A Story Of Vietnam

As a specialist of Southeast Asian History, I am often asked to introduce a book that would relate the history of Vietnam, from its beginnings to the present. As often, I am embarrassed to answer that there is no such book written in English. In effect, although we have many publications that deal competently with particular periods or systematically with different topics of its past, a comprehensive history of Vietnam is still lacking. That is the reason I am happy and humbled to introduce here A Story of Vietnam. A Story of Vietnam treats evenly all the periods and also gives equal importance to the culture and the arts as to the political or military events of Vietnam's past. I call it a story and not a history, because I do not want my book to be the usual conventional textbook, overburdened with interminable academic, historical and bibliographic references. While not a conventional textbook, A Story of Vietnam can, nonetheless, provide a substantial reading material to students interested in Asia. To the hyphenated Vietnamese, it can serve as a convenient reference tool to the historical allusions, cultural insinuations, mythical hints, literary suggestions, ethnic idiosyncrasies they encounter every day at home. This book may also be sought after by the people who know so much already about Vietnam as a War but who still would like to know more about Vietnam as a culture. I have narrated my story with the greatest impartiality I am capable of. I have no theory that needs to be proven nor do I have any assumption to be verified. But I do come to history with emotion, even with passion. Sometimes, my sympathies surged to the surface or my distastes became apparent, though at no time, have I consciously distorted the facts or altered the documents in order to validate my feelings. The ten chapters of this book are naturally of unequal length. They adhere strictly to the chronological order, meaning that Chapter One deals, among others, with the legendary origins of the Vietnamese people and the last chapter, Chapter Ten, recounts the social traumas, the economic hardships, and the political isolation the country experienced after reunification in 1975 to the remarkable recovery effected since 1986 and culminating in October of 2007 when Vietnam was elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations. Truong Buu Lam is a retired professor of History from the University of Hawaii.

A young girl and her family arrive in an airport in a new country. They are refugees, migrants who have travelled across the world to find safety. Strangers greet them, and one of them gives the little girl a doll. Decades later, that little girl is grown up and she has the chance to welcome a group of refugees who are newly arrived in her adopted country. To the youngest of them, a little girl, she gives a doll, knowing it will help make her feel welcome. Inspired by real events.

“Records the memories of a war in the words of those women courageous enough to walk into hell.”—San Francisco Chronicle A decade after America pulled out of Vietnam, the seeds of the often heart- wrenching oral history, A Piece of My Heart, were sown when writer and filmmaker Keith Walker met a woman who had been an emergency room nurse in Cu Chi and Da Nang. She and 25 others recount the time they spent "in country" as part of 15,000 American women who volunteered or served as nurses and in the military. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs. “The emotional current never falters.”—The New York Times Book Review

A Story for All Americans: Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (formerly titled, Touched by the Dragon) details wartime accounts of average servicemen and women - some heroic, some frightening, some amusing, some nearly unbelievable. The work is a historical compendium of fascinating and compelling stories woven together in a theme format. What makes this book truly unique, however, is its absence of literary pretentiousness. Relating oral accounts, the veterans speak in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. As seen through the eyes of the veterans, the stories include first-person experiences of infantry soldiers, a flight officer, a medic, a nurse, a combat engineer, an intelligence soldier, and various support personnel. Personalities emerge gradually as the veterans discuss their pre-war days, their training and preparation for Vietnam, and their actual in-country experiences. The stories speak of fear and survival: the paranoia of not knowing who or where the enemy was; the bullets, rockets, and mortars that could mangle a body or snuff out a life in an instant; and going home with a CMH - not the Congressional Medal of Honor, but a Casket with Metal Handles. The veterans also speak of friendships and simple acts of kindness. But more importantly, they speak of healing - both physical and mental.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Based on the celebrated PBS television series, the complete text of an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict, “a significant milestone [that] will no doubt do much to determine how the war is understood for years to come.” —The Washington Post More than forty years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was. A magisterial tour de force, The Vietnam War is an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict.

Four best friends. Four ways to serve their country. Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck are best friends for life. So when one of the teens is drafted into the Vietnam War, the others sign up, too. Although they each serve in a different branch, they are fighting the war together -- and they promise to do all they can to come home together.Rudi is perhaps the most concerned about whether or not he'll be able to keep that promise. After all -- and he'd be the first to admit this -- he's not the most capable guy. He's not smart like Beck, or brave like Ivan. He lacks the strength of Morris's moral convictions.But once Rudi is pulled kicking and screaming into the Marines, he at last finds something he's good at: following orders. Will that be enough to keep him alive? And if he does survive the war, will his best friends even recognize him on the other side?