Military Memoirs Vietnam

In the fall of 1969, Gary Bray landed in South Vietnam as a recently married, freshly minted second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. His assignment was not enviable: leading the platoon whose former members had committed the My Lai massacre--the murder of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians--18 months earlier. In this compelling memoir, he shares his experiences of Vietnam in the direct wake of that terrible event.

“Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider’s account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors.” —Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed...

In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Mekong Delta, battled snipers in Saigon, and chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. But when their one-year tour was over, these two brothers came home side by side but no longer in step - one supporting the war, the other hating it.

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 Vietnam, the basic role of the USMC gunship squadrons was to protect the transport helicopters during medevac missions, troop insertions and extractions, resupply missions, and supporting the Marines on the ground during operations and patrols. Basically, whenever the Marines or South Vietnam friendlies got in trouble the gunships were dispatched to assist them.

What happens when a two-tour Vietnam veteran tries to talk to an anti-war activist decades after the war has ended? Will buried memories, simmering resentment, and divisive stereotypes sabotage their effort? Has too much time passed? Seeking Quan Am tells their story.

In the mid-1960s, before GPS and global tracking, a young man could walk into a shipping hall, sign a paper, and be bound for war by sundown. Roberto Loiederman did precisely that. One day, he was dropping acid in a legendary San Francisco apartment called Cave 7, moving among the era's most influential counterculture figures—including a turbulent friendship with Hunter S. Thompson. The next, he was on the deck of a freighter hauling napalm across the Pacific to Vietnam.

Father Vincent Robert Capodanno was a US Navy chaplain killed in Vietnam in 1967 with his Marine search unit in Operation Swift. Outnumbered 2,500 to 500 Marines, he was killed protecting a corpsman who was administering first aid to a soldier.

Fifty years after America's involvement in the Korean War began, Richard E. Mack's memories of his time spent on the front lines are still strong and clear. A career soldier, Mack served in the U.S. Army until 1976, when he retired as a colonel. In Memoir of a Cold War Soldier, he recalls his service in front-line combat infantry units in Korea and Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader, adviser, and battalion commander. His accounts, perceptions, and observations of the military culture are incisive and candid.

In this inspiring meditation on courage, Senator John McCain shares his most cherished stories of ordinary individuals who have risked everything to defend the people and principles they hold most dear. These are some of the examples McCain turns to for inspiration and offers to others to help them summon the resolve to be both good and great. He explains the value of courage in both everyday actions and extraordinary feats. Most of all, listeners discover how sometimes simply setting the right example can be the ultimate act of courage.

In the wake of her mother's death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led "Secret War" in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades. On the night of March 29, 1972, Jack's plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam. The crash eerily echoes the one Jack's father, Ed Pearce, survived in World War II, when Ed parachuted out of the plane before being captured.

It began like the genealogical search of so many families to find out more about the relatives who came before them. It led to the surprising discovery of the stories of family members spanning eight generations who each served in the conflict of their era from the War of Independence through Vietnam. Through this book’s masterfully re-created veterans’ stories, blending documented historical research with his gift for storytelling, author Armand Kinslow breathes life into his humble quest to know more about his ancestors and to now promise that They Shall Not Be Forgotten.

A few years after his release from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, in 1973, Colonel Joseph Kittinger retired from the Air Force. Restless and unchallenged, he turned to ballooning, a lifelong passion as well as a constant diversion for his imagination during his imprisonment. His primary goal was a solitary circumnavigation of the globe, and in its pursuit he set several ballooning distance records, including the first solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1984. But the aeronautical feats that first made him an American hero had occurred a quarter of a century earlier....

The powerful unvarnished memoir of General Hugh Shelton, war hero, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 9/11, and one of the leading military figures of our time. Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, General Shelton was never afraid to speak out and...

Vets and Pets tells fifteen emotional and entertaining stories of the incredible bonds between wounded warriors, veterans, and other service members and their service and companion animals. Whether these special relationships are with dogs, cats, horses, pigs, or even birds of prey, readers will discover how these remarkable animals help veterans return to civilian life and live independently while simultaneously bringing joy and confidence into their lives.

These are the true stories of a young man being drafted into the military upon college graduation in 1969. His mother, being very concerned he'd be sent into combat in Vietnam, made him promise to write to her regularly to dispel her fears. That's why most of the letters are upbeat and about totally random topics.

On October 17, 1965, Navy LTJG Porter Halyburton was shot down over North Vietnam and listed as killed in action. One-and-a-half years later, he was found to be alive and a prisoner of war. Halyburton was held captive for more than seven years. Reflections on Captivity is a collection of fifty short stories about this naval officer's experiences as a POW in North Vietnam.

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.

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.

Peter Huchthausen, a river patrol officer on Vietnam's Mekong River Delta in 1967, rescued a badly wounded Vietnamese child, Nguyen Thi Lung. He and his men arranged for the girl's treatment and education, only to lose track of her when her town was overrun by the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive.