Download or read book Buying Time 1965 1966 written by Frank Leith Jones and published by Center of Military History Pub. This book was released on 2015 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Army Center of Military History is pleased to present a new pamphlet in its U.S. Army Campaigns of the Vietnam War series. Buying Time, 1965 1966, by Frank L. Jones, begins with President Lyndon B. Johnson s decision to commit the U.S. military to an escalating role in the ground war against the Communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam known as the Viet Cong. Beginning in 1965, William C. Westmoreland, the commanding general of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), sent large numbers of soldiers on search-and-destroy missions against Viet Cong forces. His strategy in Vietnam depended on the superiority of U.S. firepower, including intensive aerial bombardments of regular enemy units. The goal was to inflict more losses than the Communist forces could sustain. During 1966, the United States gradually built up not just its forces, but also the logistical and administrative infrastructure needed to support them. Pacification, which took a lesser role during the military buildup, remained central to the allies approach to the war, with the White House taking additional measures to elevate its importance. As 1966 drew to a close, General Westmoreland was in position to launch the type of large, sustained military campaign that he hoped would both cripple the enemy and enable the South Vietnamese to make substantial progress toward pacification. The tide had been stemmed, yet no one was under the illusion that the task ahead would be either easy or quick. Indeed, the events of 1965 and 1966 had shown the enemy to be a dangerous and able foe, unshaken despite heavy losses in his own pursuit of victory. The true struggle had just begun."

Download or read book Buying Time 1965 1966 written by Frank Leith Jones and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the year 1965 began, U.S. policymakers were deeply worried about the situation in Vietnam and divided about what should be done about it. Many feared that South Vietnam could not be saved, but in the context of the global war on communism, few believed that it was politically and strategically acceptable for the United States to allow South Vietnam to fall without putting up more of a fight. If the United States was truly dedicated to the preservation of a non-Communist South Vietnam, a few senior officials believed that the United States would have no choice but to deploy large ground forces in a bid to defeat the Communists militarily, or at least to bring them to the negotiation table on favorable terms, as had occurred in Korea. Others thought that a full-fledged war was undesirable, unlikely to achieve victory, and domestically unsustainable. They preferred using limited military means to coerce the Communists into accepting South Vietnam's independence. No one in the U.S. government, however, seemed to have a clear vision of how the crisis might end if the Communist leadership in Hanoi refused to be cowered. Unfortunately, North Vietnam's leaders had no intention of backing down. Although they feared U.S. military intervention, they regarded the reunification of Vietnam under communism as nonnegotiable, and they were prepared to pay a steep price to obtain it. The two nations were thus on a collision course. One, North Vietnam, was advancing aggressively forward toward conquering South Vietnam. The other, the United States, was moving hesitantly and with ambivalence toward a deeper involvement of undetermined proportions to save South Vietnam. Neither antagonist had a firm grasp on a situation that would soon spiral out of control.

Download or read book Buying Time written by Frank Jones and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-05-08 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 1965, the principal U.S. ally against communism in Southeast Asia, the Republic of (South) Vietnam, appeared to be headed for collapse. Armed revolutionaries fighting a proxy war on behalf of Communist North Vietnam held the political and military initiative. The insurgents controlled nearly half of South Vietnam's countryside and almost a third of its population. The U.S.-trained South Vietnamese Army was losing soldiers and equipment at an alarming rate. Regiment-size enemy units threatened the nation's capital, Saigon, and the fractious coalition of civilian and military officials who governed the country seemed unable to deal with the crisis. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his National Security Council concluded that the Republic of Vietnam could only survive if the United States took a more active part in the war.

