Book Description
When author Andrea Nguyen's family was airlifted out of Saigon in 1975, one of the few belongings that her mother hurriedly packed for the journey was her small orange notebook of recipes. Thirty years later, Nguyen has written her own intimate collection of recipes, INTO THE VIETNAMESE KITCHEN, an ambitious debut cookbook that chronicles the food traditions of her native country. Robustly flavored yet delicate, sophisticated yet simple, the recipes include steamy pho noodle soups infused with the aromas of fresh herbs and lime; rich clay-pot preparations of catfish, chicken, and pork; classic bánh mì sandwiches; and an array of Vietnamese charcuterie. Nguyen helps readers shop for essential ingredients, master core cooking techniques, and prepare and serve satisfying meals, whether for two on a weeknight or 12 on a weekend.
Customer Reviews:
Looks good!.......2007-09-27
I bought the book for my bf actually (yes! aren't I the lucky one) so I haven't really read it, but at a quick glance it seems like a good book, the dishes look delicious and not too hard to do. Also, Amazon has superb customer service and shipping time!
Recipes that work!.......2007-08-26
Not only is this a beautiful and well-written book, but all the recipes I've tried so far result in very tasty dishes. I actually rarely follow recipes exactly. I am a culinary school graduate and have worked in professional kitchens for over a decade, so I typically look at cookbooks mainly for ideas. For the most part, I don't usually need to know the procedures or amounts of ingredients in much detail. However, when I find an interesting cookbook and buy it, I always start out by following the first few recipes exactly as written as a way to gauge how much skill and effort went into the book. As I said before, the recipes I followed exactly worked very well.
Some of my favorite things I've found in this book are the "basics" like the nuoc cham. For some reason whenever I try to make this particular sauce without a recipe, it doesn't come out quite right, so I really like Andrea's nuoc cham recipe. Another deceptively simple favorite is the beef stir-fry marinade. I wouldn't have thought to combine fish sauce and soy sauce (I usually think of it as an either/or thing). But this is probably the best asian marinade for beef I've tried and I use it all the time now in lots of different applications.
Buy This Book Today!.......2007-06-16
I bought this book a few weeks ago and just cannot put it down. I think I will be cooking my way through it this summer. Vietnamese food is so perfect with hot sticky weather. The flavors are light and bright and savoury.
This is an excellent book for novice cooks as well as experienced cooks. If you have never tried making Vietnamese food at home it is the first Vietnamese cookbook you should own. It is clear and concise. I love that it has a glossary with how to pronounce the ingredient correctly, that makes shopping a whole lot easier. I was really pleased to find a chapter on Charcuterie. In a Vietnamese/Asian grocery you will see these foil wrapped frozen rolls and know that they are used in Pho or Bahm Mi but they are hard to interpret. Now I can make my own.
Some highlights so far have been the incredible corn and coconut fritters, I made a quadruple batch for a party 2 weeks ago and guests were gobbling them up as quickly as I could get them out of the skillet. The shrimp toasts are lighter and crisper than restaurant versions, I made the cucumber and shrimp salad on Thursday evening. The veggies in it are still crisp and when I had more for lunch today the flavors were even better. The Cha Gio I made for the same party disappeared quickly, you just cannot have too many of those things and make a bunch and freeze some to have on hand later. I love stuffed squid and her tip about piercing the tail end with a skewer as a steam vent took all of the frustration of trying to keep the filling in the squid body. Next on my list is her deviled crab. I've not had the book long and pages are already getting spatters. If you are a fan of Asian cooking your cookbook collection is sadly lacking if you don't have this book.
Wonderful read, disappointing recipes.......2007-01-15
Could not wait to get this highly praised book as I love to cook Vietnamese food and have an extensive cookbook collection. I enjoyed every bit of the book-until I tried three recipes one night. One came out just fine-the other two -the beef stew and the egg, shrimp, scallion pancakes were duds. The marinated meat tasted wonderful when browned, but once tomatoes were added to the dish it became just another beef stew. The pancakes had no taste. On the other hand, the water spinach with garlic was first rate. I will try some other recipes and keep my culinary fingers crossed.
Excellent recipes, wel written cokbok.......2007-01-12
This is an excellent cookbook presenting delicious recipes and the best of Vietnamese culture. I highly recommend it to any serious cook!! The best I have even read! Buy it and visit the author's web site!
Book Description
A vivid, funny, and viscerally powerful memoir about childhood, assimilation, food, and growing up in the 1980s
As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blond-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme, NguyenÂ's barely conscious desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic seeming than her Buddhist grandmotherÂ's traditional specialties—spring rolls, delicate pancakes stuffed with meats, fried shrimp cakes—the campy, preservative-filled “delicacies” of mainstream America capture her imagination. And in this remarkable book, the glossy branded allure of such American foods as Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies become an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to fit in, to become a “real” American.
Beginning with NguyenÂ's familyÂ's harrowing migration from Saigon in 1975, Stealing BuddhaÂ's Dinner is nostalgic and candid, deeply satisfying and minutely observed, and stands as a unique vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for.
Customer Reviews:
candid memoir of 70-80's American food in the midwest.......2007-09-11
"Stealing Buddha's Dinner" is as much Ms. Nguyen's story as it is mine. Ms. Nguyen reflects back on her childhood memories of TV commericials of Kool Aid, Carnation Instant Breakfast, and Hamburger Helper; her Dutch neighborhood of pork chops and shepard's pie; her grandmother's canh chua and bo xao voi hanh; and as if that wasn't enough, her stepmother Rosa's sopas. Throughout it all, Ms. Nguyen tries to find her identity in all these clashing cultures, desperately wanting to fit in, only to find solace in solitude, TV, and books. But perhaps the greatest mystery is what happened to her real mother.
It's truly a touching story of what it means to be an American with Asian eyes and black hair.
Is it more a problem of poverty or lack of substance?.......2007-08-29
This book is non-commital yet oddly angry and unsympathetic toward the narrator's kin: an ill-fitting immigrant step-mother, her ill-suited marraige and their whole patchwork family hold much potential for warmth and growth...but achieve none. Through the book I hoped for some grace, beauty or forgiveness - that the young narrator might find a connection to her family, her community or her nation(s).
At times there are glimpes of a connection, but in the end all of her self-pitiful assessments remain: her sisters were mean, father was distant, step-mother was an overly ambitious, class-confused control freak.
