Military Veteran

Suicide rates among Army soldiers increased 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, according to a recent report published in Injury Prevention. In the last several years, the number of soldiers returning from the Middle East with mental and physical wounds has continued to climb. According to Dr. Simon Rego, a supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, "Unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations. It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem."

Developed specifically for the Vietnam War, Swift Boats were versatile craft "big enough to outrun anything they couldn't outfight" but too small to handle even a moderate ocean chop, too loud to sneak up on anyone, and too flimsy to withstand the mildest of rocket attacks. This made more difficult an already tough mission: navigating coastal waters for ships and sampans smuggling contraband to the Viet Cong, disrupting enemy supply lines on the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta, and inserting SEALs behind enemy lines.

Welcome Home is a story about the final years of the Vietnam War and its impact on American servicemen and the South Vietnamese who lived through it. Josh Harding is a gunner’s mate on a strike assault boat in a little-known operation in the Mekong Delta, setting up ambushes to interdict the North Vietnamese army’s infiltration into South Vietnam. His experiences during this pivotal time reveal many obscure and forgotten events that set the stage for South Vietnam’s defeat. Little did he know that the most profound events from the war would arrive after he returned home.

Terry McGowan had been a beat cop, a marine captain, and a special agent for the FBI before retiring at the age of 50. But when tragedy struck the United States on September 11, 2001, Terry felt an undiminished sense of duty to protect and serve his country. Six years later he was in Iraq as a member of a team of high-ranking retired and active-duty military working for the highest level of marine military intelligence. His success in Iraq led to a position as a law enforcement professional with the marines in Afghanistan.

On the eve of the 65th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, Larry Alexander returns to the very battlefields that made Easy Company a legend. Accompanied by Easy veteran Sgt. Forrest Guth on his final tour, Alexander crosses an ocean and a continent to follow the path to victory taken by the famed Band of Brothers, exploring the living history of the places where they went into action and revealing what makes their story so meaningful for us to this day.

She’s off limits and I follow the rules—normally. In my line of work, rules keep you alive. They are not to be broken. For anything. Or anyone. But I’m barely keeping my head above water with my sexy new rookie. She’s out of bounds. My mentor’s daughter. Everything I shouldn’t want. But I need her. I’ll teach her how to follow the rules on the job. In bed? I’ll show her how good it feels to break them. Every good girl deserves a bad boy. ~ Weston

They were the final survivors of the millions who made up the American Expeditionary Forces, nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century. Self-reliant, humble, and stoic, they kept their stories to themselves for a lifetime, then shared them at the last possible moment so that they, and the war they won - the trauma that created our modern world - might at last be remembered. You will never forget them.

In November 2006, then-first-lieutenant Thomas Daly arrived as part of the surge in Ramadi to take part in Operation Squeeze Play, a division-size effort to remove al-Qaeda from Anbar province. In this powerful memoir, he describes the successful clearing of Southern Ramadi's Second Officer's district, the Qatana, and the uprising of local citizens against al-Qaeda on the eastern edge of the city (the result of an unlikely alliance between Daly's company and Thawar al Anbar).

It's clear that we have not honored the promise we make to veterans: that we as a country will help them after they've served and sacrificed. And while there are many books written by and for veterans, only a small selection of those address the transition to civilian life, and none are a truly complete reference for stepping out of service and back into normal life. Warrior to Civilian covers a range of topics, from the practical—finding a job, reintegrating into family life—to the more challenging topics, like dealing with loss, and finding new purpose in life.

This is a US Army helicopter pilot's candid, firsthand account of his Vietnam experience in the air and on the ground at the height of US troop strength and then again when he returned for a second tour of duty at the very end of the war. It is a nonpolitical description of what life was really like for him and others who served in Vietnam. There is no embellishment or any secondhand stories from anyone else about their experiences in Vietnam.

While serving as a crew chief aboard a US Air Force Rescue helicopter, Airman First Class William A. Robinson was shot down and captured in Ha Tinh Province, North Vietnam, on September 20, 1965. After a brief stint at the "Hanoi Hilton", Robinson endured 2,703 days in multiple North Vietnamese prison camps, including the notorious Briarpatch and various compounds at Cu Loc, known by the inmates as the Zoo.

I commanded an infantry company during the Vietnam Tet Offensive of 1968. I got to see the magnificence of the human spirit as my men triumphed over incredible adversity. This is a story that must be told. We are a special country with a special destiny. My men showed me the way.

In 1969, Navy sailor Nick Kilmer's life was saved by an Army soldier, Sam Jackson, during an intense battle in Vietnam. Fifty years later Nick travels by motorcycle with his dog Deacon to visit Sam in Idaho. Both men struggle with service connected disabilities, but Nick carries the burden of never having the opportunity to repay Sam for saving his life. A young woman of Vietnamese descent shows up who is running for safety from cartel members. The situation becomes further complicated when Nick believes that the young woman might be Sam's granddaughter. While Sam creates a diversion, Nick,...

My past destroyed me, then I rebuilt myself. But what if I'm not done changing, and what if I don't want to? Ex-soldier Adam Strong has no idea the woman he met in the airport is an FBI agent or that he's part of her next assignment. Abby Brookes is used to getting what she wants. She works hard for respect, locks terrible men behind bars, and is willing to cross professional boundaries for results. She's been given a new assignment, look out for her boss' civilian assets and investigate a rogue faction of the FBI. Will Abby be able to keep her secrets and her heart close to her chest? Or ...

Caleb McCabe just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He's shell-shocked. Loud noises make him jump. He feels like an outcast in civilian society. When Caleb meets a gorgeous, fun-loving Violet, he knows he can't handle a relationship, especially with a golden girl like her. But that doesn't stop him from thinking about her. Violet Jameson's studying for a degree in psychology. When she meets the ultra-hot combat hero Caleb, she's riveted not only by his rugged good looks but also by his obvious vulnerabilities. She yearns to get close to him, and to begin to heal him.

In Charlie Mike, Joe Klein tells the dramatic story of Eric Greitens and Jake Wood, larger-than-life war heroes who come home and use their military discipline and values to help others. This is a story that hasn't been told before, one of the most hopeful to emerge from Iraq and Afghanistan - a saga of lives saved, not wasted.

21 Months, 24 Days is an engaging memoir of a blue-collar kid turned soldier. Threatened by the draft in the late 60s, he enlisted in the Army to avoid becoming a grunt, yet ended up one anyway. He endured a grueling war in Vietnam and then returned to a country too angry to care. While his journey took unexpected turns, his choices got him there, so he did his best to react positively and keep moving forward.

In this masterful book, renowned historian Peter Englund describes this epoch-defining event by weaving together accounts of the average man or woman who experienced it. Drawing on the diaries, journals, and letters of 20 individuals from Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Venezuela, and the United States, Englund's collection of these varied perspectives describes not a course of events but "a world of feeling".

A naive young man, a railway enthusiast and radio buff, was caught up in the fall of the British Empire at Singapore in 1942. He was put to work on the 'Railway of Death' - the Japanese line from Thailand to Burma. Exhaustively and brutally tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio, Lomax was emotionally ruined by his experiences.

According to Doss's account in a documentary film titled The Contentious Objector, as he rescued soldiers one-by-one, he breathed into the air with each go-around, "Lord, please help me get one more". The modest man of faith claims to have saved 50 wounded soldiers from certain death. His comrades claim that he saved 100. President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor upon his return to the United States, for his heroics on Okinawa, and the citation credits him with saving 75 lives, splitting the difference.