The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire
Author: Steven Trout
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700629343

A great white angel spreading her wings across the Moreno Valley: this is how one visitor described the memorial standing atop a windswept prominence in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos, New Mexico. A de-facto national Vietnam veterans memorial, built by one family more than a decade before the Wall in Washington, DC, and without aid or recognition from the US government, the chapel at Angel Fire is a testament to one young American’s sacrifice—but also to the profound determination of his family to find meaning in their loss. In The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire, Steven Trout tells the story of Marine Lieutenant David Westphall, who was killed near Con Thien on May 22, 1968, and of the Westphall family’s subsequent struggle to create and maintain a one-of-a-kind memorial chapel dedicated to the memory of all Americans lost in the Vietnam War and to the cause of world peace. Focused primarily on a life lost amid our nation’s most controversial conflict and on the Westphalls’ desperate battle to keep their chapel open between 1971 and 1982, the book’s brisk and moving narrative traces the memorial’s evolution from a personal act of family remembrance to its emergence as an iconic pilgrimage destination for thousands of Vietnam veterans. Documenting the chapel’s shifting messages over time, which include a momentary (and controversial) recognition of the dead on both sides of the war, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire spotlights one American soldier’s tragic story and the monument to hope and peace that it inspired.

The Vietnam War in American Memory

The Vietnam War in American Memory
Author: Patrick Hagopian
Publisher: Culture, Politics, and the Col
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2011-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781558499027

This title presents a penetrating account of the cultural politics surrounding the memorialisation of the Vietnam War. It is a study of American attempts to come to terms with the legacy of the Vietnam War.

Patriotism by Proxy

Patriotism by Proxy
Author: Colleen Glenney Boggs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-08-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0192609041

At the height of the Civil War in 1863, the Union instated the first-ever federal draft. Patriotism By Proxy develops a new understanding of the connections between American literature and American lives by focusing on this historic moment when the military transformed both. Paired with the Emancipation Proclamation, the 1863 draft inaugurated new relationships between the nation and its citizens. A massive bureaucratic undertaking, it redefined the American people as a population, laying bare social divisions as wealthy draftees hired substitutes to serve in their stead. The draft is the context in which American politics met and also transformed into a new kind of biopolitics, and these substitutes reflect the transformation of how the state governed American life. Censorship and the suspension of habeas corpus prohibited free discussions over the draft's significance, making literary devices and genres the primary means for deliberating over the changing meanings of political representation and citizenship. Assembling an extensive textual and visual archive, Patriotism by Proxy examines the draft as a cultural formation that operated at the nexus of political abstraction and embodied specificity, where the definition of national subjectivity was negotiated in the interstices of what it means to be a citizen-soldier. It brings together novels, poems, letters, and newspaper editorials that show how Americans discussed the draft at a time of censorship, and how the federal draft changed the way that Americans related to the state and to each other.

Cherries

Cherries
Author: John Podlaski
Publisher: John Podlaski
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN:

In 1970, John Kowalski was among the many young, inexperienced soldiers sent to Vietnam to participate in a contentious war. Referred to as “Cherries” by their veteran counterparts, these recruits were plunged into a horrific reality. The on-the-job training was rigorous, yet most of these youths were ill-prepared to handle the severe mental, emotional, and physical demands of combat. Experiencing enemy fire and observing death up close initiates a profound transformation that is irreversible. The author excels at storytelling. Readers affirm feeling immersed alongside the characters, partaking in their struggle for survival, experiencing the fear, awe, drama, and grief, observing acts of courage, and occasionally sharing in their humor. "Cherries" presents an unvarnished account, and upon completion, readers will gain a deeper appreciation for the trials these young men faced over a year. It's a narrative that grips the reader throughout.

Stolen Valor

Stolen Valor
Author: Bernard Gary Burkett
Publisher: Summit Publishing Group
Total Pages: 692
Release: 1998
Genre: Homeless veterans
ISBN: 9781565302846

Military documents reveal decades of deceit about the Vietnam War and myths perpetuated by the mainstream media.

