Vietnam War Biography

In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so Americans could leave.

The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger - at least for those who neither revere nor revile him.

In early February of 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive, Private First Class Gregory V. Short arrived in Vietnam as an 18-year-old US Marine. Amid all of the confusion and destruction, he began his tour of duty as an 81mm mortarman with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which was stationed at Con Thien near the DMZ.

US Navy Seal Lieutenant Tom Norris, on three separate occasions over a four-day period, with no sleep, went behind enemy lines to rescue two downed air force pilots. Using stealth tactics, he was able to get though or around hundreds of North Vietnamese to rescue one pilot. The second pilot - hungry, thirsty, and having lost 40 pounds - was disoriented and unable to help in his rescue. Norris, with the help of one Vietnamese Seal, was able to safely bring the pilot back inside US lines.

Courage Under Fire is the first book published about Operation Lamar Plain. After fifty years, the story of the renowned 101st Airborne's major offensive near Tam Ky, South Vietnam, remains largely unknown. Fighting at Tam Ky by the 1st Brigade began 15 May 1969 while the 101st's 3rd Brigade battled on Hamburger Hill. The political consequences of Hamburger Hill's high casualties caused Lamar Plain and its high casualties to remain classified and undisclosed. Decades later, the fighting at Tam Ky is mostly forgotten except by those who fought there.

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.

This New York Times best seller (more than one million copies sold) details the author's life story (portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film version) - from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country's most outspoken anti-Vietnam War advocate, spreading his message from his wheelchair.

In 1967, US Air Force fighter pilot James Shively was shot down over North Vietnam. After ejecting from his F-105 Thunderchief aircraft, he landed in a rice paddy and was captured by the North Vietnamese Army. For the next six years, Shively endured brutal treatment at the hands of the enemy in Hanoi prison camps. Bound in iron stocks at the Hanoi Hilton, unable to get home to his loved ones, Shively contemplated suicide. Yet somehow he found hope - and he became determined to help his fellow POWs survive.

When you listen to My 365 Days with the Wolfhounds in Vietnam, you will be amazed by the stories as told by SSGT John “Big John" Quintrell. You will feel what it is like to be eaten alive by leeches, bitten by cobras, and fighting a constant war with malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Experience the unique bonds of brotherhood between men that came into the platoon as strangers, but soon became brothers watching each other's back. You will feel the anguish of a soldier whose friend dies in his arms.

A powerhouse fusion of pathos and humor, brutal realism and intimate reflection, Flying Through Midnight is a landmark contribution to Vietnam War literature, revealing previously top-secret intelligence on the 606's night missions. Fast-paced, thrilling, and bitingly intelligent, Halliday's writing illuminates it all: the heart-pounding air battles, the close friendships, the crippling fear, and the astonishing final escape that made the telling of it possible.

Curt Stocker began smoking pot in October of 1966, more than a year before he went to Vietnam. In fact, the rumor about the incredible superiority of Vietnamese pot was the only positive aspect about his pending tour. Upon being drafted in 1967, Curt enlisted for an extra year, in order to secure a position in Armed Forces Radio. The plan was to further his broadcasting career, while guaranteeing that he would never be in the infantry.

While the 77-day siege of Khe Sanh in early 1968 remains one of the most highly publicized clashes of the Vietnam War, scant attention has been paid to the first battle of Khe Sanh, also known as "the Hill Fights". Although this harrowing combat in the spring of 1967 provided a grisly preview of the carnage to come at Khe Sanh, few are aware of the significance of the battles, or even their existence.

This volume of Combat Veterans' Stories of the Vietnam War contains stories told by 14 men that fought in the Vietnam War in branches of the US military and the Australian Army. The first begins in February 1962, with a US Air Force pilot that trained South Vietnamese flyers and flew covert air support for South Vietnam’s military. The final story is told by a US civilian, previously a non-combat US Army Armor officer.

101st Airborne Helicopter Gunships Supporting Airborne Infantry, LRRPs, and Special Forces SOG Units in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bien Hoa, Hue, Northern I Corps, & the A-Shau Valley.

With unflinching honesty, author Glyn Haynie's new memoir, Soldiering After the Vietnam War: Changed Soldiers in a Changed Country, describes the difficulty he and many soldiers faced in adjusting to civilian life on their return from Vietnam. This moving story chronicles the impact this war had on these young combat veterans. It exposes how the shameful treatment these soldiers received on their return from Vietnam impacted them. It is also a story of brotherhood and the strong, lasting bonds that can only be forged in combat.

Di Di Mau is Darren’s unabashed personal account of warfare, survival, and brotherhood—and the enduring reflections that followed. It is unlike any book about the Vietnam War.

Real stories told by real people, in their own words. Hundred veterans, men and women, caught up in an all-too-real war. From the Delta to the DMZ, come walk in their boots. If you were there, you understand. If you weren't, buy this audiobook and you will, because they’re like Doritos. Try a few, and you won't be able to stop. The Vietnam War dominated my generation and affected so many lives in so many different ways. Some of us were drafted.

Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French daredevil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade. At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine, and Kate challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement of their male peers, and ultimately altered the craft of war reportage for generations.

Air Force pilot Captain Carlyle "Smitty" Harris was shot down over Vietnam on April 4, 1965 and taken to the infamous Hoa Lo prison—nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton." For the next eight years, Smitty and hundreds of other American POWs—including John McCain and George "Bud" Day—suffered torture, solitary confinement, and unimaginable abuse. It was there Smitty covertly taught the Tap Code—an old, long-unused World War II method of communication—to many POWs. In turn, they taught others, and it quickly became a way for POWs to communicate without their captors' knowledge.

The new commander of the Company E, 52d Infantry LRRPs, Capt. George Paccerelli, was tough, but the men's new AO was brutal. Former LRRP Kregg Jorgenson provides a gripping account of ordinary men with extraordinary courage and heroism.