Introduction To The Armed Forces

During the Vietnam War, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACVSOG) was a highly-classified, U.S. joint-service organization that consisted of personnel from Army Special Forces, the Air Force, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance units, and the CIA. This secret organization was committed to action in Southeast Asia even before the major build-up of U.S. forces in 1965 and also fielded a division-sized element of South Vietnamese military personnel, indigenous Montagnards, ethnic Chinese Nungs, and Taiwanese pilots in its varied reconnaissance, naval, air, and agent operations. MACVSOG was without doubt the most unique U.S. unit to participate in the Vietnam War, since its operational mandate authorized its missions to take place “over the fence” in North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, where most other American units were forbidden to go. During its nine-year existence it managed to participate in most of the significant operations and incidents of the conflict. MACVSOG was there during the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, during air operations over North Vietnam, the Tet Offensive, the secret bombing of and ground incursion into Cambodia, Operation Lam Son 719, the Green Beret murder case, the Easter Invasion, the Phoenix Program, and the Son Tay POW Raid. The story of this extraordinary unit has never before been told in full and comes as a timely blueprint for combined-arms, multi-national unconventional warfare in the post-9/11 age.Unlike previous works on the subject, Black Ops, Vietnam is a complete chronological history of the unit drawn from declassified documents, memoirs, and previous works on the subject, which tended to focus only on particular aspects of the unit’s operations.

Problems stemming from the misuse and abuse of alcohol and other drugs are by no means a new phenomenon, although the face of the issues has changed in recent years. National trends indicate substantial increases in the abuse of prescription medications. These increases are particularly prominent within the military, a population that also continues to experience long-standing issues with alcohol abuse. The problem of substance abuse within the military has come under new scrutiny in the context of the two concurrent wars in which the United States has been engaged during the past decade-in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn). Increasing rates of alcohol and other drug misuse adversely affect military readiness, family readiness, and safety, thereby posing a significant public health problem for the Department of Defense (DoD). To better understand this problem, DoD requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) assess the adequacy of current protocols in place across DoD and the different branches of the military pertaining to the prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). Substance Use Disorders in the U.S. Armed Forces reviews the IOM's task of assessing access to SUD care for service members, members of the National Guard and Reserves, and military dependents, as well as the education and credentialing of SUD care providers, and offers specific recommendations to DoD on where and how improvements in these areas could be made.

In 1950, when he commissioned the first edition of The Armed Forces Officer, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall told its author, S.L.A. Marshall, that "American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally." In this new edition, the authors methodically explore that common ground, reflecting on the basics of the Profession of Arms, and the officer's special place and distinctive obligations within that profession and especially to the Constitution.

CMH Pub 50-1-1. Defense Studies Series. Discusses the evolution of the services' racial policies and practices between World War II and 1965 during the period when black servicemen and women were integrated into the Nation's military units.

In a study that extends well beyond military history, David B. Ralston documents the ways in which five different countries—Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, China, and Japan—refashioned their armed forces along European lines during the three centuries after 1600. The appropriation of Western military institutions in countries outside of Europe was, Ralston argues, the major force driving these countries to adopt European administrative, economic, and cultural modes. Following the same format in his discussion of each country, Ralston makes this central theme in world history easily accessible to students while offering scholars a sophisticated understanding of the exact nature of the changes brought about by Europeanizing military reforms. David B. Ralston, associate professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of The Army of the Republic.

This open access handbook is a major reference work in the field of Military Sciences. Its main purpose is to inform and enlighten those dealing with the military on the role and contributions of science in describing, understanding and explaining military life, knowledge and doings. The handbook provides a comprehensive thematic introduction to various sub-fields of Military Sciences. The handbook serves a broad audience in various capacities; academics studying the military and the broader defense and security sector, students at military and civilian schools preparing for service in the military, the government or other occupations with linkage to the military, professionals in the armed forces, decision makers in government, contractors who work alongside the military, NGOs whose work is influenced by military operations, journalists who write on matters concerning the sphere of the military or others with a particular interest towards the military as a phenomenon, organization or system of various kinds. About the Section EditorsLt. Col. Dr. Anders McD Sookermany, Norwegian Defence University College, Oslo, Norway (Section: Philosophy of Military Sciences)Lt. Col. Dr. Harald Høiback, Norwegian Armed Forces Museums, Oslo, Norway (Section: Military Operations) Dr. Niels Bo Poulsen, Royal Danish Defence College, Copenhagen, Denmark (Section: Military History)Prof. Dr. Patricia M. Shields, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA (Section: Military and Society)Dr. Carsten F. Rønnfeldt, Norwegian Defence University College, Oslo, Norway (Section: International Relations and the Military)Associate Professor David Last, Royal Military College of Canada, Canada (Section: Military Profession)Dr. Irina Goldenberg, Canadian Department of National Defence, Nepean, Canada (Section: Military Behavioural Sciences)Dr. Michael Holenweger, Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (Section: Military Leadership)Prof. Dr. Martin Elbe, Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, Potsdam, Germany (Section: Military Leadership)Franz Kernic, MILAC at ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (Section: Military Leadership)Joseph Soeters, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands (Section: Military Management, Economics and Logistics)Prof Margaret Kosal, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA (Section: Military Technology)Dr. Ben Zweibelson, Joint Special Operations University, Tampa, USA (Section: Military Design)Ms. Aubrey Poe (Section: Military Design)