I'd hoped to learn that these fabulous, interesting people- her father, sisters, step-mother, and so-called friends (nothing more to her than ineffective stepping-stones to social success) actually had valid motives and had made valiant efforts, but in the end it was simple: they had not understood her and she had not understood them.
Most importantly, I learned that through her young life she'd been miserable. She'd wanted a lot of foods and other things she couldn't have, which was startlingly familiar to me because I was a kid at this time and I was poor too! I wanted all of those fabulous things like potato chips and soda-pop and barbie dolls, and I didn't get any of it either.
So perhaps this book is most eloquent as a story about growing up poor in America. Perhaps the difference between being a second generation immigrant and a fourth generation immigrant isn't so great as the difference between being poor and not being poor.
Or perhaps I read too much into this book, which may in fact just be about an angry girl who didn't know or get what she wanted.
If you're looking for an introduction into this time period and into an overlooked American population, or if you want an overview/example of the history and experience of Vietnamese/American refugee/immigrants, this is a good start...very simple and skimming the surface.
But for some really excellent and available Vietnamese literature, try "Novel without a Name" or "Paradise of the Blind" and for the Vietnamese-American experience, consider Le Ly Hayslip's "When Heaven & Earth Changed Places", for starters...for those who want to start with a little depth.
Awesome Book.......2007-08-23
This is an excellent book about growing up as a first generation american. I really identified witht the authors story. I also really enjoyed her style and all the awesome discriptions of food. Every time I finished a chapter, I wanted to get some pringles or a hostess cupcake. However, the thing I liked the most was that after reading this book, I realized that I was not alone. As a child I always felt different, but now that I am college I have learned to embrace who I am because being different is ok. Buy this book! Its great!
Great book!.......2007-07-05
I thought this book was excellent! Bich's memories of food, books and life in the 80s brought a ton of my own memories back to me. I may go back and read the Little House series again! :-) Very well written and compelling. I immediately passed it on to my mom who enjoyed it as well.
a fun, educational and interesting read.......2007-06-09
Growing up in Wisconsin I remember very well when many Vietnamese came to live in and around our city. Bich Ninh Nguyen brings her experience to life from the immigrants perspective and I felt as if I was there with her all along the way. This is an excellently writen book.
Average customer rating:
- An informative memoir on the Vietnam War
- The first step
- A Good Time To Revisit the Vietnam Experience
- Good, but not his best
- A good book
|
If I Die in a Combat Zone : Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
Tim O'Brien
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Authors
| Arts & Literature
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Military & Spies
| Professionals & Academics
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Historical
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Vietnam
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Biographies & Memoirs
| Book Clubs
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Going After Cacciato
-
The Things They Carried
-
In the Lake of the Woods
-
Coming of Age in Mississippi
-
July, July: A Novel
ASIN: 0767904435
Release Date: 1999-09-01 |
Amazon.com
Over time, Tim O'Brien has used both art and artifice to shape his fictional accounts of Vietnam. Award-winning novels such as Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried offer up a surreal view of the war: a soldier who decides to walk to Paris, leaving only a trail of M&M's in his wake; a young man who imports his high-school girlfriend to his base camp high in the jungled mountains, only to lose her to a shadowy squad of Special Forces Green Berets and to "that mix of unnamed terror and unnamed pleasure" that was Vietnam. O'Brien's first account of the war, however, was written in the raw, unfiltered months following his return from Southeast Asia in 1969. If I Die in a Combat Zone has all of the eloquence and attention to language and detail that are a mark of the author's work; what is different about it is its straightforward, unembellished depiction of his personal experience of hell.
"When you are ordered to march through areas such as Pinkville--GI slang for Song My, parent village of My Lai ... you do some thinking. You hallucinate. You look ahead a few paces and wonder what your legs will resemble if there is more to the earth in that spot than silicates and nitrogen. Will the pain be unbearable? Will you scream or fall silent? Will you be afraid to look at your own body, afraid of the sight of your own red flesh and white bone? You wonder if the medic remembered his morphine."
O'Brien paints an unvarnished portrait of the infantry soldier's life that is at once mundane and terrifying--the endless days of patrolling punctuated by firefights that end as suddenly and inconclusively as they begin; the mind-numbing brutality of burned villages and trampled rice patties; the terror of tunnels, minefields, and the ever-present threat of death. Powerful as these scenes are, perhaps the most memorable chapter in the book concerns his decision to desert just a few weeks before he was sent to Vietnam. "The AWOL bag was ready to go, but I wasn't.... I burned the letters to my family. I read the others and burned them, too. It was over. I simply couldn't bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion, exile: I could not run." Tim O'Brien went into the war opposing it and came out knowing exactly why. If I Die in a Combat Zone is more than just a memoir of a disastrous war; it is also a meditation on heroism and cowardice, on the mutability of truth and morality in a war zone and, most of all, on the simple, human capacity to endure the unendurable. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
Before writing his award-winning
Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt,
If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.
Customer Reviews:
An informative memoir on the Vietnam War.......2007-08-30
This memoir brought me closer than I had been before to the Vietnam War..it was interesting. Another perspective on the Vietnam War.
The first step.......2007-08-09
If I Die...is Tim O'Brien's first book, and his first of many inspired by his tour of duty as an infantryman in Vietnam, 1969-70. Later, more successful books, like Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried, deliberately smudge the line between reportage and invented story (and, in GAC, he takes it all the way to outright fantasy) but this debut is intended as a soldier's field memoir, the facts as O'Brien saw and remembers them, although with much brooding personal commentary added.
More than 30 years after its publication, the book is still quite powerful, reviving the sights and sounds of a war that America decided a while ago not to forget, but rather to remember in a way it finds most convenient. There are still too many people who believe we could easily have "won" Vietnam if we hadn't been "stabbed in the back" by politicians and hippie protestors at home; that is nonsense, much of which O'Brien's book helps disprove. Indispensible works like The Best and the Brightest, and of course The Pentagon Papers, prove how various US administrations allowed themselves to be deluded about the progress the US military might make in solving the political problems of a small SE Asian country. By the time O'Brien arrived as a foot soldier in early 1969, the war had reached a high-level stalemate, was essentially over, and the Vietnamese simply had to wait us out. LBJ and Nixon knew this but they continued to send our soldiers over to be killed and mangled; too precipitous a withdrawal would have hurt their administrations politically.
