Download or read book The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey written by Gregory L. Vistica and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Education of Lieutenant Kerrey is an incredible story and a modern morality tale about a man of compassion and promise trapped by a horrible secret. On the night of February 25, 1969, an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Bob Kerrey, led a commando raid on an isolated hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts, one thing is certain: around midnight, Kerrey and his men killed nearly two dozen unarmed women and children. What happened that night and why? It's a terrible secret that Kerrey has borne for more than thirty years. Kerrey went on to do heroic things in Vietnam and later as a politician. Since World War II, he is only Medal of Honor winner to sit as a member of Congress. In many ways, Kerrey's life following that tragic mission has been a struggle for redemption. So is Bob Kerrey a war hero or war criminal? Gregory L. Vistica, who uncovered the Thanh Phong atrocities in a widely-praised cover story for The New York Times Magazine, searches the entire span of Kerrey's life to answer that question.. From his rural boyhood in Nebraska, to his gut wrenching Navy SEAL training, to his aborted run for President, Kerrey's life will become a vehicle for understanding the Vietnam generation shaped in the 50s and sharpened by the tumultuous 60s.
Download or read book The War I Survived Was Vietnam written by Michael Uhl and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This singular collection of articles, essays, poems, criticism and personal recollections by a Vietnam veteran documents the author's reflections on the war, from his combat experiences to his exploration of American veteran identity to his struggles with PTSD. His career as an advocate for the welfare of GIs and veterans exposed to dangerous radiation and herbicides is covered. Several pieces deal with how the Vietnam experience is being archived by scholars for historical interpretation. These collected works serve as a study of how wars are remembered and written about by surviving veterans.
Download or read book War Stories written by and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rhetorical Refusals written by John Schilb and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2007-11-20 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to explore rhetorical refusals—instances in which speakers and writers deliberately flout the conventions of rhetoric and defy their audiences’ expectations— Rhetorical Refusals: Defying Audiences’ Expectations challenges the reader to view these acts of academic rebellion as worthy of deeper analysis than they are commonly accorded, as rhetorical refusals can simultaneously reveal unspoken assumptions behind the very conventions they challenge, while also presenting new rhetorical strategies. Through a series of case studies, John Schilb demonstrates the deeper meanings contained within rhetorical refusals: when dance critic Arlene Croce refused to see a production that she wrote about; when historian Deborah Lipstadt declined to debate Holocaust deniers; when President Bill Clinton denied a grand jury answers to their questions; and when Frederick Douglass refused to praise Abraham Lincoln unequivocally. Each of these unexpected strategies revealed issues of much greater importance than the subjects at hand. By carefully laying out an underlying framework with which to evaluate these acts, Schilb shows that they can variously point to the undue privilege of authority; the ownership of truth; the illusory divide between public and private lives; and the subjectivity of honor. According to Schilb, rhetorical refusals have the potential to help political discourse become more inventive. To demonstrate this potential, Schilb looks at some notable cases in which invitations have led to unexpected results: comedian Stephen Colbert’s brazen performance at the White House Press Association dinner; poet Sharon Olds’s refusal to attend the White House Book Fair, and activist Cindy Sheehan’s display of an anti-war message at the 2006 State of the Union Address. Rhetorical Refusals explores rhetorical theories in accessible language without sacrificing complexity and nuance, revealing the unspoken implications of unexpected deviations from rhetorical norms for classic political concepts like free debate and national memory. With case studies taken from art, politics, literature, and history, this book will appeal to scholars and students of English, communication studies, and history.
Download or read book When I was a Young Man written by Bob Kerrey and published by Harvest Books. This book was released on 2003-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kerrey's much-acclaimed and fascinating memoir tells the tale of a young boy's life in Nebraska, his journey as a young man into the dangers of Vietnam and finally to the Nixon White House. As much a story of the American heartland at mid-century as it is a story of a man who rebuilt his life after it was wrenched awry by war. photo insert.
Download or read book The CIA as Organized Crime written by Douglas Valentine and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2016-11-28 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides insight into the paradigmatic approaches evolved by CIA decades ago in Vietnam which remain operational practices today in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Valentine’s research into CIA activities began when CIA Director William Colby gave him free access to interview CIA officials who had been involved in various aspects of the Phoenix program in South Vietnam. The CIA would rescind it, making every effort to impede publication of The Phoenix Program, which documented the CIA’s elaborate system of population surveillance, control, entrapment, imprisonment, torture and assassination in Vietnam. While researching Phoenix, Valentine learned that the CIA allowed opium and heroin to flow from its secret bases in Laos, to generals and politicians on its payroll in South Vietnam. His investigations into this illegal activity focused on the CIA’s relationship with the federal drugs agencies mandated by Congress to stop illegal drugs from entering the United States. Based on interviews with senior officials, Valentine wrote two subsequent books, The Strength of the Wolf and The Strength of the Pack, showing how the CIA infiltrated federal drug law enforcement agencies and commandeered their executive management, intelligence and foreign operations staffs in order to ensure that the flow of drugs continues unimpeded to traffickers and foreign officials in its employ. Ultimately, portions of his research materials would be archived at the National Security Archive, Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center, and John Jay College. This book includes excerpts from the above titles along with updated articles and transcripts of interviews on a range of current topics, with a view to shedding light on the systemic dimensions of the CIA’s ongoing illegal and extra-legal activities. These terrorism and drug law enforcement articles and interviews illustrate how the CIA’s activities impact social and political movements abroad and in the United States. A common theme is the CIA’s ability to deceive and propagandize the American public through its impenetrable government-sanctioned shield of official secrecy and plausible deniability. Though investigated by the Church Committee in 1975, CIA praxis then continues to inform CIA praxis now. Valentine tracks its steady infiltration into practices targeting the last population to be subjected to the exigencies of the American empire: the American people.
