Download or read book Di Di Mau A True Story About Tigers Rock Apes the Jungle and War written by Darren Walton and published by . This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A revealing, sometimes gut-wrenching war memoir that examines virtually every aspect of his tour of duty." -Marc Leepson, Arts Editor and Senior Writer, The VVA Veteran magazine In 1969, Darren Walton, at the tender age of nineteen, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, trading life in idyllic Marin County in California for the chaos of a raging jungle war in Southeast Asia. In no time, he got pressed into service as a member of a Marine reconnaissance unit operating near Da Nang, Vietnam. There were a few times when he basked in the breathtaking beauty of the triple canopy jungle, the contoured glistening mountain ridges, and the luscious green valleys. But there were many, many other times when he and his fellow Marines labored under the terror of the worst the jungle had to offer: torrential monsoons, torturous humidity, rapacious insects, and enemy-placed punji traps springing from hell below. Darren survived thanks to the unconditional loyalty and courage of his fellow Marines, men who risked their own lives to save his, men who demonstrated uncommon courage in the most desperate of circumstances. No questions asked. No conditions imposed. No social barriers erected. Semper Fidelis. 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.

Download or read book Truth is in the House written by and published by Koehler Books. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a young boy in the late 1950s, Jimmy O'Farrell emigrates with his family from Ireland to Manhattan to bask in the dawn of a new life. Thousands of miles away, the family of Jaylen Jackson seeks to build a life amid Jim Crow culture in Mississippi. As teenagers, both boys struggle to come of age in a racially divisive world, suffering horrific tragedies that shape their characters and life missions. Jimmy seeks to define what it means to stand for someone when the chips are down, while Jaylen embarks on a journey to gain respect beyond the color of his skin. Fleeing the past, both families land in neighboring Bronx communities in the 1960s, where Jimmy and Jaylen's lives first intersect, on the basketball courts and then in the Vietnam jungle. Repeatedly tested as men of different races, their friendship faces its toughest challenge outside a Bronx bar-with fatal consequences. Truth Is in the House is an epic and provocative tale that plumbs historical and modern racial themes and explores redemption, forgiveness, and the power of connecting through the human spirit.

Download or read book Tiger Force written by Michael Sallah and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2006-05-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outset of the Vietnam War, the Army created an experimental fighting unit that became known as "Tiger Force." The Tigers were to be made up of the cream of the crop-the very best and bravest soldiers the American military could offer. They would be given a long leash, allowed to operate in the field with less supervision. Their mission was to seek out enemy compounds and hiding places so that bombing runs could be accurately targeted. They were to go where no troops had gone, to become one with the jungle, to leave themselves behind and get deep inside the enemy's mind. The experiment went terribly wrong. What happened during the seven months Tiger Force descended into the abyss is the stuff of nightmares. Their crimes were uncountable, their madness beyond imagination-so much so that for almost four decades, the story of Tiger Force was covered up under orders that stretched all the way to the White House. Records were scrubbed, documents were destroyed, men were told to say nothing.But one person didn't follow orders. The product of years of investigative reporting, interviews around the world, and the discovery of an astonishing array of classified information, Tiger Force is a masterpiece of journalism. Winners of the Pulitzer Prize for their Tiger Force reporting, Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss have uncovered the last great secret of the Vietnam War.

Download or read book Baptism written by Larry Gwin and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry had the dubious distinction of being the unit that had fought the biggest battle of the war to date, and had suffered the worst casualties. We and the 1st Battalion." A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only twenty-three years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles. The bloodiest conflict of all began November 12, 1965, after 2nd Battalion was flown into the Ia Drang Valley west of Pleiku. Acting as point, Alpha Company spearheaded the battalion's march to landing zone Albany for pickup, not knowing they were walking into the killing zone of an NVA ambush that would cost them 10 percent casualties. Gwin spares no one, including himself, in his gut-wrenching account of the agony of war. Through the stench of death and the acrid smell of napalm, he chronicles the Vietnam War in all its nightmarish horror.

