Ripley S Raiders Vietnam Chronicles

How familiar is this? You attend a reunion and inevitably several members recollecting a significant event begin arguing over when that event actually occurred. As you listen to them debating over the circumstances you realize that neither has a clue as to the facts or sequence of events. Since 2003 I have attended Third Battalion Third Marines Viet Nam Era reunions and listened to my fellow warriors of Lima Company recollecting stories of our glory days. I noticed that every year the details of events became more and more obscure. Of course one could consult the official Command Chronologies, but not everyone has access to them. Even if you do have access to this information, it takes time to wade through all the data; a task that the average individual would find tedious. Some of the copies of the Command Chronologies are almost unreadable due to poor quality reproduction methods used. Wouldn't it be helpful if all the information was assembled in one area and available for quick reference? This project was an answer to that problem. I started with the Lima Company roster for the end of February 1967, which listed all the members of Company Lima that participated in the battles with the North Vietnamese Army during the first five days of March for which we acquired the tag of "Ripley's Raiders". I then determined the Marine who had been with the unit the longest and the Marine who had been there the least length of time. My goal for this project was to chronicle all the entries I could find on Lima Company during their tours of duty. This required compiling information for a period of twenty eight months: December 1966 thru March 1968. I included the names of all other members of Lima Company during this time frame to act as memory joggers for the reader. I accessed the National Archives on line and in thirteen months transcribed everything I could find from the Command Chronologies into one chronological record of the events experienced by the members of Ripley's Raiders.

The riveting, true story of a real hero who became a wartime legend--Captain John Ripley, who single-handedly kept 30,000 men and 200 tanks at bay and stalled a North Vietnamese invasion during the 1972 Easter Offensive in Vietnam.

Tells the story of the heroic efforts of American and Vietnamese Marines who fought against the communist invasion of South Vietnam known as the Easter Offensive of 1972.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery, the story of a Texas man who, during the Great Depression, walked around the world -- backwards. Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards. In The Man Who Walked Backward, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery charts Plennie's backwards trek across the America that gave rise to Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and the New Deal. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way. A remarkable and quirky slice of Americana, The Man Who Walked Backward paints a rich and vibrant portrait of a jaw-dropping period of history.

Contains the definitive history of the extensive but little known U.S. Army amphibious operations during the Korean War, 1950-1953. Provides insights to modern planners crafting future joint or combined operations in that part of the world.Originally published in 2008. Illustrated.