What O'Brien does so well is dramatize this fatal stall at the personal level. His book is loaded with stories of ranking officers, brave men with Army careers, allowing their commands to ease off in the field, avoid pointless enemy engagements, even file fake patrol reports, especially at night. O'Brien's tour commenced a year after Tet and My Lai occurred, and in their aftermath, as O'Brien tells it, Army morale at even the officer level had sunk so low, and the failure of US goals was so evident, that few Americans wanted to get killed for a misadventure.
What lingers most in my mind is O'Brien's struggle with his own self-loathing: he believed even before being drafted that the war was wrong, and made serious plans to desert the Army, but found himself unable to make that great break, fearful of the reaction he would eventually encounter from parents and the small Minnesota town of his birth. He gave in to tradition, rather than do what he felt to be right, and it seems he has never forgiven himself.
A Good Time To Revisit the Vietnam Experience .......2007-08-02
Tim O'Brien is one of our more gifted, living writers in the genre of war literature, and although IF I DIE IN A COMBAT zone isn't his strongest book, it is certainly worthy reading, especially in the echoing din of George Bush's Iraqi adventure.
A straightforward account from a soldier's point of view, O'Brien's book includes the before, during, and after of his Vietnam experience -- especially the daily grind of soldiering (during) and the soul-searching and debate about fleeing (before) instead of answering the call of the draft. He had a rather quixotic escape plan to Sweden (of all places), but ultimately did his "duty," all along meditating on the nature of sanity, obligation, and patriotism. There are frequent excerpts from Plato, even, as O'Brien explores that ancient philosopher's take on "courage." As his fellow soldiers are killed, O'Brien details the nature of fate and chance, along with the more realistic details of the many ways "Charlie" (the VC) could arrange for you to die.
Here is a typical excerpt in which O'Brien compares Vietnam to the Trojan War:
"But losing [Captain Johansen] was like the Trojans losing Hector. He gave some amount of reason to fight. Certainly there were never any political reasons. The war, like Hector's own war, was silly and stupid. Troy was besieged for the sake of a pretty woman. And Helen, for God's sake, was a woman most of the grubby, warted Trojans could never have. Vietnam was under siege in pursuit of a pretty, tantalizing, promiscuous, particularly American brand of government and style. And most of Alpha Company would have preferred a likable whore to self-determination. So Captain Johansen helped to mitigate and melt the silliness, showing the grace and poise a man can have under the worst of circumstances, a wrong war. We clung to him." -- (p. 145)
Philosophical riffs like this are frequent -- as are accounts of the soldiers' lives (and deaths), their nicknames for killer devices, their fear and superstitions, and their ways of surviving in a strange land where even women and children could, and often did, mean death. The literary weave of abstractions on war and history with specifics on Vietnam itself make for a potent read. You will come out of it not only feeling better educated about what Vietnam was like, but sensing that many of the arguments of the American government and the officers in charge ring as familiarly hollow now (in Iraq) as they did then (in Vietnam). If I could, I'd buy a copy for the President. But I know he wouldn't read it or, if he did, seek meaning from it.
Pro or anti-war, Vietnam or Iraq, you, however, can glean something from this early effort of Tim O'Brien's. Check it out.
Good, but not his best.......2007-04-28
Having read O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" first, this book seemed a bit dry and journalistic in comparison. It started out slow, and never really pulled me in the way the other did. In this book there are flashes of O'Brien's lyrical, dream-like brilliance, but never as consistent or as seemingly tangible as in "The Things They Carried."
In this book, O'Brien brings the reader along with him from the moment he first learns that he is to be drafted until he is on a plane heading home from Viet Nam. He shares his fears, doubts and political views of the war. The book is mostly about O'Brien's experience in the war, and how it changed him and matured him.
Overall, a good book. Probably of particular interest to anyone interested in a personal, almost documentary-style account of O'Brien's experience in Viet Nam. In a purely literary sense, however, the stories in "The Things They Carried" are far better examples of Tim O'Brien's skill as a writer.
A good book.......2007-01-11
A little too in depth for me. But i do recommend that it be read. A good book.
Amazon.com
Michael Herr, who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war to date, when published in 1977. He captured the feel of the war and how it differed from any theater of combat ever fought, as well as the flavor of the time and the essence of the people who were there. Since Dispatches was published, other excellent books have appeared on the war--may we suggest The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young--but Herr's book was the first to hit the target head-on and remains a classic.
Book Description
"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.
Customer Reviews:
A Classic on War.......2007-10-16
In my opinion there are two books on war that stand apart from all others: Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" and Michael Herr's "Dispatches." In fact, I consider the latter one of the best books ever written. It is soul-level stuff and I can think of few books that have ever so easily transported me to a place and time and left me feeling edgy. There is a reason so much of Herr's material didn't simply ended up in the films "Apocalypse Now" and "Full Metal Jacket" but also became some of the most memorable lines in the films. A brilliant book and one that should be read by anyone concerned about our most recent antics in Iraq.
I just Cant.......2007-09-11
Although I have a fasination with history, This book is just impossible to read. I must say i dislike the writing style. He keeps on and on and you dont get much out of it. I cant read pass page 57...
Please--all those who will become warriors--read.......2007-08-27
There are many who experienced, then wrote, to try to explain the Vietnam War. In tribute, Hunter S. Thompson said, "Michael Herr's Dispatches puts all the rest of us in the shade."
Every person who joins the military "to serve his country". . .(There ARE alternative ways to serve: I chose teaching in Africa for 3 years.). .Every person who may serve in the military, as now, during wartime should read this book before deployment.
You are at risk of barbarity (. . ."We had this gook and we was going skin him". . .) You are at risk of atrocity (. .."Disgust doesn't begin to describe what (our soldiers) made me feel, they threw people out of helicopters , tied people up and put the dogs on them.". .)
The reality, Mr. Herr, later suggests is: if you survive your tour, your problems are just beginning.
e.e. cummings said that memorial statues found in parks should not be built for those who fought so valiantly in war, but for those who said no to service.
