The Soldiers' Story (Fall River Press Edition)

The Soldiers' Story (Fall River Press Edition)
Author: Ron Steinman
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1435139607

Most history-minded Americans have discussed the Vietnam War, becoming familiar, at the very least, with the names of such pivotal events as the Siege of Khe Sanh, the Tet Offensive, and the Fall of Saigon. But to grasp the full impact of this agonizing conflict, the human costs of an infernal war that raged for ten years and took more than 58,000 American lives, one must hear about it from the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who experienced the fighting and endured. In The Soldiers’ Story, veteran journalist Ron Steinman gathers the candid reminiscences of seventy-six men who survived combat in Vietnam. Not a military analysis or political study, this oral history vividly conveys the hardships, friendships, fears, and personal triumphs of Marine, Army, Air Force, and Navy veterans—each of whom shares memories that have lingered to this day. It is a valuable frontline record of battle-torn Vietnam from the perspective of those who lived it first-hand, giving us a window into the horror, intensity, and raw courage that the war engendered. For this tenth anniversary reissue of the book, at a time of the continued commitment of American military forces on other continents, Steinman has added a brief new foreword, addressing the ongoing significance of soldiers’ stories—both to themselves and to their families. Praise for The Soldiers’ Story: “Ranks among the most vivid accounts of the war.”—Stanley Karnow “Their stories are as dangerous as the battles they fought—stunning, plain-spoken recollections that reveal the terror of combat and theperils of a far-off war and the folly of government policy.”— New York Newsday “A powerful book that brings to life the triumphs and tragedies experienced by American soldiers in Vietnam. This excellent compilation belongs on every Vietnam bookshelf.”—Publishers Weekly

The Evolution of Forward Surgery in the US Army

The Evolution of Forward Surgery in the US Army
Author: Lance P. Steahly
Publisher: Department of the Army
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2018
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780160947841

"This volume in the Borden Institute's history series will describe forward US Army surgery from the 1700s to the present time. The book will look at advances in medicine and surgery that improved the lot of the American soldier. In particular, the book will examine the impact of disease upon troop strength, which had special impact in the Revolutionary War through the post-Civil War period. Forward surgery in the modern sense came of age in World War I. The challenge of so many different theaters of conflict in World War II will be examined from the portable surgical hospital of the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations to the surgical evacuation hospital teams of the European Theater of Operations. The evolving care models will feature the story of the Korean War mobile army surgical hospital. The defining performance of helicopter air evacuation in Vietnam, along with improved surgical techniques, will be discussed. Finally, the many advances of forward surgery from the post-Vietnam era to the present will be presented."--Provided by publisher.

B-29 “Double Trouble” Is “Mister Bee”

B-29 “Double Trouble” Is “Mister Bee”
Author: Colonel Charles A. Jones
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2020-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1796095729

This book is the story of Elmer C. Jones, a young man who grew up during the Great Depression and who joined the military in 1943, becoming a member of the Army's Air Corps in 1944. He was the radar observer of a B-29 Superfortress bomber crew flying 28 combat missions over Japan in 1945--13 bombing missions and 15 photographic reconnaissance missions, including the longest mission of the war: 4,650 miles in 23:00 hours. He accumulated 489:50 combat flying hours during the war.

Standing Up After Saigon

Standing Up After Saigon
Author: Thuhang Tran
Publisher: BrownBooks.ORM
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2019-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1612542670

This inspiring true story of familial love and triumph through adversity follows a father and daughter separated by war in Vietnam. In 1970, near the end of the Vietnam War, Thuhang Tran was born in Saigon. She contracted polio as a baby, and though her family sacrificed much to seek treatment, their efforts were halted by Saigon’s fall. Her father, Chinh Tran, an air traffic controller in the South Vietnam Air Force, was lost during the evacuations and presumed dead. This powerful memoir follows both father and daughter through their respective struggles, from Thuhang's battle with polio and the impact of her father's absence, to Chinh's immigration to the United States and his desperate 15-year mission to be reunited with his family. Through all the seemingly impossible hurdles she’s faced, Thuhang has remained hopeful and resilient. Now she tells her incredible story, inspiring those around her to find strength through perseverance.

