Vietnam War Fiction

One of the greatest Vietnam War novels ever written, by an award-winning writer who experienced it firsthand. Deployed to Vietnam with the U.S. Army's 1069 Intelligence Group, Spec. 4 James Griffin starts out clear-eyed and hardworking, believing he can glide through the war unharmed. But the...

Maine, 1969. After losing her parents in a car accident, aspiring artist Annalisa Mancuso lives with her grandmother and their large Italian family in the stifling factory town of Payton Mills. Inspired by her mother, whose own artistic dreams disappeared in a damaged marriage, Annalisa is dedicated only to painting. Closed off to love, and driven as much by her innate talent as she is the disillusionment of her past, Annalisa just wants to come into her own.

Decades ago in Brooklyn, three girls demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and each followed a distinct path into adulthood. Helen became a violent revolutionary. Val wrote a controversial book, Bright Morning of Pain, which was essentially a novelization of Helen’s all-too-short but vibrant life. And Olive became an editor and writer, now comfortably settled with her husband, Griff, in modern-day New Haven. In Conscience, Alice Mattison paints the nuanced relationships between the palpable personalities of Olive, Griff, and Jean with her signature wit and precision.

During the Vietnam War, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece - more or less - were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes "Freedom Birds". This is the story of three young men - from wildly different backgrounds - who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime.

An inspiring and astounding look at the extraordinary courage and contribution of Australian nurses and medics during the Vietnam War. From the best-selling author of Bush Nurses and Nurses of the Outback comes this collection of compelling and moving stories of our heroic nurses in the Vietnam War. Being a nurse always requires a cool head, a steady hand and an open heart. But if you're working in a war zone, the challenges are much harder.

There are dozens of unforgettable characters, and scores of authentic scenes in Brandywine's War. From behind the headlines and the front-line dispatches has come this Rabelaisian novel. Chief Warrant Officer Vaughan completed Brandywine's War while serving his second of three tours of duty in Vietnam.

Vietnam, October 1966. ANZAC and US forces have secured Route 15 running through the heart of Phuc Tuy Province. Now at full strength the ANZAC 5th Battalion take the fight to the enemy in a grand, aggressive sweep. Their mission to locate and destroy Viet Cong bases and infrastructure within the Nui Thi Vai Mountains. They’ve been in this area before, but never in sufficient numbers to bring the enemy to bear.

Post-World War II America and teenage boys dreamed of adventure growing up in the 1950s, listened to Elvis Presley and read Jack Kerouac, yet it wasn't cruising Route 66 in a Corvette that united them, but Highway 1, known as the Street Without Joy, on the way to Hue city during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Civil Rights and the pill, young girls in long boots and short skirts, but not for those in the jungle and rice paddies of Southeast Asia.

The cover of darkness was pulled back by the NODS scopes in their hands. The enemy had no idea what was about to befall them. With the rush of wings of dragons, the sounds of M-14s, M-870 shotguns, M-16s, and grenades spoke the finality of death. This gave the human pack mules a taste of what would continue to reign upon them in the House of the Dragon. North and South Vietnam were at war. Indeed, all of Southeast Asia was at war. Due to national commitments, the US military was drawn into the fray.

Echo Among Warriors is a story of close combat between two opposing, equally committed adversaries. The powerful narrative immerses the listener in both sides of the battle, playing and replaying the same battle sequence from alternating viewpoints—through the eyes of the Marines and through the eyes of the North Vietnamese. The bullet fired from a Marine's M-16 at a silhouetted enemy solider will in the next chapter tear into the flesh of that crouched NVA trooper. The story represents just one of perhaps thousands of deadly encounters that reflect the reality of battle.

Nineteen-year-old Jesse McGowan kills to stay alive. As a Marine gunner in Vietnam, he knows the gun team is the heart of every battle. Meet the gun team. They serve in a place called Con Thien, “The Hill of Angels”. Learn what gives them the courage to fight another day. Will Jesse prove worthy? Will the gun team? Will they survive their 13-month tour? In her war-torn country, Tweet, a Vietnamese nurse who believes in democracy, works to save American soldiers. With war’s end, there is no one to protect her or her young daughter.

It is 1965, and America is putting more boots on the ground to fight the communists who have sent their powerful People’s Army of Vietnam, the PAVN, south. Their aim is to defeat the South Vietnamese Army, the ARVN, and impose the iron fist of communist rule on the democratic South. Walker knows nothing of politics or military strategy and tactics. A single obsession rules his life: to become a major league baseball pitcher.

Jorge Salazar is an initiated member of the Latin Kings street gang. When he finds his heroin-addicted mother dead on the bathroom floor, he begins to question everything about his life. Visualizing a high probability of an early death as a gang member, Salazar decides that escaping New York is his only alternative. He enlists in the United States Army, and after basic training, he is deployed to Vietnam where he faces the life and death challenges he thought he left behind.

Gerald "Jerry" Keyser and I became friends in 1966, when we were both in USAF Pilot Training. In 1970 I got out of the Air Force and Jerry stayed in. We remained friends and I followed along in awe as he went on to have the most amazing flying career I have ever seen. He flew 100 different types of airplanes, helicopters, and gliders during his 20 years in the Air Force, including a stint with NASA, and his 17 years as a test pilot for Hughes-McDonell Douglas-Boeing Helicopter Company in Arizona.