Download or read book The My Lai Massacre in American History and Memory written by Kendrick Oliver and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the response of American society to the My Lai massacre and its ambiguous place in American national memory. The author argues that the massacre revelations left many Americans untroubled. It was only when the soldiers most immediately responsible came to be tried that opposition to the conflict grew, for these prosecutions were regarded by supporters of the war as evidence that the national leaders no longer had the will to do what was necessary to win.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the War in Vietnam written by Ronald B. Frankum and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2011-06-10 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War altered forever the history, topography, people, economy, and politics of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), Cambodia, and Laos. That the war was controversial is an understatement as is the notion that the war can be understood from any one perspective. One way of understanding the Vietnam War is by marking its time with turning points, both major and minor, that involved events or decisions that helped to influence its course in the years to follow. By examining a few of these turning points, an organizational framework takes shape that makes understanding the war more possible. Historical Dictionary of the War in Vietnam emphasizes the international nature of the war, as well as provide a greater understanding of the long scope of the conflict. The major events associated with the war will serve as the foundation of the book while additional entries will explore the military, diplomatic, political, social, and cultural events that made the war unique. While military subjects will be fully explored, there will be greater attention to other aspects of the war. All of this is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Vietnam War.
Download or read book After Representation written by R. Clifton Spargo and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Representation? explores one of the major issues in Holocaust studiesùthe intersection of memory and ethics in artistic expression, particularly within literature. As experts in the study of literature and culture, the scholars in this collection examine the shifting cultural contexts for Holocaust representation and reveal how writersùwhether they write as witnesses to the Holocaust or at an imaginative distance from the Nazi genocideùarticulate the shadowy borderline between fact and fiction, between event and expression, and between the condition of life endured in atrocity and the hope of a meaningful existence. What imaginative literature brings to the study of the Holocaust is an ability to test the limits of language and its conventions. After Representation? moves beyond the suspicion of representation and explores the changing meaning of the Holocaust for different generations, audiences, and contexts.
Download or read book Vietnam Awakening written by Michael Uhl and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this vividly honest memoir, author Michael Uhl details his experiences in Vietnam as first lieutenant of a counterintelligence team attached to the 11th Infantry. Referencing his personal journal and wartime correspondence with friends and family, the author relives the most shocking events that he witnessed during his military service, including the abuse and torture of several Vietnamese civilians. In Part Two, the author outlines his years as an activist with the veterans' movement against the Vietnam War.
Download or read book Fire and Rain written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-02 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This gripping account interweaves Nixon and Kissinger's pursuit of the war in Southeast Asia and their diplomacy with the Soviet Union and China with on-the-ground military events and US domestic reactions to the war conducted in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Fire and Rain is a compelling, meticulous narrative of the way national security decisions formed at the highest levels of government affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. By drawing these connections, Carolyn Woods Eisenberg brings to life policy decisions about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, conveying their significance to a new generation of readers. She breaks fresh ground in contextualizing Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's decisions within a wider institutional and societal framework. While recognizing the distinctive personalities and ideas of these two men, this study more broadly conveys the competing roles and impact of the professional military, the Congress, and a mobilized peace movement. Drawing upon a vast collection of declassified documents, Eisenberg presents an important re-interpretation of the Nixon Administration's relations with the Soviet Union and China vis a vis the war in Southeast Asia. She argues that in their desperate effort to overcome, or at least overshadow, their failure in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger made major concessions to both nations in the field of arms control, their response to the India-Pakistan war, and the diplomacy surrounding Taiwan--much of this secret. Despite policymakers' claims that the Vietnam War was a national security necessity that would demonstrate American strength to the communist superpowers and credibility to friendly governments, the historical record suggests a different reality. A half-century after the Paris Peace Conference marking the withdrawal of US troops and advisors from Vietnam and foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia, Fire and Rain is a dramatic account of geopolitical decision making, civil society, and the human toll of the war on the people of Southeast Asia.