Download or read book The Tunnels of Cu Chi written by Tom Mangold and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2013-05-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the Vietnam conflict, a complex system of secret underground tunnels sprawled from Cu Chi Province to the edge of Saigon. In these burrows, the Viet Cong cached their weapons, tended their wounded, and prepared to strike. They had only one enemy: U.S. soldiers small and wiry enough to maneuver through the guerrillas’ narrow domain. The brave souls who descended into these hellholes were known as “tunnel rats.” Armed with only pistols and K-bar knives, these men inched their way through the steamy darkness where any number of horrors could be awaiting them–bullets, booby traps, a tossed grenade. Using firsthand accounts from men and women on both sides who fought and killed in these underground battles, authors Tom Mangold and John Penycate provide a gripping inside look at this fearsome combat. The Tunnels of Cu Chi is a war classic of unbearable tension and unforgettable heroes. Praise for The Tunnels of Cu Chi “A claustrophobic but fascinating tale.”—The Wall Street Journal “Chilling . . . what war really was and how it was fought.”—The New York Times “Gripping . . . highly recommended.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Remarkable.”—The Washington Post

Download or read book A Day in Hell on the DMZ written by Lou Pepi and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-08-12 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At "zero dark thirty" on January 30, 1971, units of the U.S. Fifth Mechanized Division left their firebases along the DMZ heading west along Provincial Route 9. The mission, called Dewey Canyon II, was to reopen the road from Khe Sahn Air Base to the Laotian border, in support of a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos (doomed from the start) to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Alpha Company of U.S. 61st Infantry performed commendably in keeping Route 9 open, with just one casualty killed by friendly fire. They returned to Firebase Charlie-2 in April, exhausted but hopeful--the Fifth would be leaving Vietnam in July. They patrolled the "western hills" through May as rocket attacks fell each evening. On the 21st, a direct hit on a bunker killed 30 of the 63 men inside--18 were from Alpha Co. This is their story, as told to Specialist Lou Pepi by members of his unit.

Download or read book The Education of Corporal John Musgrave written by John Musgrave and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Marine's searing and intimate story—"A passionate, fascinating, and deeply humane memoir of both war and of the hard work of citizenship and healing in war’s aftermath. A superb addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War, and of its lessons” (Phil Klay, author of Redeployment). John Musgrave had a small-town midwestern childhood that embodied the idealized postwar America. Service, patriotism, faith, and civic pride were the values that guided his family and community, and like nearly all the boys he knew, Musgrave grew up looking forward to the day when he could enlist to serve his country as his father had done. There was no question in Musgrave’s mind: He was going to join the legendary Marine Corps as soon as he was eligible. In February of 1966, at age seventeen, during his senior year in high school, and with the Vietnam War already raging, he walked down to the local recruiting station, signed up, and set off for three years that would permanently reshape his life. In this electrifying memoir, he renders his wartime experience with a powerful intimacy and immediacy: from the rude awakening of boot camp, to daily life in the Vietnam jungle, to a chest injury that very nearly killed him. Musgrave also vividly describes the difficulty of returning home to a society rife with antiwar sentiment, his own survivor's guilt, and the slow realization that he and his fellow veterans had been betrayed by the government they served. And he recounts how, ultimately, he found peace among his fellow veterans working to end the war. Musgrave writes honestly about his struggle to balance his deep love for the Marine Corps against his responsibility as a citizen to protect the very troops asked to protect America at all costs. Fiercely perceptive and candid, The Education of Corporal John Musgrave is one of the most powerful memoirs to emerge from the war.

Download or read book Vietnam No Regrets written by J. Richard Watkins and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vietnam No Regrets is the story of a soldier who volunteers to fight for his country in Vietnam. He would have no idea of what he will have to go through to leave the killing fields of Vietnam alive. You will be able to follow him from his first step in-country until his very last day and see for yourself what life was like for the infantry soldier in Vietnam. This story will be told through the eyes of one individual Vietnam combat soldier, but it is a compelling story that all combat veterans will have no trouble relating to.

Download or read book Confederate General Lloyd Tilghman written by James W. Raab and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-08-29 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lloyd Tilghman was a man of distinguished family. His forefathers, men of rank during colonial times, included Matthew Tilghman, who helped frame Maryland's constitution, Chief Justice William Tilghman of Pennsylvania and Lieutenant Colonel Tench C. Tilghman, George Washington's military secretary. Trained at West Point, Lloyd Tilghman originally resigned his commission in 1836. However, with the onset of the Mexican conflict--a veritable training ground for the War Between the States--in 1846, Tilghman rejoined the army as an aide-de-camp to General David E. Twiggs. When the ultimate question was posed almost two decades later, Tilghman, a Southern sympathizer with decidedly Northern ties, followed his moral dictates and joined the Confederate cause. Relying heavily on contemporary sources such as newspapers and periodicals, this biography chronicles the life of Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, a gallant Confederate commander and staunch defender of states' rights. While covering Tilghman's entire career, including his service during the Mexican War and his contributions to the construction of the Panama railroad, the work concentrates primarily on his Civil War years and 1863 death. The book details the military movements in which he was involved with the stated goal of informing the reader about the battles that took place between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River and the extraordinary generals who fought them. Extensive maps, illustrations and contemporary photographs are included. The work is also indexed.

