Vietnam War Biography

During the Vietnam War, far from the halls of Congress, snooping reporters, loving family members, and conventional US military forces in South Vietnam, a deadly, top-secret war was conducted for eight years across the fence in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam by small Green Beret-led reconnaissance teams.

Things I’ll Never Forget is the story of a young high school graduate in 1965 who faces being drafted into the Army or volunteering for the Marine Corps. These are his memories of funny times, disgusting times and deadly times. The author kept a journal for an entire year; therefore many of the dates, times and places are accurate. The rest is based on memories that are forever tattooed on his brain. This is not a pro-war book, nor is it anti-war. It is the true story of what the Marine Corps was like in the late 1960’s.

This is a US Army helicopter pilot's candid, firsthand account of his Vietnam experience in the air and on the ground at the height of US troop strength and then again when he returned for a second tour of duty at the very end of the war. It is a nonpolitical description of what life was really like for him and others who served in Vietnam. There is no embellishment or any secondhand stories from anyone else about their experiences in Vietnam.

On April 10, 1970, Hill 927 was occupied by troopers of the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division. By July, the activities of the artillery and infantry of Ripcord had caught the attention of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and a long and deadly siege ensued. Ripcord was the Screaming Eagles's last chance to do significant damage to the NVA in the A Shau Valley before the division was withdrawn from Vietnam and returned to the US.

In Vietnam, we weren’t out to be heroes. We just did our jobs. For a helicopter pilot, each day was like all the others. You flew the mission and never stopped to think that it might be your last. You didn’t think about the bullet holes in the helicopter, the cracks in the tail boom, or any of it until night, lying in bed when you couldn’t think of anything else.

In Legend, acclaimed best-selling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A 12-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia - where US forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only 23 years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles.

This book tells the story of the Teams operating out of FOB2 Kontum, near the tri-border area, in 1968-69. From recon missions over the fence to the heroic, and sometimes fatal efforts undertaken to try and rescue missing SOG members, the events are told through the words of the men themselves, supported by previously unreleased official documents.

When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man's experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today's students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.

At 4' 9" 97 lbs, Richard J. Flaherty is believed to be the smallest man to ever serve in the US military. Needing a congressional waiver just to join the army, he achieved the impossible by becoming a Green Beret Captain and a Vietnam vet war hero, earning the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts - 101st Airborne and 3rd Special Forces Group.

In the 70s and 80s, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to the United States, all in search of a new place to call home. Decades later, their experiences remain largely unknown. Kao Kalia Yang was driven to tell her own family's story after her grandmother’s death. The Latehomecomer is a tribute to that grandmother, a remarkable woman whose spirit held her family together.

A larger-than-life hero with a towering personality, Robin Olds was a graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army. In World War II, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—a double ace with twelve aerial victories. But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend.

From 1964 to 1972, far beyond the battlefields of Vietnam and the glare of media distortions, American Green Berets and their indigenous troops fought a deadly secret war in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam under the aegis of the top secret Military Assistance Command Vietnam—Studies and Observations Group, or simply SOG.

Dale Hanson takes us from a northern Minnesota boyhood to the incredible stresses of US special operations during the Vietnam War, the deadly world of MAC-V-SOG, the top-secret Special Forces project that conducted America’s secret war against the Communist forces on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Shrouded in mystery and equipped with exotic weaponry, SOG operators suffered casualty rates in excess of 100 percent for three successive years.

On June 13, 1971, the front page of the New York Times announced the existence of a 7,000-page collection of documents containing a secret history of the Vietnam War. Known as The Pentagon Papers, these documents had been commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

In the years since the Vietnam War, the elite unit known as SOG has spawned many myths, legends, and war stories. Special Forces medic Joe Parnar served with SOG during 1968 in FOB2/CCC near the tri-border area that gave them access to the forbidden areas of Laos and Cambodia. Parnar recounts his time with the recon men of this highly classified unit, as his job involved a unique combination of soldiering and lifesaving.

Nicknamed "Mini-Man" for his diminutive stature, a mere five-foot-three and 125 pounds in his flight boots, chopper pilot Ron Alexander proved to be a giant in the eyes of the men he rescued from the jungles and paddies of Vietnam. With an unswerving concern for every American soldier trapped by enemy fire, and a fearlessness that became legendary, Ron Alexander earned enough official praise to become the second most decorated helicopter pilot of the Vietnam era. Yet, for Ron, the real reward came from plucking his fellow soldiers from harm's way, giving them another chance to get home alive.

Gary Linderer volunteered for the Army, then volunteered for Airborne training. When he reached Vietnam in 1968, he was assigned to the famous "Screaming Eagles," the 101st Airborne Division. Once there, he volunteered for training and duty with F Company 58th Inf, the Long Range Patrol company that was "the Eyes of the Eagle." The Eyes of the Eagle is an accurate, exciting look at the recon soldier's war. There are none better.

One night in 1967, 26-year-old John Donohue - known as Chick - was out with friends, drinking in a New York City bar. The friends gathered there had lost loved ones in Vietnam. Now, they watched as anti-war protesters turned on the troops themselves. One neighborhood patriot came up with an inspired - some would call it insane - idea. Someone should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies there, give them messages of support from back home, and share a few laughs over a can of beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

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.