 0345515358
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Kids like me didn’t go to Vietnam,” writes Jack McLean in his compulsively readable memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. “Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war,” he writes. It didn’t remain that way for long. A year later, after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and stateside duty in Barstow, California, the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. McLean, like most available Marines, was retrained at Camp Pendleton, California, and sent to Vietnam as a grunt to serve in an infantry company in the northernmost reaches of South Vietnam. McLean’s story climaxes with the horrific three-day Battle for Landing Zone Loon in June, 1968. Fought on a remote hill in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam, McLean bore witness to the horror of war and was forever changed. He returned home six weeks later to a country largely ambivalent to his service. Written with honesty and insight, Loon is a powerful coming-of-age portrait of a boy who bears witness to some of the most tumultuous events in our history, both in Vietnam and back home.
Author: Philip Keith
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Published: 2012-02-14
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1429940956
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe true story of a US Army unit’s effort to rescue an outnumbered troop under heavy fire in Vietnam—and the thirty-nine-year odyssey to recognize their bravery. Winner of the 2013 Silver Medal in History from the Military Writer’s Society of America Finalist, 2013 Colby Award Winner of the 2012 USA Best Book Award for Military History Deep in the jungles of Vietnam, Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, the famed Blackhorse Regiment, was a specialized cavalry outfit equipped with tanks and armored assault vehicles. On the morning of March 26, 1970, they began hearing radio calls from an infantry unit four kilometers away that had stumbled into a hidden North Vietnamese Army stronghold. Outnumbered at least six to one, the eighty-seven-man American company was quickly surrounded, pinned down, and fighting for its existence. Captain John Poindexter, Alpha Troop’s twenty-five-year-old commander, realized that his outfit was the only hope for the trapped company. With the courage and determination that makes legends out of ordinary men, they effected a daring rescue and fought a pitched battle—at considerable cost. Many brave deeds were done that day, and Captain Poindexter tried to make sure his men were recognized for their actions. Thirty years later, Poindexter was made aware that his award recommendations and even the records of the battle had somehow gone missing. Thus began the second phase of this remarkable story: a “battle” to ensure that his brave men’s accomplishments would never be forgotten again. Praise for Blackhorse Riders “Keith’s compelling storytelling breathes life into the personalities involved, so that minute by minute, following both rescuers and rescued, you keep turning pages to find out who lives and who dies.” —Karl Marlantes, New York Times–bestselling author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War “One of the finest and best-told combat stories to come out of Vietnam. . . . For those of us who were there, this is the kind of book we would be proud to pass on to our children.” —Nelson DeMille “A definite must-read.” —Booklist
Author: Leo J. Daugherty III
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2018-01-25
Total Pages: 474
ISBN-13: 1476629048
DOWNLOAD EBOOKVolume 2 continues the history of the U.S. Marine Corps' involvement in "small wars" after World War II, beginning with advisory efforts with the Netherlands Marine Korps (1943-1946). The authors describe counterinsurgency efforts during the Korean War (1950-1953), the development of vertical assault tactics in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, counterinsurgency in Southeast Asia (1962-1975), involvement in Central America (1983-1989), and present-day conflicts, including the War on Terror and operations in Iraq and Libya.
Author: Frank Snepp
Publisher: Random House (NY)
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCIA v Snepp was a constitutional train wreck--and you can't avert your eyes from Irreparable Harm, Frank Snepp's hypnotizing and heartbreaking account of his case." --Jeffrey Toobin He began his professional life as a lockstep secret warrior--and wound up an improbable battler for free speech. This is a searingly personal chronicle of the journey that carried Frank Snepp from the innermost circles of the CIA to the Supreme Court itself and forever changed the meaning of one of the most sacred liberties guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution. Irreparable Harm tells of terror and sacrifice, and of the obsessive determination of CIA officials to destroy a man who dared call them on their mistakes. Among the last CIA agents to be airlifted from Saigon in the closing moments of the Vietnam War, Snepp returned to Agency headquarters determined to force his colleagues to assist Vietnamese left behind. But this was the summer of 1975, when the CIA was under investigation by Congress and unwilling to admit to any more transgressions, least of all its final ones in Vietnam. Unable to prompt even an official summary of the disastrous evacuation, Snepp resigned to write his own account in the hope of generating help for those abandoned, and spent the next eighteen months like a fugitive on the run, dodging CIA agents out to silence him. His expose, Decent Interval, was published in total secrecy under conditions reminiscent of a classic espionage operation--the first time any American book had been brought out this way. But it ignited a firestorm of publicity that drove the CIA and Jimmy Carter's White House to launch a campaign of retaliation unparalleled in the annals of American law, a strategy of vengeance designed to leave Snepp impoverished and gagged for life. In struggling to survive, the onetime spy was forced to accept help from ACLU liberals, antiwar activists, and a fiery Harvard professor named Alan Dershowitz, whom he would previously have viewed as his ideological enemy. Snepp's harrowing firsthand account of his ordeals, from his shadowy trench battles with the Agency, to the destruction of his friends and family, to his historic showdown with the CIA in the courts, reads at times like Kafka's The Trial and at times like a John Grisham thriller, and recounts a tale of government persecution that will leave the reader wondering how any of this could have happened in America.