Download or read book Buying Time 1965 1966 The U S Army Campaigns of the Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh Viet Minh Guerrilla Army General Westmoreland People s Army of Vietnam PAVN First American Combat Troops written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-07 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This excellent book by the U.S. Army provides a unique view of the early days of the Vietnam War. Contents: Strategic Setting * Operations * The First Combat Troops Arrive * The Start of Offensive Operations * First Blood * A Flurry of Engagements * Year of the Horse: 1966 * Renewed Emphasis on Pacification * Building the Infrastructure * Analysis In January 1965, the principal U.S. ally against communism in Southeast Asia, the Republic of (South) Vietnam, appeared to be headed for collapse. Armed revolutionaries fighting a proxy war on behalf of Communist North Vietnam held the political and military initiative. The insurgents controlled nearly half of South Vietnam's countryside and almost a third of its population. The U.S.-trained South Vietnamese Army was losing soldiers and equipment at an alarming rate. Regiment-size enemy units threatened the nation's capital, Saigon, and the fractious coalition of civilian and military officials who governed the country seemed unable to deal with the crisis. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his National Security Council concluded that the Republic of Vietnam could only survive if the United States took a more active part in the war. America's military involvement in Vietnam began twenty years earlier when a team of agents from the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, parachuted into northern Vietnam during the closing months of World War II. The team formed an alliance with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) guerrilla army, which had been fighting the Japanese troops occupying the former French colony since 1941. Needing the Viet Minh's help in rescuing downed Allied airmen, the United States overlooked the fact that Ho Chi Minh was also a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who had been trying to end French colonial rule since the 1920s. That became impossible to ignore in late August 1945, however, when Japan surrendered to the Allies and Ho's victorious army seized control of Hanoi. France, still stinging from its wartime humiliation, demanded the restoration of its Indochinese colonies. Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh army retreated to the countryside, but neither the Communists nor many Vietnamese nationalists were willing to abandon the dream of Vietnamese independence. Within two years, Ho and his followers were at war with the French colonial government.

Download or read book Grab Their Belts to Fight Them written by Warren Wilkins and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1965, despite pronounced disadvantages in firepower and mobility, the Communist Vietnamese endeavored to crush South Vietnam and expel the American military with a strategy for a quick and decisive victory predicated not on guerrilla but big-unit war. Warren Wilkins chronicles the formation, development, and participation of the Viet Cong in the opening phase of the big-unit war and shows how the failure of that strategy profoundly influenced the decision to launch the Tet Offensive. Unlike most books on the war, this one provides an authentic account from the Communist perspective, wi ...

Download or read book Utter s Battalion written by Alex Lee and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2000-01-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1965, the entire 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment--lock, stock, and barrel--embarked for Vietnam. Captain Alex Lee was there. . . . Now combat-veteran Marine captain Alex Lee brings to gritty life the full tour of 2/7. From the search-and-destroy missions to the sudden violent ambushes in the hills and valleys west of Qui Nhon, Lee describes how Marines battled monsoons, malaria, and the enemy as they crept through terrain infested with Viet Cong caves and hideouts. After paving the way in Qui Nhon for the arrival of more American military, 2/7 was assigned to Chu Lai, where the battalion fought its most bitter, deadly battles. With the scalding ring of truth, Lee captures the conditions of the bone-weary 2/7 Marines as they slogged through jungles and spent night after night in dreary, rain-filled foxholes. Although they faced a life of constant danger and occasional mindless confusion, in their seemingly endless marathon of effort, agony, and sacrifice, the Marines of 2/7 never faltered, never stopped giving their best.

Download or read book Operation Market Time written by James Steffes ENC Retired and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-10-31 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a story of Operation Market Time, a joint mission designed to seal off the coastline of South Vietnam and prevent the infiltration of troops and supplies from North Vietnam by sea. It included elements of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and the U.S. Air Force. I wanted to tell the story of these brave men in a format that would be informative and interesting to the Veteran and non-veteran alike. I chose to write fiction based on fact for several reasons. I have been reading the books of Jack Higgins, the author of “The Eagle Has Landed” and many other books about WWII and the struggle of the Irish People. In many of his books he takes a real life event and weaves a fictional story about it, keeping the story intact but using fictional characters to make the story come alive. I have read all of his books but one and it is unavailable in print. Every one of his books were page turners and I have become a real fan of this author. Although I will be using the basic format i.e. telling a fictional story based on a true incident, I am not copying his work rather using his style of writing. The names of the crews and sometimes the boats are fictional but the actual events really happened. In my research for this book, I extensively used the Commander Naval Forces Vietnam monthly summaries to tell the true part of my story. My purpose is to tell the story of Operation Market Time because this was the original mission of Swift Boats and the Coast Guard in Vietnam. Because of its effectiveness, the enemy was forced to move his troops and supplies inland thus creating the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This resulted in the battle for the Mekong Delta region taking place in the winding waterways of this area. It also moved the war further inland because the enemy was now reaching for Saigon using trails through sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. Swift Boats joined in that battle as well as part of Operation Giant Slingshot with the specific mission known as Sea Lords. Swift Boats were assigned to the major rivers of the Mekong Delta and while patrolling these rivers would make lightening raids up the narrow canals and waterways deep into Viet Cong territory disrupting his flow of supplies and material. This story has been told many ways by many authors because it involved firefights and ambushes on a daily basis. Market Time Operations however, consisted of coastal patrols that were for the most part very dull and boring with occasional firefights and ambushes. But it was only when the Market Time units moved in close to shore and came within range of the enemy, that the firefights erupted. With the open sea behind them, the Swift Boats could easily use their speed to move out of range of the enemy and to assess the situation before attacking the target. At a gathering of Swifties in Washington D.C. in 1995, Senator John Kerry a Swiftie himself would describe a Market Time Patrol as “Twenty three plus hours of boredom interrupted by a few minutes of sheer terror.” Sit back and enjoy the story of Market Time Sailors as they form a bond that only a small crew in combat can do.

