Vietnam War Memoir

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos.

In this searing, inspiring memoir, Black recounts how he devoted himself, body and soul, to his proud service as an elite US Army Ranger in Korea and Vietnam - and what those years have taught him about himself, his country, and our future. Written with extraordinary candor and passion, A Ranger Born is the memoir of a man who dedicated the best of his life to everything that is great and enduring about America.

This is hands down the most heartbreaking and thought-provoking book about Khe Sanh and even the Vietnam War you will ever have the honor to explore. Other books are easier to understand, yet none of them will leave you a believer in the way that this book has. Seldom is the author so true to himself and the memory of those lost that he is willing to blind others with their own tears and shame rather than sacrifice what he knows to be the true story.

This book consists of 35 letters that I wrote to my aunt while I was serving in Vietnam from October of 1967 1968. The letters contain my thoughts as a young Marine and continued through the end of my tour where I was still young but far more experienced. The letters came to me when my aunt mailed them to me 33 years after Vietnam. One of her comments was she believed that I should have the letters published. My thoughts were that they were too personal to be published and would not be of any benefit to anyone.

I had a memory of wearing a sidearm when I escorted Miss Missouri in Viet Nam. Upon examining photographs of that occasion, I found no evidence of a pistol. This memory of taking a sidearm, I think, was a memory that drifted in from a later event. Nevertheless, this “false” memory carries the truth of how important the safety of Miss Missouri meant at the time. On the other hand, my memory, tested against other evidence like photographs or other accounts, has often proven more accurate than some written records.

Return to Eden is an exploration of one man's and one country's journey from the devastation of war through recovery and healing, then to creativity. Smallwood's reflections on his military and film experiences have appeared in magazines, but this is the first recorded collection of essays.

Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields - in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men.

During basic training in the army, it was common practice for the recruits to exercise and march to the cadence of popular songs of the time to keep the trainees in sync. It also took the trainees' minds off the exercise—sometimes strenuous—that they were engaged in, and a five-mile forced march before breakfast was tolerated with little grumbling. Although the cadence was always the same, the words were often changed to reflect the reality of military duty. At the time, the words of the Coasters's hit song "Poison Ivy" were adapted to fit the life of a grunt in Vietnam.

Con Thien was a United States Marine Corps firebase that was the scene of fierce combat for months on end during 1967. Staving off attacks and ambushes while suffering from ineffectual leadership from Washington as well as media onslaughts, courageous American Marines protected this crucial piece of land at all costs. They would hold Con Thien, but many paid the ultimate price. By the end of the war, more than 1,400 Marines had died and more than 9,000 sustained injuries.

Part of a coordinated, nationwide Vietnam moratorium effort that confounded and infuriated the Nixon White House, the San Marcos 10 challenged their suspension, taking their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Author E. R. Bills offers this fascinating glimpse into the 1960s antiwar movement in Texas, the extraordinary measures to quell it, and the broader social activism in which it participated.

Amity Whitford dared to stake her own claim on the endless plains of Western Kansas. She built her homestead, Dove's Nest, with her bare hands. But the ravages of the sun and drying winds took their toll.

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.

The true story of Captain Sounthone Ratanakone is simply incredible. He was born into royalty in Laos and was a war hero and a CIA operative in the Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War. The captain barely survived being a POW in a communist concentration camp (which the communists to this day deny ever existed), made a death-defying escape, had to escape the communist regime again once he had settled back home, and lived in a refugee camp. Til the Last is a story of heroism, patriotism, and self-sacrifice at the highest and most dramatic levels.

My memoir traces the events of my early life from 1962 to 1974 when my family found itself in the epicenter of the Vietnam War. When I was eleven years old my father, then Commander James Stockdale, was shot down and declared "missing in action" in September 1965. The emotional impact of that news devastated me, my mother Sybil Stockdale, and my three brothers, but we struggled to carry on somewhat normal lives.

In June 1969, Tom Hargrove arrived in Vietnam as a first lieutenant in the US Army. But he wasn’t just there to make war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies. Hargrove was also there to introduce improved rice varieties into the war-torn region. This unique memoir tells of Hargrove’s efforts to improve the everyday lives of the Vietnamese, even as he was calling in B-52 strikes against opposition forces.

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.

With a compass to direct him in his job as a forward observer and a personal camera to document his experiences - and keep him connected to his creative side - Vietnam veteran Steven Burchik was lucky enough to make it home and years later decided to write about the most challenging year of his life.

Finding Pete is one of the great, untold true stories of an escalating war and a young man caught in its sights. This personalized account of a critical moment in US history is the moving story of an altruistic youth who personifies what America lost in Vietnam. It is also a portrait of a family's struggle with loss, a mother's damaging grief, and, most of all, a sister's quest to solve a mystery and recover the connection with her brother.

Mike lived by the marine sniper mantra: One shot, one kill. During his time in the jungles of Vietnam, Mike was confronted with having to hunt and kill the enemy and being hunted in return. Now, for the first time, Marine veteran and debut author, Phil Lenser, guides listeners through Mike’s extraordinary final mission.

Idealistic and eager to get into combat, Sam Walker, a young pilot, arrives for his tour of duty in Vietnam. But on his first top secret mission, Walker confronts the gruesome reality of war and the horror its impact leaves on its servicemen. No one survives war - they simply escape. Some through death, others through drink or drugs.