Vietnam Biography

Asia’s growing economic clout is starting to reshape global business rules that have been molded by Western multinationals for many decades. The region’s rising star, Vietnam, is now flexing its economic muscles, and Competing with Giants tells the story of its transformation from war ruin to dynamic nation through the experiences of Tân Hiệp Phát (THP), the drinks company founded by Phương Uyên Trần’s family. Told through the eyes of the daughter who watched her parents overcome numerous obstacles to achieve success, the book offers a primer for others to follow suit.

The true story of Captain Sounthone Ratanakone is simply incredible. He was born into royalty in Laos and was a war hero and a CIA operative in the Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War. The captain barely survived being a POW in a communist concentration camp (which the communists to this day deny ever existed), made a death-defying escape, had to escape the communist regime again once he had settled back home, and lived in a refugee camp. Til the Last is a story of heroism, patriotism, and self-sacrifice at the highest and most dramatic levels.

In June 1969, Tom Hargrove arrived in Vietnam as a first lieutenant in the US Army. But he wasn’t just there to make war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies. Hargrove was also there to introduce improved rice varieties into the war-torn region. This unique memoir tells of Hargrove’s efforts to improve the everyday lives of the Vietnamese, even as he was calling in B-52 strikes against opposition forces.

John R. Deane, Jr. (1919-2013) was born with all the advantages a man needs to succeed in a career in the US Army, and he capitalized on his many opportunities in spectacular fashion. The son of one of George C. Marshall's closest assistants, Deane graduated from West Point with the first class of World War II and served in combat under the dynamic General Terry de la Mesa Allen, Sr.

In the early morning hours of January 31, 1968, New Year's fireworks gave way to gunfire and bombs. Eleven-year-old Minh watched in horror as her father and two siblings were gunned down by the Vietcong in their backyard. Though she escaped death that night, abuse, prison, and torture would follow. A dramatic escape by boat on the South China Sea finally takes Minh out of communist Vietnam, but the tragedy of her childhood would continue to haunt her. Minh’s powerful story of escape, as well as dangerous and unhealthy relationships, is told with raw sincerity.

Buddha's Child will flood the shadowy corners of South Vietnam's Byzantine political world with the bright light of truth. Ky will describe the Americans and their activities from the perspective of the Vietnamese patriot.

Condemned by US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as "the absolute bottom of the barrel," Ky was not expected to survive a week in the office into which he was thrust. Instead, he lasted three years, until he wrote himself out of office by penning the country's first constitution.

For over 25 years, award-winning journalist Henry Bradsher reported stories from around the world. In this lively and engaging account, Bradsher recounts episodes from a distinguished career that took him to the Himalayas, the jungles of Bhutan, Kremlin caviar receptions, China's Forbidden City, and the battlefields of Vietnam. Throughout, Bradsher emphasizes the unpredictability of a correspondent's life and the strains, perils, and privileges of standing witness to momentous world events.

December, 1966: Platoon leader Lt. Joseph Callaway had just turned 23 when he arrived in Vietnam to lead 42 untested men into battle against some of the toughest, most experienced, and best-trained guerrilla soldiers in the world. Callaway soon learned that most events in this savage jungle war were beyond his control. But there was one thing he could do well: take the best damn care of his troops he knew how.

Part of a coordinated, nationwide Vietnam moratorium effort that confounded and infuriated the Nixon White House, the San Marcos 10 challenged their suspension, taking their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Author E. R. Bills offers this fascinating glimpse into the 1960s antiwar movement in Texas, the extraordinary measures to quell it, and the broader social activism in which it participated.

Finding Pete is one of the great, untold true stories of an escalating war and a young man caught in its sights. This personalized account of a critical moment in US history is the moving story of an altruistic youth who personifies what America lost in Vietnam. It is also a portrait of a family's struggle with loss, a mother's damaging grief, and, most of all, a sister's quest to solve a mystery and recover the connection with her brother.

