Download or read book Ghosts of War in Vietnam written by Heonik Kwon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-22 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a fascinating study of the Vietnamese experience and memory of the Vietnam War through the lens of popular imaginings about the wandering souls of the war dead. These ghosts of war play an important part in postwar Vietnamese historical narrative and imagination and Heonik Kwon explores the intimate ritual ties with these unsettled identities which still survive in Vietnam today as well as the actions of those who hope to liberate these hidden but vital historical presences from their uprooted social existence. Taking a unique approach to the cultural history of war, he introduces gripping stories about spirits claiming social justice and about his own efforts to wrestle with the physical and spiritual presence of ghosts. Although these actions are fantastical, this book shows how examining their stories can illuminate critical issues of war and collective memory in Vietnam and the modern world more generally.

Download or read book Ghosts and Shadows written by Phil Ball and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego ill-prepared for the training and abuse that awaited him in boot camp. At the time, he would have done anything to escape; only upon reflection years later did he realize that the self-confidence instilled in him by his drill instructors had probably saved his life in Vietnam. A few months after boot camp, Private Ball was shipped out to Vietnam, joining F Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, near Khe Sanh. As a grunt, in the vernacular of the Corps, Ball, like the other youths of F Company, did a difficult and deadly job in such places as the A Shau Valley, Leatherneck Square, the DMZ and other obscure but critical I Corps locales. His--their--fear of death mingled with homesickness. Little did they realize that the horrors of the Vietnam War--horrors that while in-country they often claimed did not even exist--would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Download or read book The Ghosts of Thua Thien written by John A. Nesser and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drafted in October 1968, John A. Nesser left behind his wife and young son to fight in the controversial Vietnam War. Like many in his generation, he was deeply at odds with himself over the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, instilled with a strong sense of duty to his country but uncertain about its mission and his role in it. Nesser was deployed to the Ashau Valley, site of some of the war's heaviest fighting, and served eight months as an infantry rifleman before transferring to become a door gunner for a Chinook helicopter. In this stirring memoir, he recalls in detail the exhausting missions in the mountainous jungle, the terror of walking into an ambush, the dull-edged anxiety that filled quiet days, and the steady fear of being shot out of the sky. The accounts are richly illustrated with Nesser's own photographs of the military firebases and aircraft, the landscapes, and the people he encountered.

Download or read book Vietnam Shadows written by Arnold R. Isaacs and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2000-04-14 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaacs talks to the veterans unable to forget the war no one wanted to talk about. He explores the class divisions deepened by a conflict in which the privileged avoided service that an earlier generation had embraced as a duty. And he shows how the "Vietnam Syndrome" continues to affect nearly every major U.S. foreign policy decision, from the Persion Gulf to Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti.

Download or read book Ghosts in the Landscape written by Alison Devine Nordström and published by Umbrage Editions. This book was released on 2006 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After serving in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, photographer Craig Barber returns twenty-eight years later to a country that he first saw through the eyes of combat. Haunted by the deaths he witnessed, Barber carries his memories of being eighteen with a taunting bull's-eye painted on his helmet, the smell of smoldering bombs, and the cries of the dying back to Vietnam in order to put his ghosts to rest. In the Vietnamese countryside, he captures the healing landscapes with bomb craters turned into fish-rearing ponds and watering reservoirs, metal sections from former airstrip runways transformed into window grates, and shell casings functioning as fence posts. An essay by Alison Devine Nordstrom, Curator of Photographs at the George Eastman House, Rochester, offers insight into photography's role in unlayering the past."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Grey Ghosts written by Deborah Challinor and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'We were known to the enemy as "grey ghosts". We could be here, and we could be there.' - 'Sniper' "We were known to the enemy as 'grey ghosts'. We could be here, and we could be there . . . " the Grey Ghosts were New Zealand's Vietnam veterans. their powerful story includes chilling accounts of death, injuries and emotional breakdown, along with the intense comradeship of soldiering, and a pervasive sense of humour that is uniquely our own. Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah Challinor interviewed 50 men who served in Vietnam, who speak out about 'fragging' (killing superior officers), the New Zealand Government's role in Agent Orange and chemical exposure, and their hostile reception when they returned. the result is compelling, reliving the Vietnam experience in vivid detail. First published in 1998, this updated edition includes new material on the subsequent handling of veterans' claims, and the reconciliation parade on Queen's Birthday weekend in 2008, when the men were finally welcomed home.

