Download or read book Vietnam Rough Riders written by Frank McAdams and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Black smoke drifted about the scene. The first thing I noticed was the huge crater yawning next to the damaged truck." In the Vietnam War, American "rough riders" drove trucks through hostile territory delivering supplies, equipment, ammunition, weapons, fuel, and reinforcements to troops fighting on the war's ever-shifting front lines. But, all too often, the convoys themselves became the front lines. Frank McAdams, a Marine Corps lieutenant, learned that the hard way during a tour of duty that began right after the 1968 Tet Offensive and the siege at Khe Sanh. In this compelling memoir he recounts his personal battles-not only with a dangerous enemy but also with an incompetent superior and a sometimes indifferent military bureaucracy. A decidedly different take on the Vietnam experience, his chronicle focuses on the ambush-prone truck convoys that snaked their way through dangerous terrain in narrow mountain passes and overgrown jungles. When an ambush occurred, strong leadership and quick thinking were required of officers like McAdams to protect both the convoy's mission and the lives of its men. McAdams describes convoys he led through hot zones like the notorious "Ambush Alley" stretching from Danang through Hai Van Pass to Phu Bai in the north, and the provincial area in the south known as "the Arizona" that surrounded the villages of Phu Loc and An Hoa. He also highlights the fierce three-day firefight that ensnared him and his men near the Song Cau Du River at Hoa Vang, and provides a particularly gripping account of the fighting at Thuong Duc. McAdams deals frankly with his fraught dealings with a commanding officer whose ineptness and treatment of his troops made the CO fear for his own life. And he writes movingly of his wife's love and encouragement in the face of an emotionally tough separation and also of his difficulty in re-engaging with life stateside. Fast-paced and compulsively readable, his book offers an insightful look at a largely neglected aspect of the Vietnam War, while reminding us of how frequently the crucible of war reveals one's true character.
Download or read book No Shining Armor written by Otto J. Lehrack and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the Vietnam War, as seen by the American PFCs, sergeants and platoon leaders in the rivers and jungles and trenches. Into their stories, Lehrack has woven a narrative that explains the events they describe and places them into both a historical and a political context.
Download or read book The Crowded Hour written by Clay Risen and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2019 SELECTION The dramatic story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century. When America declared war on Spain in 1898, the US Army had just 26,000 men, spread around the country—hardly an army at all. In desperation, the Rough Riders were born. A unique group of volunteers, ranging from Ivy League athletes to Arizona cowboys and led by Theodore Roosevelt, they helped secure victory in Cuba in a series of gripping, bloody fights across the island. Roosevelt called their charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill his “crowded hour”—a turning point in his life, one that led directly to the White House. “The instant I received the order,” wrote Roosevelt, “I sprang on my horse and then my ‘crowded hour’ began.” As The Crowded Hour reveals, it was a turning point for America as well, uniting the country and ushering in a new era of global power. Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates a disproportionately influential moment in American history: a war of only six months’ time that dramatically altered the United States’ standing in the world. In this brilliant, enlightening narrative, the Rough Riders—and a country on the brink of a new global dominance—are brought fully and gloriously to life.
Download or read book Ripley s Raiders Vietnam Chronicles written by Russell J Jewett and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How familiar is this? You attend a reunion and inevitably several members recollecting a significant event begin arguing over when that event actually occurred. As you listen to them debating over the circumstances you realize that neither has a clue as to the facts or sequence of events. Since 2003 I have attended Third Battalion Third Marines Viet Nam Era reunions and listened to my fellow warriors of Lima Company recollecting stories of our glory days. I noticed that every year the details of events became more and more obscure. Of course one could consult the official Command Chronologies, but not everyone has access to them. Even if you do have access to this information, it takes time to wade through all the data; a task that the average individual would find tedious. Some of the copies of the Command Chronologies are almost unreadable due to poor quality reproduction methods used. Wouldn't it be helpful if all the information was assembled in one area and available for quick reference? This project was an answer to that problem. I started with the Lima Company roster for the end of February 1967, which listed all the members of Company Lima that participated in the battles with the North Vietnamese Army during the first five days of March for which we acquired the tag of "Ripley's Raiders". I then determined the Marine who had been with the unit the longest and the Marine who had been there the least length of time. My goal for this project was to chronicle all the entries I could find on Lima Company during their tours of duty. This required compiling information for a period of twenty eight months: December 1966 thru March 1968. I included the names of all other members of Lima Company during this time frame to act as memory joggers for the reader. I accessed the National Archives on line and in thirteen months transcribed everything I could find from the Command Chronologies into one chronological record of the events experienced by the members of Ripley's Raiders.
