Military History In Vietnam

A remarkable memoir of small-unit leadership and the coming of age of a young soldier in combat in Vietnam.

In an increasingly urbanized world, urban terrain has become a greater factor in military operations. Simultaneously, advances in military technology have given military forces sharply increased capabilities. The conflict comes from how urban terrain can negate or degrade many of those increased capabilities. What happens when advanced weapons are used in a close-range urban fight with an abundance of cover? Storming the City analyzes the performance of the US Army and US Marine Corps in urban combat in four major urban battles of the mid-20th century.

FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of Small Unit Action in Vietnam. This book was written as a "lessons learned" guide for fighting men. It relates incidents of actual small unit combat. Compiled by an author who accompanied the men into combat it relates the personal stories of the men on the ground. Included are the details of nine encounters. From fighting in mine laden paddies, ambushes, artillery spotting missions and dealing with snipers on the march.

This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam - the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention - and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American, and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize.

In fall 1965, North Vietnam's high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam's strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border.

In his 1967 megahit "San Francisco," Scott McKenzie sang of "people in motion" coming from all across the country to San Francisco, the white-hot center of rock music and anti-war protests. At the same time, another large group of young Americans was also in motion, less eagerly, heading for the jungles of Vietnam.

They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it.

In three straight years he was a paratrooper, an army seaman, and a LRRP - and he lived to tell about it. As an FNG paratrooper in the 173d Airborne, John Leppelman made that unit's only combat jump in Vietnam. Then he spent months in fruitless search of the enemy, watching as his buddies died because of poor leadership and lousy weapons. Often it seemed the only way out of the carnage in the central highlands was in a body bag. But Leppelman did get out.

Author John J. Culbertson, a former Fifth Marine sniper himself, presents the riveting true stories of young Americans who fought with bolt rifles and bounties on their heads during the fiercest combat of the war, from 1967 through the desperate Tet battle for Hue in early '68.

Every man serving in Vietnam was "Every Mother's Son". In 1968, the Marine helicopter crews during the 77-day Siege of Khe Sanh risked everything every day to keep the surrounding Marine hill positions alive and viable. The North Vietnamese Army committed more than 20,000 troops to destroying the Marine hill positions and the Khe Sanh Combat Base. The small Marine outposts were transformed into highly effective kill zones, as the enemy slammed the landing zones with rockets, mortars, artillery, and automatic weapons fire.

For American children raised exclusively in wartime - that is, a Cold War containing monolithic communism turned hot in the jungles of Southeast Asia - and the first to grow up with televised combat, Vietnam was predominately a mediated experience. Walter Cronkite was the voice of the conflict, and grim, nightly statistics the most recognizable feature. But as involvement grew, Vietnam affected numerous changes in child life, comparable to the childhood impact of previous conflicts - chiefly the Civil War and World War II - whose intensity and duration also dominated American culture.

In Vietnam, river warfare was often conducted in the dark. It was always dangerous, sometimes fatal - especially in the eastern end of the Cong-plagued Mekong Delta. In 1967, US Navy Lt. Wynn Goldsmith was the "river rat" who led the first MK II PBR patrol boats in brutal combat. It was a deadly business. These sailors, famous for their courage and combat effectiveness, faced sniper bullets, machine guns, and mines while searching sampans, patrolling treacherous enemy-controlled waterways like Ambush Alley, and rescuing crews from burning boats in the middle of firefights.

The M16 rifle is one of the world’s most famous firearms, iconic as the American weapon of the Vietnam War and, indeed, as the US military’s standard service rifle until only a few years ago. But the story of the M16 in Vietnam is anything but a success story. In the early years of the war, the US military had a problem: Its primary infantry rifle, the M14, couldn’t stand up to the enemy’s AK-47s. The search was on for a replacement that was lighter in weight, more durable, and more lethal than the M14.

A swamp warrior who served five tours in Vietnam tells it like it was in Death in the Jungle.

An epic tale of a brotherhood forged by war—masterfully told by a lifelong journalist, war correspondent, and U.S. Army veteran.

The New Agent Orange: Comparing Dioxin Exposure in Vietnam to Gulf War Syndromes and Sicknesses by John Siegfried, narrated by Ron Garner, takes you on a compelling journey through the hidden health crises faced by our brave Veterans. This eye-opening audiobook reveals the alarming parallels between Vietnam Presumptive Diseases and Gulf War Syndromes, highlighting the urgent need for recognition and support for our heroes.

This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America's modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies.

Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change.

Nathaniel Tripp grew up fatherless in a house full of women, and he arrived in Vietnam as a just-promoted second lieutenant in the summer of 1968 with no memory of a man's example to guide and sustain him. The father missing from Tripp's life had gone off to war as well, in the navy in World War II, but the terrors were too much for him, he disgraced himself, and after the war ended he could not bring himself to return to his wife and young son.

In 1972, America was completing its withdrawal from the long and divisive war in Vietnam. Air power covered the departure of ground forces, and search and rescue teams from all services and Air America covered the airmen and soldiers still in the fight. Day and night these military and civilian aircrews stood alert to respond to "Mayday" calls. The rescue forces were the answer to every man's prayer, and those forces brought home airmen, sailors, marines, and soldiers downed or trapped across the breadth and depth of the entire Southeast Asia theater.