Author Doug Beed relates his memories of the men and missions during his year (1968-69) as a combat soldier with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. Doug served a year in Alpha Company where he spent days on patrols finding and killing North Vietnamese soldiers along the hundreds of miles of trails heading to the Saigon.
Richard Fleming served as a scout with the elite U.S. Marine 1st Force Reconnaissance Company during the bloodiest years of the Vietnam War. Dropped deep into enemy territory, Recon relied on stealth and surprise to complete their mission—providing intelligence on enemy positions and conducting raids, prisoner snatches, and ambushes. Fleming’s absorbing memoir recounts his transformation from idealistic recruit to cynical veteran as the war claimed the lives of his friends and the missions became ever more dangerous.
“I broke into a house, entering from the back door. When I left, two people inside were dead. I don’t remember killing them, but I know I must have. All I can remember is the police chasing me. I thought I was in the jungle, with the Cong chasing me, trying to kill me before I could kill them.... I was nineteen years old and the Vietnam War was the high point in my life. I didn’t come home in a body bag or a wheel chair. Even though I thought I had come home a complete person, it’s evident that I didn’t”—from the interview with Gary Cone. Interviews with Vietnam veterans and their family members explain as nothing else can the emotional consequences of wartime experiences. Many of these interviewees are now in prison as a result of the substance abuse or violence that characterizes PTSD.
In January 1968, barely a month after arriving in Vietnam, Dave Walker received a debilitating shrapnel wound to his eye. Medically discharged and sent home, Walker-now missing an eye-maneuvered his way back into the army and back to Vietnam in 1970, where he served another eighteen months conducting patrols and special operations in the Central Highlands.
• Visual history of the Vietnam War • Hundreds of photos, many of them rare and never published before • Photos of soldiers, helicopters and ground vehicles, villages and terrain, base camps, and more • Perfect complement to the narrative accounts in the Stackpole Military History Series, such as Street Without Joy and Land With No Sun
Imparts the stories of men and women who served during the Vietnam War in active combat or in support roles, offering insight into a range of topics from the draft and camp life to the anti-war movement and battlefield experiences. Original.
Rare firsthand accounts from North Vietnamese pilots plus details on fighter operations against the U.S. Description of the "Black Friday Massacre," the U.S.'s largest aerial defeat Intricate diagrams of aircraft Until now, the day-to-day operations of the Vietnamese People's Air Force have remained relatively unknown. Roger Boniface gives voice to Vietnamese pilots whose stories have never before been told, from their view of the gradual escalation of the conflict to their version of events seen differently by American aviators and historians.
A no-holds-barred, straight-in-your-face account of combat in Vietnam You know it's going to be hot when your brigade is referred to as a Fireball unit. From May 1967 through May 1968, Ted Arthurs was in the thick of it, humping an eighty-pound rucksack through triple canopy jungle, chasing down the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. As sergeant major for a battalion of 800 men, it was his job to see them through this jungle hell and get them back home again.
"I was born in a log cabin just like Abe Lincoln, except our cabin was a rental." Starting with this account of his humble origins, Manny Garcia, who describes himself as "a left-handed, rather contrary Mestizo-American," has written a memoir that begins in late 1947 in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado and takes him to Utah and a stint as a Mormon and ultimately to Vietnam. In late 1965, a cocky, naive, alienated teen-ager, Garcia joined the army almost accidentally, enlisting for three years. At eighteen he became an Airborne Ranger, a combat infantryman with the crack First Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. His book shows you the war from the point man position, up close and personal, at eye level. "I returned to the body and checked for booby traps. I noticed the guerilla's small bare leathery feet. I rolled the body over and realized the corpse at my feet was an old woman. Her hair was pulled back and tied in a bun, like how my grandmother used to wear her own hair. This was my first kill. I killed a woman before I made love to one. I killed a woman before I was old enough to vote. I killed a woman before I bought my first car. I killed a woman and I was an Eagle Scout. I killed a woman while I was on probation to the Juvenile Court. I killed a woman before I knew she was a woman. I killed a woman while working for the United States Army in South Vietnam. I had killed before I had lived. The afternoon in the jungle was bright and hot. I stood there sweating, bewildered, dumfounded, and completely absorbed by the power."--from An Accidental Soldier "A valuable contribution to the growing list of Viet Nam narratives told from communities whose histories have yet to be fully recognized."--Jorge Mariscal, University of California, San Diego
The Belly of the Beast is Book II in the action-packed Jungle War series and picks up where Chasing Romeo- The Jungle War left off in this exciting Vietnam War related saga of Lurp/Rangers in combat.
