Forever Vietnam

Four decades after its end, the American war in Vietnam still haunts the nation's collective memory. Its lessons, real and imagined, continue to shape government policies and military strategies, while the divisions it spawned infect domestic politics and fuel the so-called culture wars. In Forever Vietnam, David Kieran shows how the contested memory of the Vietnam War has affected the commemoration of other events, and how those acts of remembrance have influenced postwar debates over the conduct and consequences of American foreign policy. Kieran focuses his analysis on the recent remembrance of six events, three of which occurred before the Vietnam War and three after it ended. The first group includes the siege of the Alamo in 1836, the incarceration of Union troops at Andersonville during the Civil War, and the experience of American combat troops during World War II. The second comprises the 1993 U.S. intervention in Somalia, the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In each case a range of actors--military veterans, policymakers, memorial planners, and the general public--used memorial practices associated with the Vietnam War to reinterpret the contemporary significance of past events. A PBS program about Andersonville sought to cultivate a sense of national responsibility for the My Lai massacre. A group of Vietnam veterans occupied the Alamo in 1985, seeing themselves as patriotic heirs to another lost cause. A World War II veteran published a memoir in 1980 that reads like a narrative of combat in Vietnam. Through these and other examples, Forever Vietnam reveals not only the persistence of the past in public memory but also its malleability in the service of the political present.

Forever Forward is the first in-depth account of K-9 Operations during the Vietnam War, and provides a behind the scenes look at how Allied forces employed dog teams in a variety of roles, the evolution of the United States military working dog program, and the aftermath of Vietnam. The 4,000 dogs that served with our men in Vietnam in every service branch are Americas unsung heroes. American dog teams averted over 10,000 casualties and worked as scouts, sentries, trackers, mine, and tunnel detectors. They were so effective the Viet Cong even placed a bounty on them. Heroes yes, but our own government left most of them behind to an unknown fate.

The late historian Marilyn B. Young, a preeminent voice on the history of U.S. military conflict, spent her career reassessing the nature of American global power, its influence on domestic culture and politics, and the consequences felt by those on the receiving end of U.S. military force. At the center of her inquiries was a seeming paradox: How can the United States stay continually at war, yet Americans pay so little attention to this militarism? Making the Forever War brings Young's articles and essays on American war together for the first time, including never before published works. Moving from the first years of the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, and more recent "forever" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Young reveals the ways in which war became ever-present, yet more covert and abstract, particularly as aerial bombings and faceless drone strikes have attained greater strategic value. For Young, U.S. empire persisted because of, not despite, the inattention of most Americans. The collection concludes with an afterword by prominent military historian Andrew Bacevich.

This comprehensive and highly readable collection of essays highlights 50 important events that changed the course of American history. What Happened? An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever is designed to introduce beginning U.S. history students and lay readers to the most significant events in the nation's history. More than that, it also will give readers insight into why a particular event is important. This book consists of 50 chapters in four volumes, each dealing with a critically important event in American history from the 17th century to the present. Each chapter includes a factual essay on the subject prepared by John Findling or Frank Thackeray. The factual material is augmented with an interpretive essay on the same subject, written by a specialist in the field. Through this juxtaposition, readers can learn not only about the who, what, and where of an event, but also why it is important in the sweep of American history.

During two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. service members confronted numerous challenges in their mission to secure the country from the threat of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and assist in rebuilding efforts. Because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred simultaneously, much of the American public conflated them or failed to notice the Afghanistan War; and most of the war's archival material remains classified and closed to civilian researchers. Drawing on interviews and letters home, this book relates the Afghanistan War through the experiences of American troops, with firsthand accounts of both combat and humanitarian operations, the environment, living conditions and interactions with the locals.

Forever Tandem tells the Foreign Service story of David and Teresa (Chin) Jones, who from vastly different backgrounds found both each other and U.S. foreign policy as life-long and life-enhancing commitments. Theirs were not exotic careers in deepest/darkest Forgottenstans but rather ones devoted to intense work in politico-military arms control, science policy, economic negotiations, intelligence, and political analysis. Not the least of their accomplishments was raising three daughters, who trained as engineers and are subduing the twenty-first century with the best of both heritages: Davids dimples and Teresas brains.

I went to Vietnam filled with a sense of excitement, wonder and purpose. I'd been trained to kill the enemy and survive and was sent into the jungles of Vietnam to perform. A perfectly honed machine, designed and trained to do a job automatically - but with no sense of how to deal with the guilt and trauma and the rage that now possessed me. Almost from the first day in Nam, the anthem of "going home" resonated within our minds and became the mantra for living in this hell-hole called Vietnam.So, after a year of fighting for survival you come home. Or do you? Because the home of your youthful mind no longer exists. It is long gone -forever dead. In its place is a mind in which now resides ghastly memories, irrational fears, self-annihilation, tremendous resentment and profound anger. The home of your mind becomes the worst place you've ever been. But you cannot leave it. Vietnam is now a part of you and its shadow surrounds all that you do and all that you are. The relationships with your wife and children are forever clouded by what impact Vietnam had. And you are left to wonder, what could have been if Vietnam had never occurred?

MY MUM HAS GONE TO SLEEP SOUNDLY FOREVER This is a very lovely and heartwarming emotional story for young children aged 7 and older to explore the content of the story, to learn to develop and to extend their developmental domains in imaginative skills, language skills, social skills and most importantly their emotional skills. Throughout this story, children will begin to learn how to put themselves in others situations, how to feel others feelings particularly in pitiable events and what they should do to soothe peoples pain. This will also be a wonderful opportunity for children to explore their feelings and to foster and nurture their emotional skills in a warm and trusting environment so they will gradually learn how to share with someone their deepest and sincerest heart. Day by day, children will be consistently guided and educated in the belief that being willing to give someone their honest sympathy and empathy is the nicest way to be and children will be encouraged to empathise with others misery. When they grow up they will know how to live, to behave, to sacrifice, to forgive, to love, to strive for better achievements and finally how to participate in creating a perfect and highly dignified society. Furthermore, after reading this story, children will gradually know how lucky and happy they are to be with their Mum, how cosy and marvellous it is to be in their Mums arms and to have her care, love and protection. They will then recognise, value and appreciate their beloved Mothers hard work.