These stories begin with brief family histories that bring the Peltier and the Scottish Keillor families together. John was the fifth of the 12 children that Wilburn and Barbara Peltier raised on the flat salt grass prairie of Southeast Texas after they married. The life they created for their family on their rice farm and cattle ranch provided fertile ground for the life experiences that are shared in these settings. At the age of 19, naïve and fresh from the farm, John was drafted into the US Army. After surviving boot camp and medical corpsman training, he found himself in Vietnam.

These are the recollections of a draftee assigned to an infantry platoon in an air cavalry troop. BlueGhost Reveille follows me as a 22-year-old as I became a squad leader and then Platoon Sergeant during the war in Vietnam. The pieces of this audiobook are as factual as 50-year-old memories will allow. There is no intentional fiction in this work. The stories are about everyday life during this year in a combat unit. Some pieces are mundane, some are humorous, and the parts about going to serious war will get your heart up in your throat.

This sequel to Welcome to Vietnam, Macho Man digs deep into the mind of a Khe Sanh vet. The author, Ernest Spencer, opens up and shares with the world his life experiences from both before and after surviving the longest battle in the Vietnam War. How does wartime service change a person? Ernest shares his struggles with finding a place to fit back into the American Dream. Some, like the author, transition back into society very well in the eyes of the world, yet the demons deep inside are grappled with daily.

Magnet Ass and the Stone-Cold Truck Hunters is a Vietnam war memoir about Captain Alan "Magnet Ass" Milacek, the "man who flew his plane on one wing". It is a war story. But it is also not a war story. It has everything to do with a white-hot mission over the Plain of Jars in 1970, for which 10 men earned The Mackay Trophy, one of history's most coveted aviation awards.

Unlike most childhoods, mine was far from being a happy one. My siblings and I, as well as the generation before us, were born at a time when warplanes, gunfire, foreign men in uniform, constant evacuations, and locals hiding under bunkers or war tunnels were commonplace. Now, whenever I see playgrounds that are lush with trees and green grasses and filled with children on swings, who are laughing while being pushed by their parents, I cannot help but feel a tinge of envy.

In 1967, Joe Putnam, fresh out of officer training school, is shipped overseas to Vietnam as part of President Johnson’s American Adviser program. Putnam would be one of the American soldiers advising the South Vietnamese Army on how to conduct a war against the North Vietnamese Army and their allies in the south, the Viet Cong. This plan would supposedly keep the Communists at bay without actually getting the U.S. into full-fledged war in Southeast Asia.

In this searing, inspiring memoir, Black recounts how he devoted himself, body and soul, to his proud service as an elite US Army Ranger in Korea and Vietnam - and what those years have taught him about himself, his country, and our future. Written with extraordinary candor and passion, A Ranger Born is the memoir of a man who dedicated the best of his life to everything that is great and enduring about America.

"Was hat mich getrieben? Hoffnung! Hoffnung für die Vertriebenen, für die Verlassenen, für die Einsamen und für die, die an den Himmel glauben." (Dau-Thi-Cúc, die sich Loan nannte). In "Loan - Aus dem Leben eines Phönix" erzählt Isabelle Müller die wahre Emanzipationsgeschichte ihrer Mutter Loan, einer eigenwilligen und rebellischen Vietnamesin, die mit knapp zwölf Jahren vor einer Zwangsverheiratung flieht, um auf einer langen und oft gefährlichen Odyssee durch Vietnam, Frankreich und Algerien den Weg zu sich selbst und zu einem freien selbstbestimmten Leben zu finden.

From working with a double agent who betrays his friendship and exposes a top secret cross border operation, Terry McIntosh wrestles with his own doubts and fears while protecting the rights of others to live free. He was chosen from the ranks of long-range reconnaissance training to serve with Special Forces Detachment A-team 414 in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, 1968-1969.

As a result of a rowdy night in his local New York bar, ex-Marine and merchant seaman "Chick" Donohue volunteers for a legendary mission. He will sneak into Vietnam to track down his buddies in combat to bring them a cold beer and supportive messages from home. It'll be the greatest beer run ever! Now, decades on from 1968, this is the remarkable true story of how he actually did it. Armed with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol, Chick works his passage to Vietnam, lands in Qui Nhon and begins to carry out his quest, tracking down the disbelieving soldiers one by one.