"There it is . . . ".......2007-07-06
Any idiot who doesn't think Michael Herr captured the essence of northern I Corps during the Vietnam War in 1967-68 wasn't there, or certainly wasn't out in the boonies. I was. My Marine battalion (2/4) spent most of February '68 patrolling a stretch of dirt road through the mountains called "Highway 9" just a kilometer or two east of Khe Sahn. It was the winter monsoon and it rained constantly for days and nights at a stretch. Almost daily at about 5 p.m. we had to duck into our soggy bunkers with the scorpions, snakes and rodents when the B-52 "Arc Light" bombing raids flew in from Guam to pound the mountain jungles around Khe Sahn. Sometimes they got too close to our perimeters and rocks, pieces of trees and occasional NVA body parts fell onto our positions. Boring? Just when we got bored for a couple of hours, one of our patrols would make contact with some NVA and a furious firefight would break out. You ain't seen dark until you've been in jungle mountains on a cold rainy night with VC probing your perimeter. Read the dialogue! That's exactly how we talked there and then, how we thought, how we acted, etc. Yeah, just about everybody was stoned when they could be - it was a lot easier to get weed than beer or a drink, and you needed something to dull it. Herr was being honest by telling the story from a war correspondent's view (which he was), and ironic in calling reporters there "parasites" which is how the pinhead officers in Central Command saw them. But a lot of of soldiers and Marines were glad those "parasites" were there to tell the real story of what was happening in SE Asia. Herr's admiration for the grunts comes through loud and clear in Dispatches, as did his contempt for the politicians who launched the war - most of whom had never been in combat themselves but were too willing to send millions of young American draftees there to die in an ideological conflict with absolutely no strategic value - and the air-conditioned generals who ran it. Herr captured the insanity of the Vietnam War - the craziness of most warfare. This is the only book I ever recommend to others who want to know what it was like in 'Nam. Sound a little like the war in Iraq today? Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Increadible!.......2007-06-27
Michael Herr changed the face of journalism forever. The poetic imagery, extremely well done, makes reading about history a completely different thing. When I read the book for the first time, I was completely hooked by the second sentence.
People not framiliar with military lingo may come up upon some confusion. There are many abbreviations and terms that Herr expects the reader to understand. Don't let that stop you, you'll learn them soon enough.
If I had my say, I'd make every American read this book before graduating high school. After all, people are only people, but history always repeats itself.
Customer Reviews:
vietnam.......2007-06-12
this book is such a waste of time, it tells you only the point of view of one's man ego and his denial of america's defeat by the north vietnamese. throughout the whole war,the u.s miltary only rely on body counts for there victory ,hoping the north vietnamese would fear the u.s army and surrender ,but in the end ,they were wrong ,the nva and viet cong were determine to fight to the death.
face it,even though the u.s military won many battles,the united states lost the war and retreated . the whole world is aware of this defeat but only some american citizen like this author denies this.
many of the vc casualty are infact innocent civilians ,that the u.s military has covered up by placing nva /vc uniforms and weapons on dead civilians ,then taking photographic pictures of it.
the united states gain nothing from the war ,with 60,000 + dead u.s soldiers ,thousands m.i.a (s) ,150,000 billion dollars down the drain ,over 100,000 seriously injured soldiers including amputees (missing legs,arms , body parts) ,and handicaps ,torn the country apart during the 60's and 70's ,fail to stop communism,fail to protect south vietnam,fail to stop an army that is 10 time smaller then u.s army,and fail to justified the war in rightious context,basically the united states gave up and retreated.
the north vietnamese suffered high casualty by fighting u.s army,australian army ,arvn army,south korean army,and new zealand all by them self ,but fighting to regain there country for a better vietnam in the future was a well justified reason to die just like anyother civil war (compared this to american civil war casualties).
so one's man ego and his obsession of denial will not change the world's view on why people should think who really won the war,everybody knows who won this war,and media wasnt wrong at all.
Better Understanding Iraq.......2007-05-07
The revised copy of Karnow's classic is a historical masterpiece. While tedious at times, this work gives one of the best insights into the nuances of power in the 20th century. Everyone lost in Viet Nam and our government thought we had learned the lesson. We didn't as one can see by reading this in parallel with some of the recent works on the politics underlying Iraq. No student of history should miss the lessons of our time as outlined by Karnow and his interviews with most of the major influences of this turbulent time.
IN THE TIME OF THE VIETNAMESE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE.......2007-04-21
As the current Bush Administration-directed quagmire continues in Iraq it is rather timely to look at a previous bout of American imperialist madness in Vietnam if only in order to demonstrate the similar mindsets, then and now, of the American political establishment and their hangers-on. This book, unintentionally I am sure, is a prima facie argument, against those who see Iraq (or saw Vietnam) as merely an erroneous policy of the American government that can be `fixed' by a change to a more rational imperialist policy guided by a different elite. Undeniably there are many differences between the current war and the struggle in Vietnam. Not the least of which is that in Vietnam there was a Communist-led insurgency that leftists throughout the world could identify with and were duty-bound to support. No such situation existsin Iraq today. Seemingly, from the little we know about the murky politics of the parties, leftists can support individual anti-imperialist actions as they occur but stand away, way away, from the religious sectarian struggle for different versions of a fundamentalist Islamic state that the various parties are apparently fighting for.
Stanley Karnow's well-informed study of the long history of struggle in Vietnam against outsiders, near and far, is a more than adequate primer about the history and the political issues, from the American side at least, as they came to a head in Vietnam in the early 1960's. This work was produced in conjunction with a Public Broadcasting System documentary in 1983 so that if one wants to take the time to get a better grasp of the situation as it unfolded the combination of the literary and visual presentations will make one an `armchair expert' on the subject. A glossary of, by now, unfamiliar names of secondary players and chronology of events is helpful as are some very good photographs that lead into each chapter.
This book is the work of a long time journalist who covered Southeast Asia from the 1950's until at least the early 1980's when he went back after the war was over and interviewed various survivors from both sides as well as key political players. Although over twenty years has passed since the book's publication it appears to me that he has covered all the essential elements of the dispute as well as the wrangling, again mainly on the American side , of policy makers big and small. While everyone should look at more recent material that material appears to me to be essentially more specialized analysis of the general themes presented in Karnow's book. Or are the inevitably self-serving memoirs by those, like former Secretary of War Robert McNamara, looking to refurbish they images for the historical record. Karnow's book has the added virtue of having been written just long enough after the end of the war that memories, faulty as they are in any case, were still fresh but with enough time in between for some introspection.