Download or read book The War in South Vietnam written by John Schlight and published by Department of the Air Force. This book was released on 1988 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. Documents the Air Force's support of the ground war in South Vietnam from 1965 to early 1968. Includes sections on the air campaign conducted during the Communists' siege of the Marine camp of Khe Sanh. Also contains several appendices, a glossary, and bibliographical notes.

Download or read book The US Army in the Vietnam War 1965 73 written by Gordon L. Rottman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides detailed information about how US Army units were organised and operated in America's longest war. Vietnam Special Forces veteran Gordon L Rottman examines the different types of infantry battalions and the units that supported them, their training and organisation down to platoon level. Aspects of the US Army's conventional and unconventional warfare doctrine are also addressed, along with a discussion of how replacements were trained and integrated into units. Among other areas of the US Army's involvement covered are individual and crew-served weapons, artillery, armoured fighting vehicles, transport, logistics, the complex chain of command, and combat operations.

Download or read book Never Without Heroes written by Lawrence C. Vetter, Jr. and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-02-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FOUR CONGRESSIONAL MEDALS OF HONOR, THIRTEEN NAVAL CROSSES, SEVENTY-TWO SILVER STARS . . . In four and a half years in Vietnam, the Marines of the Third Reconnaissance Battalion repeatedly penetrated North Vietnamese and Vietcong sanctuaries by foot and by helicopter to find enemy forces, learn the enemy's intentions, and, when possible, bring deadly fire down on his head. Heavily armed, well-camouflaged teams of six and eight men daily exposed themselves to overwhelming enemy forces so that other Marines would have the information necessary to fight the war. It's all here: grueling, tense, and deadly recon patrols; insertions directly into NVA basecamps; last-stand defenses in the wreckage of downed helicopters; pursuit by superior North Vietnamese forces; agonizing deaths of men who valiantly put their lives on the line. NEVER WITHOUT HEROES is the first book to recount the story of a Marine reconnaissance battalion in Vietnam from the day of its arrival to its withdrawal. In Vietnam, Larry Vetter served as a platoon leader in Third Recon Battalion. He supplements his own recollections with Marine Corps records, exhaustive interviews with veterans, and correspondence to capture the bravery, and self-sacrifice of war.

Download or read book Marigold written by James Hershberg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 936 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marigold presents the first rigorously documented, in-depth story of one of the Vietnam War's last great mysteries: the secret peace initiative, codenamed "Marigold," that sought to end the war in 1966. The initiative failed, the war dragged on for another seven years, and this episode sank into history as an unresolved controversy. Antiwar critics claimed President Johnson had bungled (or, worse, deliberately sabotaged) a breakthrough by bombing Hanoi on the eve of a planned secret U.S.-North Vietnamese encounter in Poland. Yet, LBJ and top aides angrily insisted that Poland never had authority to arrange direct talks and Hanoi was not ready to negotiate. This book uses new evidence from long hidden communist sources to show that, in fact, Poland was authorized by Hanoi to open direct contacts and that Hanoi had committed to entering talks with Washington. It reveals LBJ's personal role in bombing Hanoi as he utterly disregarded the pleas of both the Polish and his own senior advisors. The historical implications of missing this opportunity are immense: Marigold might have ended the war years earlier, saving thousands of lives, and dramatically changed U.S. political history.

Download or read book Saigon at War written by Heather Marie Stur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the political and cultural dynamism of the Republic of Vietnam until its collapse on April 30, 1975.