Download or read book Deadly Contradictions written by Stephen P. Reyna and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As US imperialism continues to dictate foreign policy, Deadly Contradictions is a compelling account of the American empire. Stephen P. Reyna argues that contemporary forms of violence exercised by American elites in the colonies, client state, and regions of interest have deferred imperial problems, but not without raising their own set of deadly contradictions. This book can be read many ways: as a polemic against geopolitics, as a classic social anthropological text, or as a seminal analysis of twenty-four US global wars during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War 4 volumes written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-05-20 with total page 2040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its second edition, this comprehensive study of the Vietnam War sheds more light on the longest and one of the most controversial conflicts in U.S. history. The Vietnam War lasted more than a decade, was the longest war in U.S. history, and cost the lives of nearly 60,000 American soldiers, as well as millions of Vietnamese—many of whom were uninvolved civilians. The lessons learned from this tragic conflict continue to have great relevance in today's world. Now in its second edition, The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History adds an entire additional volume of entries to the already exhaustive first edition, making it the most comprehensive reference available about one of the most controversial events in U.S. history. Written to provide multidimensional perspectives into the conflict, it covers not only the American experience in Vietnam, but also the entire scope of Vietnamese history, including the French experience and the Indochina War, as well as the origins of the conflict, how the United States became involved, and the extensive aftermath of this prolonged war. It also provides the most complete and accurate order of battle ever published, based upon data compiled from Vietnamese sources. This latest release delivers even more of what readers have come to expect from the editorship of Spencer C. Tucker and the military history experts at ABC-CLIO.
Download or read book Vi t Nam written by Ben Kiernan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive work traces Viet Nam's history, a narrative of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious heritage, from ancient chiefdoms to imperial provinces, from independent kingdoms to contending regions, civil wars, French colonies, and modern republics.
Download or read book Don t Thank Me For My Service written by S. Brian Willson and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viet Nam veteran S. Brian Willson was so shocked by the diabolical nature of the US war against Viet Nam -- irreversible knowledge, as he describes it -- and his own appalling ignorance from his cultural conditioning, that it sparked a lifetime of anti-war activism. This toxic jolt awakened him to the extent to which he and generations of American citizens had thoughtlessly succumbed to the relentless barrage of lies and propaganda that infest US American culture—from the military and political parties to religious institutions, academic and educational institutions, sports, fraternal and professional associations, the scientific community, the economic system, and all our entertainment—that seek to rationalize its otherwise inexplicable and morally repulsive behavior globally and at home. US American history reveals a unifying theme: prosperity for a few through expansion at any cost, to preserve the “exceptional” American Way of Life (AWOL). This has been structurally guided and facilitated by our nation’s founding documents, including the US Constitution. From the beginning, the US was envisaged as a White male supremacist state serving to protect and advance the interests of private and commercial property. The US-waged war in Viet Nam was not an aberration, but one of hundreds in a long pattern of brutal exploitation. A quick review of the empirical record reveals close to 600 overt military interventions by the US into dozens of countries since 1798, almost 400 since the end of World War II alone, and thousands of covert interventions since 1947. This history overwhelms any rhetoric about the United States as a beacon of freedom and democracy, committed to promoting domestic and global equal justice under law. These interventions have assured de facto subsidies for US American interests, regulated global markets on our terms, and provided us with access to cheap or free labor and to raw materials. Millions of people around the globe have been murdered with virtual impunity as a result of our interventions in a pattern that illustrates what Noam Chomsky calls the “Fifth Freedom”—the freedom to rob and exploit. This freedom is ultimately protected with use of force when a country or movement seeks to protect or advance the domestic needs and desires of its members or citizens for political freedom or economic wellbeing. This book provides an invaluable tool for today’s activists,however they may be similarly shocked into wakefulness.
Download or read book US Navy Special Warfare Units in Korea and Vietnam written by Eugene Liptak and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Korean War and the Vietnam War, US Navy Special Warfare units played a variety of vital combat roles amid two of the deadliest conflicts of the Cold War. In Korea, underwater demolition teams (UDTs) surveyed beaches for amphibious operations, cleared sea mines from harbors, conducted seaborne raids against inshore targets, and served as scouts for the infiltration of Korean guerrillas and British Royal Marine Commando raids along the North Korean coast. In South Vietnam, UDTs surveyed beaches and demolished Viet Cong bunkers, supply caches, and river obstacles in the Mekong Delta. The SEALs (Sea Air Land teams) deployed entire platoons into the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Viet Cong that included ambushes, reconnaissance, and capturing leaders and supply caches. In addition, the SEALs also played important roles in the Phoenix Program and in rescuing prisoners of war. Fully illustrated throughout, this study explores how the US Navy's specially trained naval commandos accomplished their missions in Korea and Vietnam.
Download or read book Fighting Elites written by John C. Fredriksen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-12-12 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Army Rangers to Green Berets to the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden, this book explains what makes Special Forces "special," covering the rich and varied history of elite formations in American military history and describing their recruitment, intense training, and equipment in depth. Most civilians have only a vague idea of what the U.S. Special Forces are all about—who they are, how they differ from our "normal" military forces, what they've accomplished throughout our history, and how they operate today. Fighting Elites: A History of U.S. Special Forces examines the rich and varied history of U.S. Special Forces, identifies their contributions to specific conflicts from colonial times forward, and highlights their present operational excellence. In this first-ever reference guide to U.S. Special Forces, military historian John C. Fredriksen provides a carefully balanced presentation, describing all units in their own detailed section that discusses their origins, recruitment, training, tactics, and equipment, and defining military engagements, if known. The text also contains 20 biographical entries of noted personalities associated with special purpose activities.