Download or read book A Year in Hell written by Ray Pezzoli, Jr. and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-01-24 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir relates the author's experiences during his year-long tour of duty in the early days of American involvement in Vietnam. Serving in Bravo Company of the 1st Infantry Division, Ray Pezzoli provided protection for engineers constructing the deep water port in Cam Ranh Bay. From July 11, 1965, through June 22, 1966, he dealt with the ever-present threat of Viet Cong guerilla attacks, never knowing whether the Vietnamese natives he met might be friends or enemies. And as an Army reporter, he recorded some of his experiences in print and photographs. From guard duty to bathing practices, Pezzoli describes the daily life of soldiers with the keen eye of a journalist while also questioning the wisdom of extensive media involvement during wartime. Unique to his story is the dual perspective of infantryman and journalist; Pezzoli never forgot his military objective, and tallied at least 11 kills. The memoir provides a moving narrative not only of his service but of his culture shock on returning to America. An appendix provides additional information about Vietnam, including its history before and after American involvement. The author's photographs from the time are included.

Download or read book Guns Up written by Johnnie Clark and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2002-01-02 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THIS GUT-WRENCHING FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF THE WAR IS A CLASSIC IN THE ANNALS OF VIETNAM LITERATURE. "Guns up!" was the battle cry that sent machine gunners racing forward with their M60s to mow down the enemy, hoping that this wasn't the day they would meet their deaths. Marine Johnnie Clark heard that the life expectancy of a machine gunner in Vietnam was seven to ten seconds after a firefight began. Johnnie was only eighteen when he got there, at the height of the bloody Tet Offensive at Hue, and he quickly realized the grim statistic held a chilling truth. The Marines who fought and bled and died were ordinary men, many still teenagers, but the selfless bravery they showed day after day in a nightmarish jungle war made them true heroes. This new edition of Guns Up!, filled with photographs and updated information about those harrowing battles, also contains the real names of these extraordinary warriors and details of their lives after the war. The book's continuing success is a tribute to the raw courage and sacrifice of the United States Marines.

Download or read book Kilo 3 written by Richard W. Foster, Jr. and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story of a 17-year-old kid who quit high school in his junior year to join the Marines. After a short cruise with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, he was assigned to a rifle company in Vietnam during the heaviest fighting of the war in 1967 and 1968. He went to Vietnam eager to save the world from Communism, only to become disillusioned by the lack of progress in the field, and mentally exhausted from the intensity of the ground combat. Returning in shock from what he had seen and done, he was assigned to the most prestigious Marine ceremonial detachment in the world: the Special Ceremonial Platoon located at the oldest post of the Corps, Marine Barracks at 8th and I Streets in Washington, DC. As part of this unit, he served at the White House under two Presidents, and at ceremonial duties all over DC. The contrast from the jungle of Vietnam was startling. While fighting constant nightmares of combat, he stood before Presidents, politicians, celebrities and heads of state, all the while maintaining the dignity and poise required for his position. This book is honest, graphic, and yet enlightening, ending positively. For those interested in understanding the Marine Corps and the horror of personal, ground combat, contrasted with the bright lights and facades of Washington politics, this book will not disappoint. Reading Rick’s chapters on “The Barracks,” (8th & I), rekindled many fond—and not so fond—memories of our time together. I was a fresh-caught second lieutenant charged with the almost impossible task of transforming combat Marines into ceremonial perfectionists. For a Marine to leave the mud and blood of Vietnam and report to the most fabled and oldest post of the Corps was something not every Marine could handle physically or emotionally. Rick’s reaction to the trauma and how he succeeded reminds me of the song Tin Man by America: “But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.” I believe no one gave Rick anything he didn’t already have. He survived that transition with little help from anyone because he is that kind of Marine. To become one of a nine-man section responsible for the Marine Corps’ official colors and all presentations throughout the nation’s capital is something only a few Marines can own. For those fortunate enough to have watched a Friday Night Parade, Rick’s vivid description makes that “MGM Production” come to life. No Marine leaves “The Barracks” untouched by the significance of it all—Richard W. Foster, Jr. is living proof of that! —Colonel Jim Bathurst , US Marine Corps (Ret)

Download or read book Vietnam Perkasie written by W.D. Ehrhart and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-01-20 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1982, John Newman, curator of the Vietnam War Literature Collection at Colorado State University, said of W.D. Ehrhart: "As a poet and editor, Bill Ehrhart is clearly one of the major figures in Vietnam War literature." This autobiographical account of the war, the author's first extended prose work, demonstrates Ehrhart's abilities as a writer of prose as well. Vietnam-Perkasie is grim, comical, disturbing, and accurate. The presentation is novelistic--truly, a "page-turner"--but the events are all real, the atmosphere intensely evocative.