Download or read book Lullabies for Lieutenants written by Franklin Cox and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capturing the chaotic nature of the U.S. Marine experience at war in Vietnam, this memoir recounts the experiences of a young officer in a series of unrelated short pieces. In a narrative as fragmented as the war itself, the only resolution is the same one reached by the Marines who fought--the conclusion of a tour of duty with no happy ending. Each chapter describes a specific event, a story of emotion, or a remarkable person (some are heroes, some are cowards). The reader lives the experience alongside the author, gaining a true sense of the pulse-pounding contact, surrealism, pathos, humor, and beauty that defined one of the low points of the American experience.

Download or read book The Cat From Hue written by John Laurence and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Overseas Press Club Cornelius Ryan Award John Laurence covered the Vietnam war for CBS News from its early days, through the bloody battle of Hue in 1968, to the Cambodian invasion. He was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war, however, the traumatic stories Laurence covered became a personal burden that he carried long after the war was over. In this evocative, unflinching memoir, laced with humor, anger, love, and the unforgettable story of Mé a cat rescued from the battle of Hue, Laurence recalls coming of age during the war years as a journalist and as a man. Along the way, he clarifies the murky history of the war and the role that journalists played in altering its course. The Cat from Huéi> has earned passionate acclaim from many of the most renowned journalists and writers about the war, as well as from military officers and war veterans, book reviewers, and readers. This book will stand with Michael Herr's Dispatches, Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, and Neil Sheehan's A Bright, Shining Lie as one of the best books ever written about Vietnam-and about war generally.

Download or read book Requiem written by Horst Faas and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the French Indochina war of the fifties and the fall of Phnom Penn and Saigon in 1975, 134 photographers from different nations were killed. Horst Faas, two-times Pullitzer Prize winner and Chief Photographer for The Associated Press in Saigon at the height of the war, and Tim Page, another veteran who had been badly wounded, have gathered many thousands of photos from the Western agencies and from archives in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. These have now been assembled to form both a monument to the dead and a record of the most terrifying war photography ever taken. Never again will the media have the kind of access to the war zone that was offered to the photographers in Vietnam. In many cases the photographers tried to get as close as possible, then paid the price.

Download or read book Bloods written by Wallace Terry and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 1985-07-12 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The national bestseller that tells the truth about the Vietnam War from the black soldiers’ perspective. An oral history unlike any other, Bloods features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers, and of the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, Bloods is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective. Praise for Bloods “Superb . . . a portrait not just of warfare and warriors but of beleaguered patriotism and pride. The violence recalled in Bloods is chilling. . . . On most of its pages hope prevails. Some of these men have witnessed the very worst that people can inflict on one another. . . . Their experience finally transcends race; their dramatic monologues bear witness to humanity.”—Time “[Wallace] Terry’s oral history captures the very essence of war, at both its best and worst. . . . [He] has done a great service for all Americans with Bloods. Future historians will find his case studies extremely useful, and they will be hard pressed to ignore the role of blacks, as too often has been the case in past wars.”—The Washington Post Book World “Terry set out to write an oral history of American blacks who fought for their country in Vietnam, but he did better than that. He wrote a compelling portrait of Americans in combat, and used his words so that the reader—black or white—knows the soldiers as men and Americans, their race overshadowed by the larger humanity Terry conveys. . . . This is not light reading, but it is literature with the ring of truth that shows the reader worlds through the eyes of others. You can’t ask much more from a book than that.”—Associated Press “Bloods is a major contribution to the literature of this war. For the first time a book has detailed the inequities blacks faced at home and on the battlefield. Their war stories involve not only Vietnam, but Harlem, Watts, Washington D.C. and small-town America.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution “I wish Bloods were longer, and I hope it makes the start of a comprehensive oral and analytic history of blacks in Vietnam. . . . They see their experiences as Americans, and as blacks who live in, but are sometimes at odds with, America. The results are sometimes stirring, sometimes appalling, but this three-tiered perspective heightens and shadows every tale.”—The Village Voice “Terry was in Vietnam from 1967 through 1969. . . . In this book he has backtracked, Studs Terkel–like, and found twenty black veterans of the Vietnam War and let them spill their guts. And they do; oh, how they do. The language is raw, naked, a brick through a window on a still night. At the height of tension a sweet story, a soft story, drops into view. The veterans talk about fighting two wars: Vietnam and racism. They talk about fighting alongside the Ku Klux Klan.”—The Boston Globe

Download or read book A Life in a Year written by James Ebert and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative in-depth book focuses on the experiences of the infantry soldier in Vietnam. More than 60 Army and Marine Corps infantrymen speak of their experiences during their year-long tours of duty.