Abandoning Vietnam

Abandoning Vietnam PDF Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

Abandoning Vietnam

Abandoning Vietnam PDF Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

Abandoned in Hell

Abandoned in Hell PDF Author: William Albracht
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698144260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
An astonishing memoir of military courage at a remote outpost during the Vietnam War “A riveting, dead-true account in the tradition of Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.”—Steven Pressfield, national bestselling author of The Lion’s Gate In October 1969, William Albracht, the youngest Green Beret captain in Vietnam, took command of a remote hilltop outpost called Firebase Kate held by only 27 American soldiers and 156 Montagnard militiamen. At dawn the next morning, three North Vietnamese Army regiments—some six thousand men—crossed the Cambodian border and attacked. Outnumbered three dozen to one, Albracht’s men held off the assault but, after five days, Kate’s defenders were out of ammo and water. Refusing to die or surrender, Albracht led his troops off the hill and on a daring night march through enemy lines. Abandoned in Hell is an astonishing memoir of leadership, sacrifice, and brutal violence, a riveting journey into Vietnam’s heart of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational power of individual heroism. Not since Lone Survivor and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young has there been such a gripping and authentic account of battlefield courage. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Leaving Vietnam

Leaving Vietnam PDF Author: Sarah S. Kilborne
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
ISBN: 9780689807978
Category : Political refugees
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Tells the story of a boy and his father who endure danger and difficulties when they escape by boat from Vietnam, spend days at sea, and then months in refugee camps before making their way to the United States.

Black April

Black April PDF Author: George Veith
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594037043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
The defeat of South Vietnam was arguably America’s worst foreign policy disaster of the 20th Century. Yet a complete understanding of the endgame—from the 27 January 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords to South Vietnam’s surrender on 30 April 1975—has eluded us. Black April addresses that deficit. A culmination of exhaustive research in three distinct areas: primary source documents from American archives, North Vietnamese publications containing primary and secondary source material, and dozens of articles and numerous interviews with key South Vietnamese participants, this book represents one of the largest Vietnamese translation projects ever accomplished, including almost one hundred rarely or never seen before North Vietnamese unit histories, battle studies, and memoirs. Most important, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of South Vietnam’s conquest, the leaders in Hanoi released several compendiums of formerly highly classified cables and memorandum between the Politburo and its military commanders in the south. This treasure trove of primary source materials provides the most complete insight into North Vietnamese decision-making ever complied. While South Vietnamese deliberations remain less clear, enough material exists to provide a decent overview. Ultimately, whatever errors occurred on the American and South Vietnamese side, the simple fact remains that the country was conquered by a North Vietnamese military invasion despite written pledges by Hanoi’s leadership against such action. Hanoi’s momentous choice to destroy the Paris Peace Accords and militarily end the war sent a generation of South Vietnamese into exile, and exacerbated a societal trauma in America over our long Vietnam involvement that reverberates to this day. How that transpired deserves deeper scrutiny.

The Battle of An Loc

The Battle of An Loc PDF Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253344816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
A firsthand account of a desperate battle fought during Hanol's 1972 Easter Offensive.

A Gift of Barbed Wire

A Gift of Barbed Wire PDF Author: Robert S. McKelvey
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295802847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A Gift of Barbed Wire is a penetrating look at the lives of South Vietnamese officials and their families left behind in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. A former Marine who served in Vietnam, Robert McKelvey went on to practice psychiatry and, through his work in refugee camps and U.S. social service organizations, met South Vietnamese men from all walks of life who had been imprisoned in re-education camps immediately after the war. McKelvey’s interviews with these former political prisoners, their wives, and their children reveal the devastating, long-term impact of their incarceration. From the early years in French colonial Vietnam through the Vietnam War, from postwar ordeals of re-education camps, social ostracism, and poverty to eventual emigration to the United States, this collection of narratives provides broad and highly personal accounts of individuals and families evolving against the backdrop of war and vast social change. Some of the people interviewed for the book eventually reached the United States as boat people fleeing Vietnam in unsafe vessels; others arrived, after rigorous screening, through U.S. Government-sponsored programs. But even in the safety of the United States they had to begin anew, devoting all their remaining energies to survival. While crediting the courage and resilience of these families, McKelvey holds a critical mirror up to our culture, exploring the nature of our responsibility to our allies as well as the attitudes that obscured the reality of war as "a grinding, brutal interplay of complex forces that often develops a sustaining energy and momentum of its own, driving us in directions that we neither anticipated nor desired."