Sisters of Valor

Sisters of Valor
Author: Rosalie T. Turner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2009-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780979237522

The sometimes-forgotten valor of the service wife during the Vietnam War years, told through four very different women who come together and find the support they need. The women grapple with what the Vietnam War meant to us as a country and to them personally.

Maya Lin

Maya Lin
Author: Jeanne Walker Harvey
Publisher: Henry Holt Books For Young Readers
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1250112494

"The bold story of Maya Lin, the artist-architect who designed the Vietnam War Memorial"--

The Reluctant Sorority

The Reluctant Sorority
Author: Dana Chwan
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2014-01-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781494893200

"The Reluctant Sorority" tells the story of loves and lives dramatically impacted by the Vietnam War. It compares and contrasts three couples – the soldiers who served and the women who loved them. From the rice paddies of Vietnam, to Red Square in Moscow and MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida, the lives of the three men end in the bombing raid of a heavily fortified bridge in North Vietnam. The story follows the young widows who struggle to accept their new reality and rebuild their lives. This is not just another story about war; it is about heartfelt hopes and loves and dreams, and overcoming the consequences of war. - A secret tunnel into the American embassy at Saigon. - Smuggling gemstones out of Vietnam during the exodus of 'boat people' after the fall of Saigon. - Secretly removing famous art treasures from Russia. - Defection of a young widow desperate to start a new life in America. - Russian and North Vietnamese possessing the codes for America's bombing targets in North Vietnam. Where fact ends and and fiction begins is seamlessly interwoven to tell the story. The true part of the story begins in 1965 when an idealistic and patriotic 26-year old Air Force jet jockey is assigned to Ubon, Thailand for a 90-day tour of duty. Nearly two decades later, he finally comes home. From there the lives of the young widows from such divergent backgrounds, locales and motives converge through a series of twists and turns of fate. The story of this convergence is uniquely presented for the first time in any form of literature. You'll long remember the surviving characters and their conclusion that war is insanity and their hopes that there must be a better way to settle conflict.Dana Chwan is the surviving widow of an American serviceman who lost his life in the Vietnam war. She has been an outspoken advocate for the families of veterans and spokesperson for the POW/MIA issues that still smolder from a tragic chapter in American history.

Angel of Death

Angel of Death
Author: John Blehm, Sr
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-03
Genre: Combat
ISBN: 9780595463565

For many soldiers, there is a war after the war. After experiencing the horrifying aspects of war, many soldiers are afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, termed by some as "cancer of the soul". In Angel of Death, John Blehm tells of his wartime experiences and the thirty-eight years he has been suffering from PTSD. The book is a combination of an original work, Death Angel, and an additional nine chapters written ten years after the first edition. These chapters chronicle Blehm's journey with PTSD and the way he found peace through his faith in God. Angel of Death is written with the help of his wife, Karen, and is for soldiers and their families who wonder if they will ever reconnect with society. It is written for those who are asked to lay down their weapons and return to civilian life but seem to have lost the necessary pieces for this transition. It is a message of hope for those who have lost it and cannot seem to come back, and it is the testimony of a tortured soul who has found peace within.

Care Under Fire

Care Under Fire
Author: Bill Strusinski
Publisher: Wisdom Editions
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-12-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781959770305

For many surviving military veterans, the Vietnam War is an indelible part of their lives. That they survived is due in many cases to the heroic, life-saving actions of combat medics like Bill "Doc" Strusinski. Being a frontline medic was, and still is, one of the most dangerous jobs in the Army. Medics were targeted by the enemy and often called upon to aid fallen soldiers in the line of fire. In Strusinski's riveting book, Care Under Fire, Strusinski thrusts the reader squarely into moments of terror during firefights, the exhaustion of endless patrols, the anguish of losing buddies despite best efforts to save them, and the intimate bonds created during times of desperate need. This is a book about war, yes, but even more about how one man was transformed by his "sacred duty" to offer care under fire to the young soldiers he fought beside.