The first part of Karnow's book deals with the long history of the Vietnamese struggle as a people, either in their various provincial enclaves or as a national entity, to be independent of the many other powers in the region, particularly China, who wanted to subjugate them. The book also pays detailed attention to the fight among the European colonial powers for dominance in the region culminating in the decisive victory for control by France in the 1800's. That domination by a Western imperialist power, ultimately defeated by the same Communist and nationalist forces that were to defeat the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, sets the stage for the huge role that the United States would come to play from the French defeat in 1954 until their own defeat a couple of decades later. This section is important to read because the premises of the French about their adversary became, in almost cookie-cutter fashion, the same premises that drove American policy. And to similar ends.
The bulk of the book and the central story line, however, is a study of the hubris of American imperialist policy-makers in attempting to define their powers, prerogatives and interests in the post-World War II period. The sub-title of the book, which the current inhabitants of the Bush Administration obviously have not read and in any case would willfully misunderstand, is how not to subordinate primary interests to momentary secondary interests in the scramble to preserve the Empire. Apparently, commonsense and simple rationality are in short supply when one goes inside the Washington Beltway. Taking into account the differences in personality among the three main villains of the piece- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon- the similarities of response and need to defend some sense of honor, American honor, are amazingly similar, individual rhetoric aside. There thus can be little wonder the North Vietnamese went about their business of revolution and independence pretty much according to their plans and with little regard to `subtleties' in American diplomacy. But, read the book and judge for yourselves. Do not be surprised if something feels awfully, awfully familiar.
WORTH THE EXPENSE.......2007-02-11
I have read many books on the Vietnam war, and that culture. This is the best one. It is a great view of the American position, of the Cold War, and of how the Vietnamese prevailed. It is well worth the money.
The Definitive Book on the Vietnam War.......2007-01-18
Part-history book, part-personal memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stanley Karnow does a superb job of telling the story of the biggest American foreign policy disaster of the 20th century. Vietnam was his beat from the death of the first American soldier there in 1959 until after the 1973 ceasefire that ended U.S. involvement. He interviewed almost all of the major players in the war and was there while the story unfolded.
This book isn't a complete history of Vietnam (history, culture, economics, sociology, etc.). Instead it covers in great detail the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, plus the origins of Vietnamese nationalism, which stems from their many battles with Chinese and French colonialism throughout the centuries.
Although I consider myself a history buff, Karnow surprised me with new details about the war. For example, the Tet Offensive of 1968 decimated the Vietcong and didn't affect U.S. public opinion nearly as much as people would have you believe. Also, the notorious Christmas bombing of 1972 largely spared urban areas of Hanoi and Haiphong--it wasn't the second Hiroshima I'd been led to believe. And JFK wasn't the first U.S. president to get America involved in Vietnam...that was Harry Truman's fault, although FDR got his fingers dirty a little bit.
Contrary to some of the other reviewers, I didn't find this book to be pro-Communist. Karnow gives a fair portrayal of both sides. He spends more time discussing North Vietnam's "insane" economic policies and the Communist massacre of civilians at Hué in 1968 than he does any U.S. atrocities (e.g., My Lai). And I was impressed by his descriptions of bravery on both sides of the conflict. This is no mean feat for someone that was placed on Richard Nixon's "enemies list" (as Karnow was).
If Karnow spends a lot of time discussing the arrogance and naivete of U.S. politicians and generals as well as the rampant corruption and incompetence of South Vietnam's leaders...well those were big reasons the Communists won, folks. And the parallels to Iraq today are striking.
Two last things:
1. Have a dictionary handy when reading this book.
2. This book is a little out-of-date: John McCain and John Kerry are described as "two members of Congress with impeccable war records." Ladies and gents, meet Karl Rove!
Amazon.com
For years the popular myth surrounding the Vietnam War was that the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew what it would take to win but were consistently thwarted or ignored by the politicians in power. Now H. R. McMaster shatters this and other misconceptions about the military and Vietnam in Dereliction of Duty. Himself a West Point graduate, McMaster painstakingly waded through every memo and report concerning Vietnam from every meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to build a comprehensive picture of a house divided against itself: a president and his coterie of advisors obsessed with keeping Vietnam from becoming a political issue versus the Joint Chiefs themselves, mired in interservice rivalries and unable to reach any unified goals or conclusions about the country's conduct in the war.
McMaster stresses two elements in his discussion of America's failure in Vietnam: the hubris of Johnson and his advisors and the weakness of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dereliction of Duty provides both a thorough exploration of the military's role in determining Vietnam policy and a telling portrait of the men most responsible.
Book Description
"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." -- H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion)
Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.
Dereliction Of Duty covers the story in strong narrative fashion, focusing on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public.
Sure to generate controversy, Dereliction Of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.
Customer Reviews:
A Timeless Classic!.......2007-08-28
The Vietnam War took the lives of 58,000 Americans and over one million Vietnamese, while consuming billions of U.S. dollars and leaving Vietnam in ruins. It also led Americans to question the integrity of their government as never before.
McMaster provides a detailed history of the top-level decision-making in Washington regarding the war. Readers clearly realize that while General Taylor (then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Secretary Mcnamara consistently withheld, watered-down, and misrepresented JCS views to LBJ, McNamara also bent Vietnamese leadership positions to his own and kept the JCS out of the decision-making loop to create a greatly "overstated" sense of unanimity.
The JCS, however, were far from blameless. Some allowed themselves to be bought off in return for service enlargement (Marines), reappointing General LeMay despite his bombastic attitude (Air Force), or maintenance within the existing power structure (Navy). Meanwhile, the group never seemed to get beyond inter-service rivalry - eg. the Air Force proposing "solutions" that featured bombing, the Marines proposing multiple point invasion and enclave-holding, etc. About the only thing they agreed on was that Mcnamara's strategy of limited response was doomed to failure - the French had already failed with 500,000 troops in North Vietnam, and an early Pentagon war game had eerily predicted the eventual direction of the war.
Why LBJ's direction? On the one hand, he feared being blamed for losing Vietnam to the Communists (aka Truman vs. China), while on the other did not want to detract from his re-election efforts and subsequent passage of the Great Society initiative through Congress.
Other reasons for the JCS' silence include the "lesson" of Truman vs. MacArthur, early training on allegiance to civilian control (however, this also include Congress, which also ended up woefully misinformed).