A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991

A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991 PDF Author: Jonathan M. House
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806167785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
Study of the Cold War all too often shows us the war that wasn’t fought. The reality, of course, is that many “hot” conflicts did occur, some with the great powers' weapons and approval, others without. It is this reality, and this period of quasi-war and semiconflict, that Jonathan M. House plumbs in A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991, a complex case study in the Clausewitzian relationship between policy and military force during a time of global upheaval and political realignment. This volume opens a new perspective on three fraught decades of Cold War history, revealing how the realities of time, distance, resources, and military culture often constrained and diverted the inclinations or policies of world leaders. In addition to the Vietnam War and nuclear confrontations between the USSR and the United States, this period saw dozens of regional wars and insurgencies fought throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Cuba, Pakistan, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, and South Africa pursued their own goals in ways that drew the superpowers into regional disputes. Even clashes ostensibly unrelated to the politics of East-West confrontation, such as the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, involved armed forces, weapons, and tactics developed for the larger conflict and thus come under House’s scrutiny. His study also takes up nontraditional or specialized aspects of the period, including weapons of mass destruction, civil-military relations, civil defense, and control of domestic disorders. The result is a single, integrated survey and analysis of a complex period in geopolitical history, which fills a significant gap in our knowledge of the organization, logistics, operations, and tactics involved in conflict throughout the Cold War.

Lessons Learned From Advising And Training The Republic Of South Vietnam’s Armed Forces

Lessons Learned From Advising And Training The Republic Of South Vietnam’s Armed Forces PDF Author: Major Thomas E. Clinton Jr. USMC
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786250055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
The United States (US) has a long history of employing military advisors, from the American military occupation of the Philippines throughout the 19th century, and the Korea War in the 1950s, the Vietnam War 1950 to 1973, El Salvador 1984 to 1992, to current efforts in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). A strong Iraqi military is needed to support the future democratic government of Iraq. This will allow the US to disengage a large portion of its combat units from Iraq. The US must train the present Iraqi military to successfully take over responsibility for Iraq’s security and combat the current insurgency. The US Army and Marine Corps combat advisors will play a key role in ensuring the Iraqi military is properly organized, trained, and equipped to provide for a secure Iraq. There are lessons learned from training and advising the Republic of South Vietnam’s Armed Forces (RVNAF) during the Vietnam War 1950 to 1973 that could be applied in the ongoing advisory effort in Iraq. The focus of this thesis is to determine the lessons learned from selecting, training, and the organization of US Army and Marine Corps advisors during the Vietnam War.

A Raid Too Far

A Raid Too Far PDF Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623491177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In February 1971, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) launched an incursion into Laos in an attempt to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and destroy North Vietnamese Army (NVA) base areas along the border. This movement would be the first real test of Vietnamization, Pres. Richard Nixon’s program to turn the fighting over to South Vietnamese forces as US combat troops were withdrawn. US ground forces would support the operation from within South Vietnam and would pave the way to the border for ARVN troops, and US air support would cover the South Vietnamese forces once they entered Laos, but the South Vietnamese forces would attack on the ground alone. The operation, dubbed Lam Son 719, went very well for the first few days, but as movement became bogged down the NVA rushed reinforcements to the battle and the ARVN forces found themselves under heavy attack. US airpower wreaked havoc on the North Vietnamese troops, but the South Vietnamese never regained momentum and ultimately began to withdraw back into their own country under heavy enemy pressure. In this first in-depth study of this operation, military historian and Vietnam veteran James H. Willbanks traces the details of battle, analyzes what went wrong, and suggests insights into the difficulties currently being incurred with the training of indigenous forces.

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War PDF Author: John A. Wood
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821445626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
In the decades since the Vietnam War, veteran memoirs have influenced Americans’ understanding of the conflict. Yet few historians or literary scholars have scrutinized how the genre has shaped the nation’s collective memory of the war and its aftermath. Instead, veterans’ accounts are mined for colorful quotes and then dropped from public discourse; are accepted as factual sources with little attention to how memory, no matter how authentic, can diverge from events; or are not contextualized in terms of the race, gender, or class of the narrators. Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War is a landmark study of the cultural heritage of the war in Vietnam as presented through the experience of its American participants. Crossing disciplinary borders in ways rarely attempted by historians, John A. Wood unearths truths embedded in the memoirists’ treatments of combat, the Vietnamese people, race relations in the United States military, male-female relationships in the war zone, and veterans’ postwar troubles. He also examines the publishing industry’s influence on collective memory, discussing, for example, the tendency of publishers and reviewers to privilege memoirs critical of the war. Veteran Narratives is a significant and original addition to the literature on Vietnam veterans and the conflict as a whole.