A Vietnam War veteran paints a searing portrait of his one-year tour of duty as an Army draftee, shedding light on the emotional and physical casualties of warIn this intimate memoir, Perry A. Ulander chronicles with powerful clarity the bewildering predicament he confronted and the fellowship and guidance that transformed him during the year he served as an American GI in the jungles of Vietnam. Conveying with unadorned precision the harrowing experiences that sha...

A Vietnam War veteran paints a searing portrait of his one-year tour of duty as an Army draftee, shedding light on the emotional and physical casualties of warIn this intimate memoir, Perry A. Ulander chronicles with powerful clarity the bewildering predicament he confronted and the fellowship and guidance that transformed him during the year he served as an American GI in the jungles of Vietnam. Conveying with unadorned precision the harrowing experiences that sha...

SELECTED BY MILITARY TIMES AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * SELECTED BY THE SOCIETY OF MIDLAND AUTHORS’ AS THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEARThe New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers shares the powerful account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War in “an important book….not just a battle story—it’s also about the home front” (The Today show).

In the mid-nineteen sixties, Harry Constance made a life-altering journey that led him out of Texas and into the jungles of Vietnam. As a young naval officer, he went from UDT training to the U.S. Navy's newly formed SEAL Team Two, then straight into furious action. By 1970, he was already the veteran of three hundred combat missions and the recipient of thirty-two military citations, including three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.Good to Go is Constance's powerful, first...

In the early morning hours of April 1, 1970, more than four hundred North Vietnamese soldiers charged out into the open and tried to overrun FSB Illingworth. The battle went on, mostly in the dark, for hours. Exposed ammunition canisters were hit and blew up, causing a thunderous explosion inside the FSB that left dust so thick it jammed the hand-held weapons of the GIs. Much of the combat was hand-to-hand. In all, twenty-four Americans lost their lives and another fifty-four were wounded....

Sometimes you do everything right, but it just isn't your day. A part fails and your helicopter comes apart in flight, or, another aircraft runs into you and the pieces of both fall to the ground below, or the enemy gunner pulls the trigger at just the right moment and his rounds find your aircraft in exactly the right spot to take it out of the sky. Whichever way it happens, it wasn't your day.Which is why, after twenty-four years and over 5,000 flight hours with four armed servic...

A thoughtful, reflective narrative of a reluctant soldier that captures the rhythms of life in war as well as the boredom and chaos of Vietnam.At the height of the Vietnam War, Charles Carr left graduate school to serve in the army in Southeast Asia, knowing that if he didn't, another man would go—and possibly die—in his place. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry (Mechanized) in the northern Mekong Delta for a tour of forcing himself through r...

SELECTED BY MILITARY TIMES AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * SELECTED BY THE SOCIETY OF MIDLAND AUTHORS’ AS THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEARThe New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers shares the powerful account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War in “an important book….not just a battle story—it’s also about the home front” (The Today show).

This memoir is a record of what Jensen calls the luckiest and greatest adventure of his life. In the midst of the fighting and with the knowledge that each day could be his last, this young Marine managed to find some humor in his situation and he believes that is what kept him alive.The story begins with Jensen as a young man in New York in the 1960s, who, following in his brother's footsteps, decides to join the Marines in hopes of finding himself. Early chapters discuss his expe...

It’s the year 1969. I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who’d enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who’d all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time.I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, ...

This is the story that inspired the acclaimed Burt Lancaster film, Go Tell the Spartans. It's 1964--early days in South Vietnam--and the U.S. Army Raiders have garrisoned a town that the French abandoned ten years before. The Viet Cong attack; the Americans reinforce. They're not about to repeat the mistakes of the French! "'Sad, bawdy, and compelling," wrote the Detroit Free Press. Prophetic, too, of how the larger war would end. Revised 2015 edition.

Featuring a new introduction by the author about his return to Vietnam, his reflections on the war, and his humanitarian work in Cambodia.“The enemy had a single purpose: kill me and my teammates.”Larry Chambers was still new to Vietnam in early 1969 when the LRRPs of the 101st Airborne Division became L Company, 75th (Rangers). But his unit’s mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley—where the...