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 Death in the Highlands written by J. Keith Saliba and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-06-14 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the first engagement between the U.S. Army and the North Vietnamese Army at the beginning of the Vietnam War in 1965. In fall 1965, North Vietnam’s high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam’s strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Annihilate ARVN’s defenses in Kontum and Pleiku provinces, the communists surmised, and the region’s remaining provinces would topple like dominoes. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border. As darkness fell on 19 October, 1965, two North Vietnamese Army regiments—some four thousand troops— crept into their final strike positions. The plan was as simple as it was audacious: one regiment would bring the frontier fortress under murderous siege while the other would lie in wait to destroy the inevitable rescue force. Initially, all that stood athwart Hanoi’s grand scheme was a handful of American Green Berets, a few hundred Montagnard allies—and burgeoning U.S. airpower. Cut off and beleaguered, Plei Me’s defenders fought for their lives, while a daring band of close air support and resupply pilots helped keep the beast at bay. But as the overland relief force bogged down, 5th Group ordered in the legendary “Chargin” Charlie Beckwith and his elite Project Delta to help hold the line. Soon, the 1st Cavalry Division would also join the fray, setting the stage for its bloody Ia Drang Valley fights a few weeks later. Before it was over, the siege of Plei Me would push its defenders to the brink and usher in the first major clashes between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies. Drawing on archival research and interviews with combat veterans, J. Keith Saliba reconstructs this pivotal battle in vivid, gut-wrenching detail and illustrates where the siege fit in the war’s strategic picture. Praise for Death in the Highlands Winner, 2021 Gold Medal in history, Military Writers Society of America “This story has it all: the bravery and suffering of men in extreme peril and how they lived and died. Plei Me was the prelude to the bloody battles of the 1st Cavalry Division troopers in the nearby Ia Drang Valley just weeks later. Keith Saliba has done them all proud.” —Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young “Military history at its best . . . a clear, detailed, and highly readable account of an important but little understood battle of the Vietnam War.” —Col. Andrew R. Finlayson, USMC (Ret.), author of Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Team Leader in Vietnam, 1967–1968 and winner of the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence Award

Download or read book Vietnam Chronicles written by Lewis Sorley and published by Texas Tech University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 994 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the four years General Creighton W. Abrams was commander in Vietnam, he and his staff made more than 455 tape recordings of briefings and meetings. In 1994, with government approval, Lewis Sorley began transcribing and analyzing the tapes. Sorley’s laborious, time-consuming effort has produced a picture of the senior U.S. commander in Vietnam and his associates working to prosecute a complex and challenging military campaign in an equally complex and difficult political context.The concept of the nature of the war and the way it was conducted changed during Abrams’s command. The progressive buildup of U.S. forces was reversed, and Abrams became responsible for turning the war back to the South Vietnamese.The edited transcriptions in this volume clearly reflect those changes in policy and strategy. They include briefings called the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates as well as meetings with such visitors as the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking officials. In Vietnam Chronicles we see, for the first time, the difficult task that Creighton Abrams accomplished with tact and skill.

Download or read book Gangster Redemption written by Larry Lawton and published by Health Communications. This book was released on 2012-05-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in collaboration with New York Times bestselling author Peter Golenbock, Larry Lawton's true-life story is a Hollywood producer's dream. Larry and Peter show the world a life of a straightforward, no excuses man who refused to let a broken system keep him down. Think Goodfellas, only better. Gangster Redemption tracks Larry's life growing up in the Bronx, his connection to organized crime, and how he went on to steal over 15 million dollars in jewels, ultimately landing himself in one of America's most brutal maximum-security prisons where he was exposed to unbelievable torture. Through reading this book, readers will discover: a vivid account of Larry's crimes and how he managed to evade law enforcement and the FBI for nearly six years a secret life of corruption the truth about prison life, what is lost, how to avoid and dissolve bad associations, and how to turn ones life around how Larry developed the #1 program in the country designed to steer teens away from a life of crime Lawton's Reality Check Program is nationally recognized and used by judges, law enforcement, government officials, attorneys, and parents all over the country. It has kept thousands of teens and young adults from going to prison. His success rate is incredible and well documented. So is Larry Lawton's story.