Download or read book Blackhorse Riders written by Philip Keith and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2013 Silver Medal in History from the Military Writer's Society of America Finalist, 2013 Colby Award Winner of the 2012 USA Best Book Award for Military History Philip Keith's Blackhorse Riders is the incredible true story of a brave military unit in Vietnam that risked everything to rescue an outnumbered troop under heavy fire—and the thirty-nine-year odyssey to recognize their bravery. Deep in the jungles of Vietnam, Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, the famed Blackhorse Regiment, was a specialized cavalry outfit equipped with tanks and armored assault vehicles. On the morning of March 26, 1970, they began hearing radio calls from an infantry unit four kilometers away that had stumbled into a hidden North Vietnamese Army stronghold. Outnumbered at least six to one, the ninety-man American company was quickly surrounded, pinned down, and fighting for its existence. Helicopters could not penetrate the dense jungle, and artillery and air support could not be targeted effectively. The company was fated to be worn down and eventually all killed or captured. Overhearing the calls for help on his radio, Captain John Poindexter, Alpha Troop's twenty-five-year-old commander, realized that his outfit was the only hope for the trapped company. It just might be possible that they could "bust" enough jungle by nightfall to reach them. Not making the attempt was deemed unacceptable, so he ordered his men to "saddle up." With the courage and determination that makes legends out of ordinary men, they effected a daring rescue and fought a pitched battle—at considerable cost. Many brave deeds were done that day and Captain Poindexter tried to make sure his men were recognized for their actions. Thirty years later Poindexter was made aware that his award recommendations and even the records of the battle had somehow gone missing. Thus began the second phase of this remarkable story: a "battle" to ensure that his brave men's accomplishments would never be forgotten again. The full circle was completed when President Obama stepped to the podium on October 20, 2009, to award the Alpha Troop with the Presidential Unit Citation: the highest combat award that can be given to a military unit.
Download or read book Seven Firefights in Vietnam written by John A. Cash and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1993-07 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on official army records, these eyewitness accounts of seven hellacious battles serve as a brief history of the Vietnam conflict. From a fierce fight on the banks of the Ia Drang River in 1965 to a 1968 gunship mission, this illustrated report conveys the heroism and horror of warfare.
Download or read book Charging Up San Juan Hill written by John R. Van Atta and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Sheds new light on the history of Theodore Roosevelt and the legendary exploits of his illustrious ‘cowboy’ regiment?the Rough Riders.” —Bonnie M. Miller, author of From Liberation to Conquest At the turn of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt personified American confidence. A New York City native and recovered asthmatic who spent his twenties in the wilds of the Dakota Territory, Roosevelt leapt into Spanish American War with gusto. He organized a band of cavalry volunteers he called the Rough Riders and, on July 1, 1898, took part in their charge up a Cuban hill the newspapers called San Juan, launching him to national prominence. Without San Juan, Van Atta argues, Roosevelt—whom the papers credited for the victory and lauded as a paragon of manhood—would never have reached a position to become president. In Charging Up San Juan Hill, John R. Van Atta recounts that pivotal assault by Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Describing the battle’s background and its ramifications for Roosevelt, both personal and political, Van Atta explains how Roosevelt’s wartime experience prompted him to champion American involvement in world affairs. Tracking Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency, this book argues that the global expansion of American influence—indeed, the building of an empire outward from a strengthened core of shared values at home—connected to the broader question of cultural sustainability as much as it did to the increasing of trade, political power, and military might. “Van Atta adeptly links Roosevelt’s deep immersion in Western American culture to his investment in American imperialism in a readable cultural and military history . . . a worthy addition to the shelves of Western historians.” —Western Historical Quarterly
Download or read book Rough Riders written by Mark Lee Gardner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE AWARD-WINNING, NEW DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF TEDDY ROOSEVELT AND THE ROUGH RIDERS "Thrilling. ... A CLASSIC." —True West WINNER: Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award; New Mexico-Arizona Book Award; and Colorado Book Award The now-legendary Rough Riders were a volunteer regiment recruited in 1898 to help drive the Spaniards out of Cuba. Drawn from America’s southwestern territories and led by the irrepressible Theodore Roosevelt, these men included not only cowboys and other Westerners, but also several Ivy Leaguers and clubmen, many of them friends of “TR.” Roosevelt and his men quickly came to symbolize American ruggedness, daring, and individualism. He led them to victory in the famed Battle of San Juan Hill, which made TR a national hero and cemented the Rough Riders’ iconic place in history. Now Mark Lee Gardner synthesizes previously unknown primary accounts—private letters, diaries, and period newspaper reports from public and private archives across the country—to breathe fresh life into the Rough Riders and pay tribute to their daring feats and indomitable leader.
Download or read book Ride the Thunder written by Richard Botkin and published by Wnd Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the heroic efforts of American and Vietnamese Marines who fought against the communist invasion of South Vietnam known as the Easter Offensive of 1972.
Download or read book U S Marines In Vietnam The Landing And The Buildup 1965 written by Dr. Jack Shulimson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.
