Death in the A Shau Valley

Death in the A Shau Valley PDF Author: Larry Chambers
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1101969563
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Featuring a new introduction by the author about his return to Vietnam, his reflections on the war, and his humanitarian work in Cambodia. “The enemy had a single purpose: kill me and my teammates.” Larry Chambers was still new to Vietnam in early 1969 when the LRRPs of the 101st Airborne Division became L Company, 75th (Rangers). But his unit’s mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley—where the NVA ruled. Relentless thick fog frequently made fighter bombers useless in the A Shau, and the enemy had furnished the nearby mountaintops with antiaircraft machine guns to protect the massive trail network that snaked through it. So, outgunned, outmanned, and unsupported, the teams of L Company executed hundreds of courageous missions. Now, in this powerful personal record, Larry Chambers recaptures the experience of the war’s most brutal on-the-job training, where the slightest noise or smallest error could bring sudden—and certain—death. . . .

Death in the A Shau Valley

Death in the A Shau Valley PDF Author: Larry Chambers
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1101969563
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Featuring a new introduction by the author about his return to Vietnam, his reflections on the war, and his humanitarian work in Cambodia. “The enemy had a single purpose: kill me and my teammates.” Larry Chambers was still new to Vietnam in early 1969 when the LRRPs of the 101st Airborne Division became L Company, 75th (Rangers). But his unit’s mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley—where the NVA ruled. Relentless thick fog frequently made fighter bombers useless in the A Shau, and the enemy had furnished the nearby mountaintops with antiaircraft machine guns to protect the massive trail network that snaked through it. So, outgunned, outmanned, and unsupported, the teams of L Company executed hundreds of courageous missions. Now, in this powerful personal record, Larry Chambers recaptures the experience of the war’s most brutal on-the-job training, where the slightest noise or smallest error could bring sudden—and certain—death. . . .

A Shau Valor

A Shau Valor PDF Author: Thomas R. Yarborough
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504037103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
From the author of Da Nang Diary: A military history of the Battle of Hamburger Hill and other fights between the NVA and the US and its Vietnamese allies. Throughout the Vietnam War, one focal point persisted where the Viet Cong guerrillas and Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) were not a major factor, but where the trained professionals of the North Vietnamese and US armies repeatedly fought head-to-head. A Shau Valor is a thorough study of nine years of American combat operations encompassing the crucial frontier valley and a fifteen-mile radius around it―the most deadly killing ground of the entire war. Beginning in 1963, Special Forces A-teams established camps along the valley floor, followed by a number of top-secret Project Delta reconnaissance missions through 1967. Then, US Army and Marine Corps maneuver battalions engaged in a series of sometimes-controversial thrusts into the A Shau, designed to disrupt NVA infiltrations and to kill enemy soldiers, part of what came to be known as Westmoreland’s “war of attrition.” The various campaigns included Operation Pirous (1967); Operations Delaware and Somerset Plain (1968); and Operations Dewey Canyon, Massachusetts Striker, and Apache Snow (1969)―which included the infamous battle for Hamburger Hill―culminating with Operation Texas Star and the vicious fight for and humiliating evacuation of Fire Support Base Ripcord in the summer of 1970, the last major US battle of the war. By 1971, the fighting had once again shifted to the realm of small Special Forces reconnaissance teams assigned to the ultra-secret Studies and Observations Group (SOG). Other works have focused on individual battles or units, but A Shau Valor is the first to study the campaign―for all its courage and sacrifice―chronologically and within the context of other historical, political, and cultural events.

Lurps

Lurps PDF Author: Robert C. Ankony
Publisher: Hamilton Books
ISBN: 0761843736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Lurps is the revised edition of the memoir of a juvenile delinquent who drops out of ninth grade to chase his dream of military service. After volunteering for Vietnam, he joins the elite U.S. Army LRRP/Rangers—small, heavily armed long-range reconnaissance teams that patrol deep in enemy-held territory. It is 1968, and the Lurps find themselves in some of the war's hairiest campaigns and battles, including Tet, Khe Sanh, and A Shau. Readers witness all the horrors, humor, adrenaline, and unexpected beauty through the eyes of a green young warrior. Gone are the heroic clichZs and bravado as compelling narrative and realistic dialogue sweep the reader along with a powerful sense that this is actually happening. This poignant coming-of-age story explores the social background that shaped the protagonist's thinking, his uncertain quest for redemption through increased responsibility, the brotherhood of comrades in arms, women and sexual awakening, and the baffling randomness of who lives and who dies.

Nam Sense

Nam Sense PDF Author: Arthur Wiknik
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1935149679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
A candid memoir of being sent to Vietnam at age nineteen, witnessing the carnage of Hamburger Hill, and returning to an America in turmoil. Arthur Wiknik was a teenager from New England when he was drafted into the US Army in 1968, shipping out to Vietnam early the following year. Shortly after his arrival on the far side of the world, he was assigned to Camp Evans near the northern village of Phong Dien, only thirty miles from Laos and North Vietnam. On his first jungle patrol, his squad killed a female Viet Cong who turned out to have been the local prostitute. It was the first dead person he had ever seen. Wiknik's account of life and death in Vietnam includes everything from heavy combat to faking insanity to get some R & R. He was the first in his unit to reach the top of Hamburger Hill, and between sporadic episodes of combat, he mingled with the locals; tricked unwitting US suppliers into providing his platoon with hard-to-get food; defied a superior and was punished with a dangerous mission; and struggled with himself and his fellow soldiers as the antiwar movement began to affect them. Written with honesty and sharp wit by a soldier who was featured on a recent History Channel documentary about Vietnam, Nam Sense spares nothing and no one in its attempt to convey what really transpired for the combat soldier during this unpopular war. It is not about glory, mental breakdowns, flashbacks, or self-pity. The GIs Wiknik lived and fought with during his yearlong tour were not drug addicts or war criminals or gung-ho killers. They were there to do their duty as they were trained, support their comrades—and get home alive. Recipient of an Honorable Mention from the Military Writers Society of America.

