Some stories spring from pure imagination, mere reflections of an author's perception of reality. Others, like this one, are forged in the mud and misery of actual conflict. In the decaying jungles and fetid rice paddies of South Vietnam, a diverse band of soldiers and civilians endures a harrowing year of combat that will continue to haunt them for more than three decades. Their season of need reveals not only the horror of war, but also the possibility of finding solace and purpose in th...

Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre contains seven carefully-selected ethnodramas that best illustrate this emerging genre of arts-based research, a burgeoning but evident trend in the field of theatre production itself. In his introduction to ethnodrama and to the plays themselves, Salda-a emphasizes how a credible, vivid, and persuasive rendering of a research participant's story as a theatrical performance creates insights for both researcher and audience not possible through co...

This book traces the contributions of the Lévy-Bruhl family to social and political thought and expertise in 20th-century France, shaping the anticipation of economic and health crises.How French Moderns Think tells the story of the French sociological tradition through four generations of the Lévy-Bruhl family: Lucien, who founded the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris; his son Henri, who founded the Institute of Roman Law; his grandson Ray...

The men who served with in the 1st Infantry Division with F company, 52nd Infantry, (LRP) later redesignated as Company I, 75th Infantry (Ranger) --engaged in some of the fiercest, bloodiest fighting during the Vietnam War, suffering a greater relative aggregate of casualties that any other LRRP/LRP/ Ranger company. Their base was Lai Khe, within hailing distance of the Vietcong central headquarters, a mile inside Cambodia, with its vast stockpiles of weapons and thousands of transient VC ...

This is the report of an American Paratrooper, Infantry, boots on the ground, in Viet Nam in the mid 1960s. It is not a romanticized, sanitized, fantasized Hollywood version of ground combat. It is a description of life on the ground for your military grandfathers, fathers, uncles and brothers. When they returned from Viet Nam, this is not what they talked about. It was too painful, too raw, too uncivilized and too inhuman. The accumulated fear and pain of a full years tour of duty was ove...

A remarkable memoir of small-unit leadership and the coming of age of a young soldier in combat in Vietnam.'"Using a lean style and a sense of pacing drawn from the tautest of novels, McDonough has produced a gripping account of his first command, a U.S. platoon taking part in the 'strategic hamlet' program. . . . Rather than present a potpourri of combat yarns. . . McDonough has focused a seasoned storyteller’s eye on the details, people, and incidents that best communicate a visc...

At the height of the Vietnam conflict, a complex system of secret underground tunnels sprawled from Cu Chi Province to the edge of Saigon. In these burrows, the Viet Cong cached their weapons, tended their wounded, and prepared to strike. They had only one enemy: U.S. soldiers small and wiry enough to maneuver through the guerrillas’ narrow domain.The brave souls who descended into these hellholes were known as “tunnel rats.” Armed with only pistols and K-bar knives, these men inch...

Exit Wounds: A Vietnam Elegy is an intimate, boots-on-the-ground memoir that chronicles one captain’s brutal experience in the Vietnam War.On October 19, 1965, American Special Forces in Vietnam came under attack at their camp at Plei Me. This marked the first major confrontation between the North Vietnamese and US armies during the war. Throughout six days of constant hostile fire, Captain Lanny Hunter sorted the seriously wounded from the dead and saved ...

This behind-the-scenes account of a USAF career is "an absorbing read, written with the classic humor fighter pilots seem to have" ( Flight Line Book Review).From Baron von Richthofen to Robin Olds, the mystique of the fighter pilot endures. The skill, cunning, and bravery that characterizes this distinctive band of brothers is well known, but there are other dimensions to those who take to the skies to do battle that have not been given the emphasis they d...

This military memoir examines one of the most vicious and tragically forgotten battles of the Vietnam War from a variety of perspectives.In June of 1967, the Viet Cong sought to isolate and destroy an elite South Vietnamese unit as part of a new offensive strategy. They sent a voluntary POW as an "informant" to dupe the 52nd Vietnamese Ranger Battalion into taking a dangerous position in the III Corps sector of South Vietnam. In the midst of an ambush, the members ...

**This “funny, biting, thoughtful, and wholly original” Vietnam War memoir captures the fear, sorrow, and absurdities of combat (Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried).“A must-read war memoir . . . related by one of the most incisive observers of the American political scene." —Kirkus Reviews**A conversation with a group of today’s military age men and women about America’s involvement in Vietnam inspired Jeff Danziger to write about his own warti...

At the age of twenty-four, Dang Thuy Tram volunteered to serve as a doctor in a National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) battlefield hospital in the Quang Ngai Province. Two years later she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. At times raw, at times lyrica...