Military Vietnam

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.

Charles "Chuck" Mawhinney is a United States Marine who holds the Corps' record for the most confirmed sniper kills (and the second most of any US service member in history), having recorded 103 confirmed kills in 16 months during the Vietnam War. He was also the youngest—killing the enemy as a teenager. In 1967, at the age of 18, Mawhinney joined the Marines and began his assent from recruit to the Marine Corps’ deadliest sniper.

Col. Samuel R. Johnson, U.S. Air Force, was shot down in April, 1966, while flying his twenty-fifth mission over North Vietnam. Shortly after his capture and imprisonment in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, Colonel Johnson was labeled a diehard by his enemies. His creative and innovative resistance of prison authority earned him banishment to the high-security prison unit where, unknown to U.S. military intelligence, Ho Chi Minh kept the eleven prisoners believed to be a serious threat to his war efforts.

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.

Vietnam was the first war America lost on the ground. In this illustrated account, historian Nigel Cawthorne traces the conflict from its inception to its traumatic end. He looks at the political events that led to the war and examines its impact upon both the Americans and the Vietnamese, whose battle for the independence of their country was to leave lingering scars upon the American psyche. Vietnam: A War Lost and Won, is an even-handed assessment of a conflict whose wounds would take a generation to heal.

What if after decades there was still one more untold incredible Viet Nam war saga peppered with tightly-written notes from then young, not yet 20, and highly decorated leader of a small group of underground and Special Force combatants who searched and destroyed over 900 tunnels?

The Freedom Shield brings together stories of veterans of the 191st Assault Helicopter Company, who were tasked with carrying troops into battle, attacking enemy positions, and evacuating the wounded in their UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" helicopters. The unit was assembled from a hodgepodge of hand-me-down aircraft, used equipment, and overlooked personnel-its appearance belied the invaluable work the crews of the 191st would undertake during the Vietnam War.

Marine Lance Corporal Jack Swan crested the face of a bare, rocky knoll in the Que Son Valley of South Vietnam. Following Swan were the 164 Marines of Mike Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Their mission was to locate and rescue two understrength and isolated companies of felow Marines who were under attack by the North Vietnamese Army.

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

Across the nation in the spring of 1966, farm boys from the Midwest, surfers from California and city-slickers from Cleveland opened their mail to find greetings from Uncle Sam. Some of these men, optimistic and looking to serve their country, joined Charlie Company and trained for service. They deployed together, experiencing the camaraderie, fear, smell, pain, violence and senseless deaths. And through it all they wrote letters back and forth with the loved ones they’d left behind. Back at home, the families of Charlie Company faced fear, loneliness and uncertainty.

For decades, the soldiers who served in Vietnam were shunned by the American public and ignored by their government. Many were vilified or had their struggles to reintegrate into society magnified by distorted depictions of veterans as dangerous or demented. Even today, Vietnam veterans have not received their due. Until now. These profiles are touching and courageous, and often startling.

A powerful work of literary military history from the New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers - the harrowing and redemptive account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye convincingly shows that a legacy of shame remains from America’s ill-fated involvement in Vietnam even though that conflict ended over 35 years ago. Until US government policy on POW/MIAs changes, it remains one of the most crucial issues for any American soldier who fights for home and country, particularly when we are engaged with an enemy who doesn't adhere to the international standards for the treatment of prisoners - or any American hostage...

In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground.

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.

Dan Lyons resigned as Dean at Gonzaga University to become the free world's leading advocate of winning the war in Vietnam, visiting there 17 times from 1963 to 1975. His 500 daily radio and TV broadcasts, plus his nationwide weekly columns and debates on college campuses, reached millions every week for 12 years.

Robert Howard grew up in poverty in a small town in Alabama, with a strong sense of faith and determination. When he enlisted in the army at age seventeen, his Granny Callie’s words echoed in his head, and he pledged to follow them to the bitter end. In the most dire of combat experiences, Howard ran directly toward his opponents, sacrificing his body to protect others and to complete the mission above all else. Time and time again, he survived battles that should have claimed his life, suffering countless bullets, a spinal injury, and shrapnel and blast wounds.

I'm Just a Supply Sgt. is a compelling narrative of the Vietnam War with a very personal, psychological perspective that is difficult to find in most histories. Don Stout's ability to comprehend and record his feelings during the war, and his struggles after the war, provide not only a window into the suffering of many veterans but also a tool for catharsis for those afflicted with PTSD. Without a doubt, Don's story provides one of the most unique perspectives on the war and is not only a history of his service but a psychological epic.

In 1968 James T. Gillam was a poorly focused college student at Ohio University who was dismissed and then drafted into the Army. Unlike most African-Americans who entered the Army then, he became a Sergeant and an instructor at the Fort McClellan Alabama School of Infantry.

Hailed as a "pithy and compelling account of an intensely relevant topic" ( Kirkus Reviews), this wide-ranging volume offers a superb account of a key moment in modern U.S. and world history. Drawing upon the latest research in archives in China, Russia, and Vietnam, Mark Lawrence creates an extraordinary, panoramic view of all sides of the war.