Vietnam War Looking Back

More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war’s legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam. Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war’s psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies. Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

A portrait of the American recon platoon of the 101st Airborne Division describes their sixty-day fight for survival during the 1968 Tet Offensive, tracing their postwar difficulties with acclimating into a peacetime America that did not want to hear their story.

This text is the first to closely compare and contrast the Gulf and Vietnam Wars on both the war and home fronts. Widely respected experts give a balanced, new perspective on the Vietnam War, based on considerable new primary research to explain the salient factors that contributed to the decision making, air and ground considerations, and outcome. This text, carefully focused for classes in modern American history and military studies, appraises the legacies of the Vietnam War that have been felt in the United States for the last two decades.

Look for O’Brien’s new book, American Fantastica, on sale October 24th A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war’s legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam. Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war’s psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies. Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

Just two months after my 20th birthday, I was drafted into the US Army. Before my next birthday I arrived in the former Republic of South Vietnam; it was February 1969. I have been asked countless times over the last five decades: "What was Vietnam like?" For decades I could never give much of an answer. If one is to give an answer, one must first confront their past. Going Off The Beach is the account of a conscripted, "boots on the ground" soldier and his experiences in the US Army during the Vietnam War. These experiences included twelve months in Vietnam, serving in Binh Dinh Province. The book explores the contrasts between a peaceful tropical beach overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean with the monotony, drudgery and dangers of being a foot soldier in an unpopular war. It describes the endless struggle for survival while constantly dealing with the "inner conflicts" of the US Military fighting a war they were not even trying to win. And finding love in the midst of it all. "What was Vietnam like?" It's the story of what happened to 20-year-old me. It's my story of love, war, and courage.

Two wars defined the men and women of Southport Island and the Boothbay Region-the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1964-1975). Join these veterans as they tell their stories in their own words through their remembrances, letters, and photographs.Fight Communist expansion in Korea; learn how a petrol supply company was run in Inchon; withstand freezing cold and searing heat on a desolate landscape; sweep for land mines in the Khumwha Valley and learn how the 8208 MASH saved a local man's life. Fly missions with a helicopter crew chief over Loc Ninh, Song Be, and Tay Ninh; patrol the Mekong Delta in a Patrol Boat, River (PBR); live the Vietnam experience through a mortar platoon soldier's letters home; ride on convoy duty with the Marines Rolling 11th Rough Riders from Chu Lai to Quang Tri; help evacuate Saigon aboard the USS Midway; rescue the crew of the merchant ship with the Coast Guard, and deliver supplies to Vietnam with a Merchant Mariner. This is a rare opportunity to explore the real-life experiences of service men and women over the course of two wars and the time in between, with many of their histories being told for the very first time. Join us in admiration of these amazing Korean and Vietnam War veterans as we start Looking Back.