Fearful Odds

Fearful Odds PDF Author: Charles W Newhall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781633931343
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Fearful Odds is a no holds barred narrative told in three parts. It is the true story of a young Army officer, groomed for command and assigned to lead a platoon on a reconnaissance mission in the A Shau Valley, Vietnam in 1968. An otherwise routine mission is complicated by the contradiction of an inept chain of command. The resulting casualties devastate the platoon and the graphic images and memories of the action and the grueling months that follow, lead Chuck Newhall to a lifetime of severe trauma, guilt, grief and anger. Returning home, Newhall embarks on an extraordinary entrepreneurial career bringing great wealth, prestige and security, despite severe episodes of depression and anxiety which would hobble others from achieving such levels of success. And yet a few years later, and seemingly without warning, the family that he had worked so hard to create and support is suddenly ripped apart by tragedy intensifying an emotional upheaval that revisits the pain and anguish he first felt during his time in Vietnam. After decades of experience in managing the long-term effects of trauma and with the support of his family, Chuck Newhall has successfully come to terms with his past and the effects of PTSD. Fearful Odds offers hope, inspiration and valuable coping tools for anyone, or their families, who has been affected by post-traumatic stress, depression, mild traumatic brain disorder or the suicide of a loved one. Fearful Odds is a story of perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds and will offer a guiding hand to others who are facing challenges on the battlefield, boardroom or back at home. "Chuck Newhall's compelling narrative account of combat action in Vietnam takes you to one of the darkest hellholes on earth -- the A Shau Valley in 1968. Just when you thought that the war was over, Fearful Odds packs a punch in the gut you will be feeling for a long time." Joseph L. Galloway, author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young "If you care about America's warriors, and about how we as a society can help them come home after war, then you should read this book." Nathaniel Fick, author of One Bullet Away "The illuminating depictions of sessions with your phychiatrist Dr. Kaiser can be regarded as almost a manual for understanding PTSD and learning how to overcome it. However, unlike the majority of books on the subject, you explain how PTSD can be addressed via depictions of how your own efforts have succeeded to varying extents. Readers will learn far more from your book, which is "real life," than from others." Solomon H. Snyder, M.D. Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University

A Shau

A Shau PDF Author: Jay Phillips
Publisher: Izzard Ink
ISBN: 1642280429
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
Nestled in Vietnam’s Thua Thien Province, west of the city of Hue, and bordering Laos, the narrow 40-kilometer long A Shau Valley, situated between densely forested mountain ranges, witnessed prolonged campaigning throughout the Vietnam War and served as a hub of the Communist supply network as well as a key point of access to South Vietnam. Drawing upon an impressive array of archival materials, this deeply researched book offers the first comprehensive account of operations and battles that transpired there during the war, coupled with a trenchant analysis of the American failure to wrest control of the Valley despite years of commitment of troops and resources, and how that failure contributed to the final outcome of the war. In so doing, it not only sheds light on where military tactics and strategy devised by American leaders went awry, but also traces the extraordinary acts of heroism on the part of American soldiers, many of whom lost their lives fighting the North Vietnamese in this hostile, forbidding terrain. This book, which fills a gap in the historiography of the Vietnam War, will appeal to scholars seeking to enhance their understanding of major events and turning points in the war, as well as to students of military history and strategy.

Vietnam's Forgotten Army

Vietnam's Forgotten Army PDF Author: Andrew Wiest
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081479467X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
War.

A Better War

A Better War PDF Author: Lewis Sorley
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547417454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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Book Description
“A comprehensive and long-overdue examination of the immediate post–Tet offensive years [from a] first-rate historian.” —The New York Times Book Review Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and still classified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials, award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and—at least for a time—results between the early and later years of the war. Among his most important findings is that while the war was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning on the ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War sheds new light on the Vietnam War.

Vietnam

Vietnam PDF Author: John DiConsiglio
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780531255261
Category : Hamburger Hill, Battle of, Vietnam, 1969
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Mike Serrano, Arthur Wiknik, and Frank Boccia recount their experiences as U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, focusing on their efforts to capture a small mountain called Hamburger Hill in May 1969.

Gunbird Driver

Gunbird Driver PDF Author: David A Ballentine
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612518788
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Gunbird Driver is a memoir of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a young pilot flying an armed UH-1E's in Marine Observation Squadron 6. The book provides information about the missions, operations, and the living conditions at Ky Ha, and about the fellow Marines with whom he served. It also contains several chapters on shipboard operation from deployment aboard the USS Princeton. Parts of the book are deadly serious, even sad, as must be the case with any treatment of war; other parts are largely descriptive, and some circumstances and situations are even humorous.The time was 1966-67, relatively early in the war, the year before the Tet Offensive. The squadron's activities ranged widely in I Corps, the northern-most military subdivision of South Vietnam, the one assigned to the Marines. Although, the squadron and the air group to which it was attached (MAG -36) was assigned to the southern third of I Corps, it flew missions north along the DMZ, at Khe Sanh, west of Phu Bai and even into Laos, in addition to those in their local Tactical Area of Responsibility. Written to preserve a record of the impressions and experiences of one young 1st Lieutenant flying a Marine Huey in the war-torn skies of Vietnam, it is also reflective of all who crewed the UH-1E's —pilots, crew chiefs, and door gunners. It is a memoir that will resonate with all who crewed a “helo” in during the Vietnam war. No other book has been written on the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Marine Corps UH-1E pilot, flying armed escort missions for the Marines fighting the war on the ground.