Mcmaster concludes that the Vietnam War was not lost in the field, nor on college campuses, nor the pages of the New York Times - rather it was lost in Washington, almost from the beginning.
What have we learned from "Dereliction of Duty?" At one point, it was "recommended" reading at the Pentagon's top level. On the other hand, General Sinseki clearly was pushed out prior to the Iraq War for telling the truth, as was Bush's chief economic advisor (Lindsay) for giving an unvarnished economic estimate of projected costs. Other lower-level generals have resigned to speak out rather than continue to support the Iraq War. At the same time, General Powell, in his new role as Secretary of State also failed to model forthright and assertive behavior to rebut Cheney, Rumsfeld et al, while Secretary Rumsfeld clearly failed to learn anything from McNamara's failures. Meanwhile, the book's author (Mcmaster) has been passed over twice so far for further promotion to Brigadier General.
Bottom Line: I do not question the loyalty or integrity of those in current military leadership positions. However, we have still managed to repeat the Vietnam leadership failures in Iraq.
Interesting subject matter, bad book.......2007-04-03
The subject of the is book is very interesting, so I struggled through to the end (with plenty of skimming), but this guy can't tell a story. Too dry, too long, no sense of style.
Tayloe Nickey
Recent history ignored - again.......2007-03-24
This book presents a lacerating indictment of Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other ancillary characters in the run-up to the Vietnam War. Short sighted political thinking on the part of Johnson, equally short-sighted inter-service rivalries amongst the Joint Chiefs (as well as a failure to speak out in the face of idiotic strategic military decision making), and a hubristic sense of infallibility on the part of McNamara are described - with compelling historical evidence - as the key sources of the fiasco. The parallels with the war in Iraq are obvious. A disturbing work that once again demonstrates that far too many political and military leaders are seemingly incapable of (a) learning from history, and (b) acting on anything but the most narrow, short-term agendas - mostly centered around the advancement of their careers.
Made me realize that we might be heading in same direction!.......2007-02-18
I was blown away by DERILECTION OF DUTY, written and read by
H.R. McMaster . . . though written some 10 years ago, it is perhaps
even more relevant now than it was then because of the Iraq conflict.
McMaster, a West Point graduate, thoroughly researched the
decisions that led to the conflict in Vietnam . . . he points out that
we were repeatedly lied to as a nation, not only by President
Johnson, but by Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, and a whole
host of other individuals.
In retrospect, I'm glad that "only" 58,000 Americans died
from that conflict . . . but what scared me the most in listening to
this book was that we seem to be heading in the same direction!
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".......2007-01-22
The above quotation from George Santayana perfectly explains why Major McMaster's 1997 book is so richly relevant today. The debacle that was the Viet Nam War is a story of hubris, intransigence, misplaced ideology and unbridled ego that led to the needless deaths of 58,209 American soldiers and over a million Vietnamese.
The war was predicated on a lie, maintained by lies and even today, thirty years later, most of what we think we know about the war turns out to be lies.
The war led to the downfall of at least two presidents, and even more importantly, world opinion toward the United States. Our national policy since the defeat in Hanoi has been one of "trying to recover our national dignity" at home and trying to rekindle trembling respect in the world community.
It is supremely ironic therefore that the policymakers who could benefit most from the lessons of Viet Nam seem not to have studied the facts behind the lies, and instead rely on some of the same failed advisors whose faulty military strategy got us into this mess. It is not only ironic but appalling.
Book Description
Where We Were represents more than seven years of exhaustive research by author, artist, and Vietnam veteran Michael Kelley. With more than 10,000 entries, it covers the entire Indochina Theater including Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and both North and South Vietnam.
Wherever possible, it includes the following for each firebase and military installation: Standard and a.k.a. names, origin of names, grid coordinates, relative location, dates built and dismantled, major units occupying, dates of major attacks, unique features, alternate grids, and province and military region.
Plus: Detailed maps and grid zone overlays; airfields and heliports; seaports and other docking facilities; significant terrain features; signal sites, ops, quarries, and engineer camps; U.S. Navy and Army ships and warships; U.S. military order of battle; Internet resource listings; guide to researching the Vietnam War; extensive glossary of terms and minutiae; and more...
Customer Reviews:
sea.......2007-10-03
Good info on Vietnam iself but not much on all of southeast asia and air force base's and sqd's.
Where We Were In Vietnam.......2006-05-14
I have had Mike's book for some time now and have found it to be of great use to me. I served in Vietnam as an infantryman in the Australian Army and he has covered many of our battle sites as well as our base areas so for that I say well done.. I currently live and work in Vietnam so I can use it as a constant reference whenever I travel throughout the country visiting the old battlefields and other sites of interest. With all grid references given in the military grid system and the ready availability of military maps for most areas it is a most usefull piece of work.
Where We Were in Vietnam.......2005-08-14
I served 3 consecutive tours in Vietnam and I must tell you, as a vietnam Veteran, I find this Book Perticulerly Aluminating. I still am in the process of comeing to terms with many things dealing with Vietnam. This Book puts many of them into perspective.
I thank you for that from the bottom of my Heart.
Frank Reyes SSG. Retired
Vietnam
1969-1973
Simply Outstanding! Resonates with living history!.......2004-10-01
Michael P. Kelley has exceeded all expectations with this volume. He has put his heart and soul into this resource, one that resonates with the living history of a long series of wars in 20th Century Vietnam. A primary resource for all interested in the conflict in Vietnam. A First Rate effort! Reread all those Vietnam-era works and see if those firebase names jive up to the action described. Is it fact, or else some sorry assed tale passed on down? Now we know. This is a must for any and all public libraries. We simply must have this work in the public record. HATS OFF, Mister Kelley!
Not worth the money..........2003-09-12
Two stars for effort. However, for anyone who has been in the 'Nam (3 years, in my case), this book promises a good deal, but does not deliver. Although Kelley put a lot of time into compiling some basic facts, overall it is certainly not worth the money.
The "lists" of combat bases, combat areas, villes, etc. are less than a thumbnail in length and the maps are of poor quality and difficult to read. It is nicely packaged, but beyond the cover there is just not much there. Maybe Kelley took on too much, going from 1945 to '75.
If you want to actually LEARN something about Viet Nam and why we ended up there, I recommend Stanley Karnow's "VIETNAM, A HISTORY".