Download or read book Haunting Legacy written by Marvin Kalb and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States had never lost a war—that is, until 1975, when it was forced to flee Saigon in humiliation after losing to what Lyndon Johnson called a "raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country." The legacy of this first defeat has haunted every president since, especially on the decision of whether to put "boots on the ground" and commit troops to war. In Haunting Legacy, the father-daughter journalist team of Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb presents a compelling, accessible, and hugely important history of presidential decisionmaking on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam debacle, under what circumstances should the United States go to war? The sobering lesson of Vietnam is that the United States is not invincible—it can lose a war—and thus it must be more discriminating about the use of American power. Every president has faced the ghosts of Vietnam in his own way, though each has been wary of being sucked into another unpopular war. Ford (during the Mayaguez crisis) and both Bushes (Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan) deployed massive force, as if to say, "Vietnam, be damned." On the other hand, Carter, Clinton, and Reagan (to the surprise of many) acted with extreme caution, mindful of the Vietnam experience. Obama has also wrestled with the Vietnam legacy, using doses of American firepower in Libya while still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authors spent five years interviewing hundreds of officials from every post war administration and conducting extensive research in presidential libraries and archives, and they've produced insight and information never before published. Equal parts taut history, revealing biography, and cautionary tale, Haunting Legacy is must reading for anyone trying to understand the power of the past to influence war-and-peace decisions of the present, and of the future.

Download or read book The Living Ghosts written by Weston Fisher and published by . This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 50 years after the Vietnam War this soldier/father/hero is getting help with his PTSD through a modern invention. Explore seven years of recalled events from one of Vietnam's bloodiest battles at LZ Grant, horrific memories he now says are more manageable because of Social Media. Read the fascinating story today.The Living Ghosts as explained by Rick Griffith... "Social media is emerging as a mental medicine of sorts, a salve that soothes the soul; for many, it keeps the PTSD demons at bay. It's a new way of journaling, a tool the psychological community has long touted as a means of mental housekeeping. For some, it's a slick and easy way to chip away at the horrors of war so often locked up in the depths of one's brain.Think of your own family and friends who know the hideous nature of war firsthand. How often have you heard this phrase? "He can't talk about it." The old warriors know it as shell-shock. The younger ones call it PTSD. The brain is struggling to fit the multitude of hideous memories, sights, sounds, odors, pain, and suffering into some semblance of the old self. It has been 50 years since fun loving, ever smiling Del Mar beach boy Howard Fisher nearly bought the farm at LZ Grant (Vietnam). Not once in all that time did I ask him about his injuries or experiences in Viet Nam. Not once did I look AT his horribly disfigured face. One could not get past his eyes -- so brilliant, so full of life. His broad smile shone through as before albeit misshapen and without many teeth. Fisher once quipped to a film crew, "I always thought it would be sort of cool to have some sort of battle scar, just not there." Few people would be able to joke about losing their lower jaw. This speaks volumes of the man's spirit, his zest for life, his zeal to survive. Oddly, in all these years I was oblivious to his PTSD, and all that comes with it. I only learned of Fisher's psychological scars through his abundant, succinct social media postings."