Mutiny at Fort Jackson

Mutiny at Fort Jackson
Author: Michael D. Pierson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807887021

New Orleans was the largest city--and one of the richest--in the Confederacy, protected in part by Fort Jackson, which was just sixty-five miles down the Mississippi River. On April 27, 1862, Confederate soldiers at Fort Jackson rose up in mutiny against their commanding officers. New Orleans fell to Union forces soon thereafter. Although the Fort Jackson mutiny marked a critical turning point in the Union's campaign to regain control of this vital Confederate financial and industrial center, it has received surprisingly little attention from historians. Michael Pierson examines newly uncovered archival sources to determine why the soldiers rebelled at such a decisive moment. The mutineers were soldiers primarily recruited from New Orleans's large German and Irish immigrant populations. Pierson shows that the new nation had done nothing to encourage poor white men to feel they had a place of honor in the southern republic. He argues that the mutineers actively sought to help the Union cause. In a major reassessment of the Union administration of New Orleans that followed, Pierson demonstrates that Benjamin "Beast" Butler enjoyed the support of many white Unionists in the city. Pierson adds an urban working-class element to debates over the effects of white Unionists in Confederate states. With the personal stories of soldiers appearing throughout, Mutiny at Fort Jackson presents the Civil War from a new perspective, revealing the complexities of New Orleans society and the Confederate experience.

Time in the Wilderness

Time in the Wilderness
Author: Tim McNeese
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2021-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1640124969

Most Americans familiar with General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing know him as the commander of American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the latter days of World War I. But Pershing was in his late fifties by then. Pershing’s military career began in 1886, with his graduation from West Point and his first assignments in the American West as a horsebound cavalry officer during the final days of Apache resistance in the Southwest, where Arizona and New Mexico still represented a frontier of blue-clad soldiers, Native Americans, cowboys, rustlers, and miners. But the Southwest was just the beginning of Pershing’s West. He would see assignments over the years in the Dakotas, during the Ghost Dance uprising and the battle of Wounded Knee; a posting at Montana’s Fort Assiniboine; and, following his years in Asia, a return to the West with a posting at the Presidio in San Francisco and a prolonged assignment on the Mexican-American border in El Paso, which led to his command of the Punitive Expedition, tasked with riding deep into Northern Mexico to capture the pistolero Pancho Villa. During those thirty years from West Point to the Western Front, Pershing had a colorful and varied military career, including action during the Spanish-American War and lengthy service in the Philippines. Both were new versions of the American frontier abroad, even as the frontier days of the American West were closing. All of Pershing’s experiences in the American West prepared him for his ultimate assignment as the top American commander during the Great War. If the American frontier and, more broadly, the American West provided a cauldron in which Americans tested themselves during the nineteenth century, they did the same for John Pershing. His story was a historical Western.

Richmond Must Fall

Richmond Must Fall
Author: Hampton Newsome
Publisher: Civil War Soldiers and Strateg
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781606351321

In the fall of 1864, the Civil War's outcome rested largely on Abraham Lincoln's success in the upcoming residential election. As the contest approached, cautious optimism buoyed the President's supporters in the wake of Union victories at Atlanta and in the Shenandoah Valley. With all eyes on the upcoming election, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant conducted a series of large-scale military operations outside Richmond and Petersburg, whichhave, until now, received little attention. Drawing on an array of original sources, Newsome focuses on the October battles themselves, examining the plans for the operations, the decisions made by commanders on the battlefield, and the soldiers' view from the ground. At the same time, he places these military actions in the larger political context of the fall of 1864. With the election looming, neither side could afford a defeat at Richmond or Petersburg. Nevertheless, Grant and Lee were willing to take significant risks to seek great advantage. These military events set the groundwork for operations that would close the war in Virginia several months later.

New Images of Nazi Germany

New Images of Nazi Germany
Author:
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2012-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 078649090X

With its battlefields paved over and its bunkers crumbled, the Third Reich of Nazi Germany nevertheless lives on in countless photographs that record an era of extraordinary brutality. This collection of more than 500 photographs taken by amateurs and professional propagandists provides a panoramic overview of Nazi Germany, offering intimate glimpses into living rooms and killing grounds, kitchens and concentration camps, movie theaters and battle fronts. The explanatory text explores the context of the images. Together, these photographs, most never before seen, create a time capsule, capturing the faces of Hitler's soldier's as well as those who suffered under the Nazi onslaught on humanity.

Fighting Means Killing

Fighting Means Killing
Author: Jonathan M. Steplyk
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-10-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700631860

“War means fighting, and fighting means killing,” Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest famously declared. The Civil War was fundamentally a matter of Americans killing Americans. This undeniable reality is what Jonathan Steplyk explores in Fighting Means Killing, the first book-length study of Union and Confederate soldiers’ attitudes toward, and experiences of, killing in the Civil War. Drawing upon letters, diaries, and postwar reminiscences, Steplyk examines what soldiers and veterans thought about killing before, during, and after the war. How did these soldiers view sharpshooters? How about hand-to-hand combat? What language did they use to describe killing in combat? What cultural and societal factors influenced their attitudes? And what was the impact of race in battlefield atrocities and bitter clashes between white Confederates and black Federals? These are the questions that Steplyk seeks to answer in Fighting Means Killing, a work that bridges the gap between military and social history—and that shifts the focus on the tragedy of the Civil War from fighting and dying for cause and country to fighting and killing.