Bottom line on "Where We Were...", save you money!
Book Description
"This incredible story, which plunges us immediately into the bloodiest aspects of the war, is also a suspenseful autobiography that will keep you chewing your fingernails to see if Van Devanter survives any of it at all. She proves herself a natural storyteller. . . . The most extraordinary part in this book is Van Devanter's plight after the war-her attempt to retrieve the love of her family, only to realize they don't want to see her slides, hear her stories; her assignment to menial duties at Walter Reed Army Hospital. . . . How Van Devanter survives all of this to become, incredibly, a stronger person for it is what makes her book so riveting."-San Francisco Chronicle
"An awesome, painfully honest look at war through a woman's eyes. Her letters home and startling images of life in a combat zone-surgeons fighting to save a Vietnamese baby wounded in utero, the ever-present stench of napalm-charred flesh, a beloved priest's gentle humor and appalling death, the casual heroism of her colleagues, a Vietnamese 'Papa-san' trying to talk his dead child back to life, a haunting snapshot dropped by a dying soldier with no face-tell the story of a young American's rude initiation to the best and the worst of humanity."-Washington Post
"Moving, powerful . . . a healing book."-Ms. Magazine
"This book reads like a diary: unguarded, heartfelt. . . . [It] is both moving and valu-able, for reminding us so vividly that war is indeed hell . . . and that its most tested heroes are the doctors and nurses who doggedly labor not just to save life, but also to keep their respect for it, even as their surviving patients are sent out, once more, unto the breach."-Harper's Magazine
"In Vietnam, reality hit fast: Van Devanter's plane was fired on when it landed in Saigon; and after three days of adjustment, she was assigned to the 71st Evacuation Hospital, a 'MASH-type facility' near the Cambodian border. There, the casualties, . . . the personal danger, the fatigue, the heat, rain, and mud, the harassment of officers enforcing petty regulations, and above all the meaninglessness of American involvement rapidly put an end to Van Devanter's blind patriotism, her innocence, and her youth. . . . Van Devanter brings us face to face with the toll that undeclared war took on its combatants."-Kirkus Reviews
"If you read only one work about Vietnam, make this the one. . . . This is the way it was, as seen through the eyes of an army second lieutenant when she was twenty-two. I believe her completely, because this reviewer remembers Vietnam the same way, when he was a nineteen-year-old Marine PFC."-Deseret Sentinel
Customer Reviews:
Sex, lies and surgical tape...30+ years later.......2007-08-07
Based on my personal observations, Lynda was the laughing stock of the 71st Evac Hospital. And, she was also almost universally disliked. You had to tolerate her. But, you didn't have to like her. I heard alot from her other "friends" there in 1971. And, I was unfortunate enough to have to spend an afternoon, sitting in a jeep in downtown Pleiku, while she and a friend were wined and dined, so I observed her interactions firsthand. She was laughed at constantly because she was always trying to get out of doing something. But, that was Vietnam's fault. Not hers.
The book is not even good fiction. About 95% of the happenings she claimed never occurred. If they occurred they occurred to someone else, someplace else. The majority of the book is nothing but flights of fancy from a woman that wouldn't know the truth if it bit her. Every problem she ever had, since 1969, was blamed on Vietnam, the people she worked with, the war, the weather, whatever. Not one time in her book did she ever take responsibility for her actions and the repercussions she got from bad decisions.
My review of this book is not as fluent as others. But, my statements are based on personal experience with the subject matter of her and this book firsthand. I was there, I know.
Home Before Morning.......2007-05-18
I read this book for the first time many years ago now and it touched a cord in me simply at the time I was going thru something similar myself being discharged from the military and finding that you really have no place in the world. I never experienced anything like she did and how she overcame all her obstacles only attests to the strength of the person she became because of it. I believe she has passed on now due to exposure of agent organge while serving our country. I always try to make people see just what sacrifices that our fighting men and women go thru to keep us free that we never even hear about except very rarely in such books as this one. "They" don't want this kind of information coming out to let us know just what has really gone on. This continues to be one of my favorite books and I generally wind up reading it a few times a year. It's one book that will never be let go. It is well worth reading and I guarantee you it will make you think and be appreciative of the little things that we all take for granted.
honest look into the time and culture of the Vietnam War.......2007-01-20
Lynda was a U.S. Army nurse at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku from 1969-70. In 1979, a year after the founding of Vietnam Veterans of America, she helped launch and became the head of VVA's Women's Project. She also began counseling other Vietnam veterans and conducting seminars around the country. Lynda was among the first few who committed herself to helping herself and others recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following Vietnam. I knew Lynda personally for many years. It took me a few years to get around to reading this book and when I did I wished I had read it earlier as it provided me a lot of insight into what ordinary men and women were thinking and feeling as they found their lives involved in the quagmire called Vietnam and the impact that it had upon them for the remainder of their lives. Honest, sad, vivid. Lynda passed away in 2002.
Life Changing.......2006-06-11
Growing up in the generation just past the edge of the Vietnam War era, I never really understood the war or the veterans. As a nurse, I started reading this book for the "nursing story." By the end of the book, I had a whole new view on the war, nurses in the war, veterans, the pain of war and the aftermath. I am appalled at the treatment, such as being spit on when our troops returned. It literally was life altering in my thought process of this era. Soon after reading it, a Vietnam vet. accompanied his wife for a procedure in the unit I worked. He openly told me that he had been sober for 2 months, and I was able to look at him in a whole new light and sincerely tell him how great that was. Another reminder that we have no right to judge others.
Fact or Fiction??.......2006-04-15
Ms. Van Devanter passed away in 2002. She, along with all who served in Vietnam, deserve our respect and appreciation for the sacrifices which they made in a very difficult and unpopular war.
I read this book and was deeply moved. However, just after I read the book I found a website dedicated to the memory of the 71st evac hospital near Pleiku where Ms. Van Devanter served. The author of the website served side by side with Ms. Van Devanter during her tour in Vietnam. I asked him what his thoughts were on the book. Here is his reply:
"Let me just say it like this: "Home Before Morning" is a wonderful blend of facts and exaggerated facts, designed to entertain and promote a certain agenda.....was that diplomatic enough?? I was fortunate enough to visit with Van (her nickname) while she was on a book tour that included my hometown. We had a great visit and she gave me a copy and wrote some nice things on the coverleaf. I took it home and read it that night, then had lunch with her the following day. She, of course, wanted to know what I thought of it. I asked her where she'd served, as it was obviously not at the 71st. We both laughed about that and she admitted that she wanted to sell books.