Download or read book Easy Riders Raging Bulls written by Peter Biskind and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-12-13 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. An unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (onscreen and off), Easy Rider heralded a heady decade in which a rebellious wave of talented young filmmakers invigorated the movie industry. In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind takes us on the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s, an era that produced such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Shampoo, Nashville, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls vividly chronicles the exuberance and excess of the times: the startling success of Easy Rider and the equally alarming circumstances under which it was made, with drugs, booze, and violent rivalry between costars Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda dominating the set; how a small production company named BBS became the guiding spirit of the youth rebellion in Hollywood and how, along the way, some of its executives helped smuggle Huey Newton out of the country; how director Hal Ashby was busted for drugs and thrown in jail in Toronto; why Martin Scorsese attended the Academy Awards with an FBI escort when Taxi Driver was nominated; how George Lucas, gripped by anxiety, compulsively cut off his own hair while writing Star Wars, how a modest house on Nicholas Beach occupied by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt became the unofficial headquarters for the New Hollywood; how Billy Friedkin tried to humiliate Paramount boss Barry Diller; and how screenwriter/director Paul Schrader played Russian roulette in his hot tub. It was a time when an "anything goes" experimentation prevailed both on the screen and off. After the success of Easy Rider, young film-school graduates suddenly found themselves in demand, and directors such as Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese became powerful figures. Even the new generation of film stars -- Nicholson, De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, and Dunaway -- seemed a breed apart from the traditional Hollywood actors. Ironically, the renaissance would come to an end with Jaws and Star Wars, hugely successful films that would create a blockbuster mentality and crush innovation. Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywood's last golden age. Never before have so many celebrities talked so frankly about one another and about the drugs, sex, and money that made so many of them crash and burn. By turns hilarious and shocking, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the ultimate behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood at work and play.
Download or read book Roughest Riders written by Jerome Tuccille and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring story of the first African American soldiers to serve during the postslavery eraMany have heard how Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War. But often forgotten in the great swamp of history is that Roosevelt's success was ensured by a dedicated corps of black soldiers—the so-called Buffalo Soldiers—who fought by Roosevelt's side during his legendary campaign. This book tells their story. They fought heroically and courageously, making Roosevelt's campaign a great success that added to the future president's legend as a great man of words and action. But most of all, they demonstrated their own military prowess, often in the face of incredible discrimination from their fellow soldiers and commanders, to secure their own place in American history.
Download or read book Gunfighter Nation written by Richard Slotkin and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the ways in which the frontier myth influences American culture and politics, drawing on fiction, western films, and political writing
Download or read book Much Ado About Nothing written by Alison Findlay and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook provides an introductory guide to Much Ado About Nothing offering a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, contextual documents, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key productions, a survey of film and TV adaptation, a wide sampling of critical opinion and further reading.
Download or read book The Rough Riders written by Theodore Roosevelt and published by New York : C. Scribner's Sons. This book was released on 1899 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a pocket diary from the Spanish-American War, this tough-as-nails 1899 memoir abounds in patriotic valor and launched the future President into the American consciousness.
Download or read book American Crucible written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the "right" ancestry? Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society. After Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders to victory during the Spanish American War, he boasted of the diversity of his men's origins- from the Kentucky backwoods to the Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods of northeastern cities. Roosevelt’s vision of a hybrid and superior “American race,” strengthened by war, would inspire the social, diplomatic, and economic policies of American liberals for decades. And yet, for all of its appeal to the civic principles of inclusion, this liberal legacy was grounded in “Anglo-Saxon” culture, making it difficult in particular for Jews and Italians and especially for Asians and African Americans to gain acceptance. Gerstle weaves a compelling story of events, institutions, and ideas that played on perceptions of ethnic/racial difference, from the world wars and the labor movement to the New Deal and Hollywood to the Cold War and the civil rights movement. We witness the remnants of racial thinking among such liberals as FDR and LBJ; we see how Italians and Jews from Frank Capra to the creators of Superman perpetuated the New Deal philosophy while suppressing their own ethnicity; we feel the frustrations of African-American servicemen denied the opportunity to fight for their country and the moral outrage of more recent black activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Malcolm X. Gerstle argues that the civil rights movement and Vietnam broke the liberal nation apart, and his analysis of this upheaval leads him to assess Reagan’s and Clinton’s attempts to resurrect nationalism. Can the United States ever live up to its civic creed? For anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic, this book is must reading. Containing a new chapter that reconstructs and dissects the major struggles over race and nation in an era defined by the War on Terror and by the presidency of Barack Obama, American Crucible is a must-read for anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic.
Download or read book The Naturalist written by Darrin P. Lunde and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A biography of Theodore Roosevelt focusing on his career as a naturalist, his role as a pioneer for wilderness engagement, and an early advocate for museum building"--