Download or read book The Frangipani Hotel written by Violet Kupersmith and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinarily compelling debut—ghost stories that grapple with the legacy of the Vietnam War A beautiful young woman appears fully dressed in an overflowing bathtub at the Frangipani Hotel in Hanoi. A jaded teenage girl in Houston befriends an older Vietnamese gentleman she discovers naked behind a dumpster. A trucker in Saigon is asked to drive a dying young man home to his village. A plump Vietnamese-American teenager is sent to her elderly grandmother in Ho Chi Minh City to lose weight, only to be lured out of the house by the wafting aroma of freshly baked bread. In these evocative and always surprising stories, the supernatural coexists with the mundane lives of characters who struggle against the burdens of the past. Based on traditional Vietnamese folk tales told to Kupersmith by her grandmother, these fantastical, chilling, and thoroughly contemporary stories are a boldly original exploration of Vietnamese culture, addressing both the immigrant experience and the lives of those who remained behind. Lurking in the background of them all is a larger ghost—that of the Vietnam War, whose legacy continues to haunt us. Violet Kupersmith’s voice is an exciting addition to the landscape of American fiction. With tremendous depth and range, her stories transcend their genre to make a wholly original statement about the postwar experience. Praise for The Frangipani Hotel “[A] subversively clever debut collection . . . These stories—playful, angry, at times legitimately scary—demonstrate a subtlety of purpose that belies [Kupersmith’s] youth.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magical, beautiful, modern stories, all based on traditional Vietnamese folktales, [The Frangipani Hotel] invokes the ghosts of the land that was left behind.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[A] sparkling debut . . . playful and wise, an astonishing feat for a young writer.”—Chicago Tribune “A series of short stories that are as fresh as they are mesmerizing, The Frangipani Hotel will haunt you long after the last words have drifted off the page.”—Lisa See “Auspicious . . . wildly energetic.”—Elle “Enthralling stories . . . teeming with detail and personality.”—Asian Review of Books “Chilling and lovely . . . Kupersmith has combined traditional storytelling with a post-modern sense of anxiety and darkness, and the result is captivating.”—Bookreporter “The stories shimmer with life. . . . Kupersmith [is] one to watch.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Download or read book Build Your House Around My Body written by Violet Kupersmith and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this ingenious novel spins half a century of Vietnamese history and folklore into “a thrilling read, acrobatic and filled with verve” (The New York Times Editors’ Choice). FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION’S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews “Fiction as daring and accomplished as Violet Kupersmith’s first novel reignites my love of the form and its kaleidoscopic possibilities.”—David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge. 1986: The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family loses her way in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed. 2011: A young, unhappy Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace. The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Alongside them, we meet a young boy who is sent to a boarding school for the métis children of French expatriates, just before Vietnam declares its independence from colonial rule; two Frenchmen who are trying to start a business with the Vietnam War on the horizon; and the employees of the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co., who find themselves investigating strange occurrences in a farmhouse on the edge of a forest. Each new character and timeline brings us one step closer to understanding what binds them all. Build Your House Around My Body takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.

Download or read book War and Shadows written by Mai Lan Gustafsson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vietnamese culture and religious traditions place the utmost importance on dying well: in old age, body unblemished, with surviving children, and properly buried and mourned. More than five million people were killed in the Vietnam War, many of them young, many of them dying far from home. Another 300,000 are still missing. Having died badly, they are thought to have become angry ghosts, doomed to spend eternity in a kind of spirit hell. Decades after the war ended, many survivors believe that the spirits of those dead and missing have returned to haunt their loved ones. In War and Shadows, the anthropologist Mai Lan Gustafsson tells the story of the anger of these spirits and the torments of their kin. Gustafsson's rich ethnographic research allows her to bring readers into the world of spirit possession, focusing on the source of the pain, the physical and mental anguish the spirits bring, and various attempts to ameliorate their anger through ritual offerings and the intervention of mediums. Through a series of personal life histories, she chronicles the variety of ailments brought about by the spirits' wrath, from headaches and aching limbs (often the same limb lost by a loved one in battle) to self-mutilation. In Gustafsson's view, the Communist suppression of spirit-based religion after the fall of Saigon has intensified anxieties about the well-being of the spirit world. While shrines and mourning are still allowed, spirit mediums were outlawed and driven underground, along with many of the other practices that might have provided some comfort. Despite these restrictions, she finds, victims of these hauntings do as much as possible to try to lay their ghosts to rest.

Download or read book Vietnam in Iraq written by David Ryan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-01-24 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than most post-1970 conflicts involving US forces, the conflict in Iraq has been fought out against a background of frequently invoked memories from the era of the Vietnam War. The essays in this book offer a series of perspectives on connections and parallels between the Vietnam War and the 2003 invasion of, and conflict in, Iraq. The contributors particularly examine the impact of the Vietnam analogy on the War in Iraq, assessing the military tactical lessons learned from the Vietnam War and exploring the influence and persistence of its legacy in US politics, culture and diplomacy. The volume holds up to original interrogation some commonly held assumptions about historical analogy, and several distinguished authorities on the Vietnam War era, in particular, offer their thoughts on the value and applicability of Vietnam-Iraq parallels. If most contributions point out some obvious dissimilarities between the two eras, notably the transformed post-Cold War international environment, the similarities, particularly those relating to the problems of cultural misunderstanding, are also apparent. Vietnam in Iraq will be of great interest for all students and researchers of the Iraq War, strategic studies, international relations and American politics.

Download or read book Ghost Platoon written by Frank Walker and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'thoroughly researched and compelling . . . a chilling account' - The Sun Herald An eye-opening account of Australian combat history, untold . . . until now. In 1969 a ragtag unit of 39 men were thrown together at Nui Dat, Vietnam. It was so slapdash a group it didn't even have an officer or sergeant in charge. A rugged ex-Royal Marine stepped forward to take the lead. Jim Riddle was only an acting corporal but he knew enough of war to keep these young diggers alive. When the platoon was involved in a high-risk ambush Riddle proved his leadership skills, bringing his men through unscathed and leaving the battlefield littered with enemy bodies. Despite their success, immediately afterwards the platoon was disbanded. According to the army they'd never existed ? theirs was a ghost platoon. Frank Walker details what happened at that ambush and why the army buried their existence, and the secrets that went with it. His findings are a shocking indictment of the long-term effects of war. The men of the platoon ? who'd fought so hard for their country ? had to fight again to reveal the truth. But the price they all paid was far too high. Ghost Platoon is a gripping story of the soldiers who should never be forgotten . . . or denied.

Download or read book 10 000 Days of Thunder written by Philip Caputo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the war that lasted ten thousand days. The war that inspired scores of songs. The war that sparked dozens of riots. And in this stirring chronicle, Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Philip Caputo writes about our country's most controversial war -- the Vietnam War -- for young readers. From the first stirrings of unrest in Vietnam under French colonial rule, to American intervention, to the battle at Hamburger Hill, to the Tet Offensive, to the fall of Saigon, 10,000 Days of Thunder explores the war that changed the lives of a generation of Americans and that still reverberates with us today. Included within 10,000 Days of Thunder are personal anecdotes from soldiers and civilians, as well as profiles and accounts of the actions of many historical luminaries, both American and Vietnamese, involved in the Vietnam War, such as Richard M. Nixon, General William C. Westmoreland, Ho Chi Minh, Joe Galloway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson, and General Vo Nguyen Giap. Caputo also explores the rise of Communism in Vietnam, the roles that women played on the battlefield, the antiwar movement at home, the participation of Vietnamese villagers in the war, as well as the far-reaching impact of the war's aftermath. Caputo's dynamic narrative is highlighted by stunning photographs and key campaign and battlefield maps, making 10,000 Days of Thunder THE consummate book on the Vietnam War for kids.

Download or read book The Refugees written by Viet Thanh Nguyen and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Beautiful and heartrending” fiction set in Vietnam and America from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker) In these powerful stories, written over a period of twenty years and set in both Vietnam and America, Viet Thanh Nguyen paints a vivid portrait of the experiences of people leading lives between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. This incisive collection by the National Book Award finalist and celebrated author of The Committed gives voice to the hopes and expectations of people making life-changing decisions to leave one country for another, and the rifts in identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family that accompany relocation. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her with a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of migration. “Terrific.” —Chicago Tribune “An important and incisive book.” —The Washington Post “An urgent, wonderful collection.” —NPR

Download or read book Lost at Khe Sanh Ghosts of War 2 written by Steve Watkins and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History comes alive -- with ghosts! Anderson finds himself drawn to the old trunk of military relics in the basement of his family's junk shop again. His friends Greg and Julie warn him to stay away from it, but he can't help himself. This time Anderson discovers an old grenade with a strange message scratched into it. But an old grenade is dangerous . . . especially when the ghost of a soldier appears, claiming that it's his lucky grenade from during his service in the Vietnam War. What does this ghost want from Anderson, Greg, and Julie? Is he here for their help - or for something more sinister? It's a race against time as the friends work to solve the mystery!

Download or read book The Things They Carried written by Tim O'Brien and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.