Van and I arrived at the 71st within days of each other and worked together every day until she was transferred out. She was an officer and I was an enlisted man, so we lived in different worlds, though working together 12 hours a day. Since we worked together, we sometimes hung out with the same gang...the OR/ER/Post-OP/X-ray bunch. After a few months of patching up GIs, NVA, civilians, etc., we both got disenchanted with the way the war was going and became politically active and were among the ringleaders of the "Great Turkey Day Fast" of Thanksgiving Day, 1969...consisting of refusal to eat Thanksgiving Dinner to protest the manner in which the war was being fought.
The case that she identifies as Gene was actually one that I scrubbed on. It's among the stories I have listed on the site. It was pretty gruesome and must have touched a nerve in her. Each of us who served there has at least one case that we think about every day.
Lest you believe that the war was as Van described it...it wasn't! There were lots of times when we had NO cases at all and a few very scary times when we had many more cases than we could handle. As in most military situations, it was 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror! 99% of the time we were operating on 1% of our brain power and 1% of the time we needed 150%!! Sometimes it was really wild! I think there's a story about "Push" that describes it..if not, I'll have to write it down."
You be the judge.
Average customer rating:
- Comprehensive and accurate
|
From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam
Richard L. Schreadley , and
R. L. Schreadley
Manufacturer: Naval Inst Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Naval
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Vietnam War
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Vietnam
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Southeast Asia
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Repair & Maintenance
| Ships
| Transportation
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0870217720 |
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive and accurate.......2003-12-17
This book is one of the best yet on riverine operations in Vietnam. As a participant in these operations, I found this book to be an accurate account of what really went on there.
Average customer rating:
- Courageous Type of Warfare
- Very pleased with product. Great book
- Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills
- Taste of What War is Like
- Must Read
|
Marine Sniper
Charles W. Henderson
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Military & Spies
| Professionals & Academics
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Vietnam War
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
War
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Military & Spies
| Professionals & Academics
| Biographies & Memoirs
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
United States
| Military
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Vietnam War
| Military
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
War
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Silent Warrior: The Marine Sniper's Story Vietnam Continues
-
One Shot One Kill: One Shot One Kill
-
Carlos Hathcock "Whitefeather"
-
Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
-
Crosshairs on the Kill Zone: American Combat Snipers, Vietnam through Operation Iraqi Freedom
ASIN: 0425103552 |
Book Description
Marine Sniper is not only one of the most astonishing true stories to emerge from the Vietnam War, it has become a classic of military nonfiction, inspiring a sequel, Silent Warrior: The Marine Sniper's Vietnam Story Continues.
There have been many Marines. There have been many marksmen. But there has only been one Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. A legend in the Marine ranks, Hathcock stalked the Viet Cong behind enemy lines-on their own ground. And each time he emerged from the jungle having done his duty. His record is one of the finest in military history, with 93 confirmed kills.
This is the story of a simple man who endured incredible dangers and hardships for his country and his Corps. These are the missions that have made Carlos Hathcock a legend in the brotherhood of Marines.
"Highly readable." (Publishers Weekly)
Customer Reviews:
Courageous Type of Warfare.......2007-09-24
This book is about Carlos Hathcock, the distinguished Marine Corp sniper of the Vietnam War. Honored in this country, with 93 confirmed enemy kills and having gained notoriety among the enemy as White Feather, because that is what adorned his cap and gained him a bounty on his head. The book is a good portrayal of what it takes to become proficient at sniper warfare, along with its effectiveness in warfare. Although often considered a cowardly method of warfare, the reader will pick up that Hathcock's time in the bush stalking the enemy's position days on end to obtain the perfect shot, but not too close to make escape impossible is a personally courageous act. The book highlights one incident where Hathcock goes one on one with an equally savvy Viet Cong sniper and another four-day stalk within a Viet Cong base camp to bring down a North Vietnamese General. The author's portrayal of Hathcock's banter is not all that humble when discussing himself, but this man can also walk the walk. It is a little sad about the adjustment problems Hathcock has to civilian life. Most civilian jobs pale in comparison to hunting and being hunted by humans., The book is a fast light read with some heart pounding entertainment. The book could have used some more sniper accounts.
Very pleased with product. Great book.......2007-09-13
Im very happy with this transaction and would do business with this seller again.The book is great and worth the money.Its a must to anyone that enjoys reading about snipers or vietnam
Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills.......2007-06-25
Very good book...I was in Vietnam in May of '67 till May of '68....This book is very very real !!!War is a varied mixture of total boredom and the mundane to the highest Adrenalin rush one can ever imagine !!!Many things described in this book present that...
Taste of What War is Like.......2007-06-08
This book gives you an idea of what it is like to be the hunter as well as the huntee. Brings home the brutality of war.
Must Read.......2007-03-08
Henderson does a great job telling Hathcock's story. I couldn't put this book down. If Vietnam interests you, you have to read this book. Also, Silent Warrior the sequal is great to read as well because it tells a lot of the stories in this book more in depth because Henderson went and found out more info about certain battles. even going as far as interviewing NVA soldiers that were stalked by Hatchcock. One of my favorite books ever. Like the Military Channel? read this book!!!!!!!!
Books:
- Introduction to Native North America, An (3rd Edition)
- Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite: The Rise and Fall of the Ceausescus
- Le Petit Prince (French Language Edition)
- Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
- Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children
- Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
- Life: 100 Events That Shook Our World : A History in Pictures from the Last 100 Years
- Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
- Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
- Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Professional Real Estate Development 2nd Edition
- It Takes a Lot More Than Attitude... To Lead a Stellar Organization
- Count N.P. Ignat'ev
- Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change
- History: Fiction or Science
- Moll Flanders
- History: Fiction or Science
- Inside Interviewing: New Lenses, New Concerns
- Educating the Educators in Tourism: A Manual of Tourism & Hospitality Education
- Decision Point: The Business Game That Lets You Make the Decision and Reap the Rewards...or Bear the
Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia
The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California's Little Saigon
Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province
Memories of Philippine Kitchens
Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking
