Vietnam War Biography

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: US 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 inched their way through the steamy darkness where any number of horrors could be awaiting them.

One of the most acclaimed books of our time - the definitive Vietnam War exposé and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won.

One night in 1967, 26-year-old John Donohue - known as Chick - was out with friends, drinking in a New York City bar. The friends gathered there had lost loved ones in Vietnam. Now, they watched as anti-war protesters turned on the troops themselves. One neighborhood patriot came up with an inspired - some would call it insane - idea. Someone should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies there, give them messages of support from back home, and share a few laughs over a can of beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

They will never be able to duplicate the 5th Special Forces Recondo School and the training that gave its grads something they desperately needed - the skills to survive Long Range Patrol missions in the jungle that NVA considered its own. Vietman veteran Larry Chambers vividly describes the grit and courage it took to pass the tough volunteer-only training program in Nha Trang and the harrowing graduation mission to scout out, locate, and out-guerrilla the NVA.

During the Vietnam War, far from the halls of Congress, snooping reporters, loving family members, and conventional US military forces in South Vietnam, a deadly, top-secret war was conducted for eight years across the fence in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam by small Green Beret-led reconnaissance teams.

Donut Dolly puts you in the Vietnam War face down in the dirt under a sniper attack, inside a helicopter being struck by lightning, at dinner next to a commanding general, and slogging through the mud along a line of foxholes. You see the war through the eyes of one of the first women officially allowed in the combat zone.

A remarkable memoir of small-unit leadership and the coming of age of a young soldier in combat in Vietnam.

In the years since the Vietnam War, the elite unit known as SOG has spawned many myths, legends, and war stories. Special Forces medic Joe Parnar served with SOG during 1968 in FOB2/CCC near the tri-border area that gave them access to the forbidden areas of Laos and Cambodia. Parnar recounts his time with the recon men of this highly classified unit, as his job involved a unique combination of soldiering and lifesaving.

The Vietnam War remains one of the most iconic events of the 20th century. In the United States, it polarized public opinion and changed foreign policy. It destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and was the catalyst for a massively impactful protest movement. More importantly, in Vietnam, as well as surrounding areas, it caused untold destruction, death, and suffering.

In Legend, acclaimed best-selling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A 12-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia - where US forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

It's the year 1969. I was serving in the US 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.

When she was 18, she joined the army to finance her nursing education. With less than six months of nursing experience, she was assigned to the 24th Evacuation Hospital in South Vietnam. True tales of the war that are by turns horrifying and humorous, told with an eye for detail, by a woman who was in the thick of it.

"Kids like me didn't go to Vietnam", writes Jack McLean in his must-listen memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. "Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war", he writes. It didn't remain that way for long.

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 NVA ruled. Relentless thick fog frequently made fighter bombers useless in the A Shau, and the enemy had furnished the nearby mountaintops with antiaircraft machine guns to protect the massive trail network that snaked through it. So, outgunned, outmanned, and unsupported, the teams of L Company executed hundreds of courageous missions.

On a dark night in the Mekong Delta, young platoon sergeant Edgar Eaton's courage and self-sacrifice would mean the difference between life and death for his wounded comrades. This is the story of Ed the sniper. Ed doesn't plan on serving as a sniper; the small-town Oregon boy hopes to become a combat medic when he enlists at age nineteen. Instead, he finds himself an infantryman in the unique Army / Navy Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta.

101st Airborne Helicopter Gunships Supporting Airborne Infantry, LRRPs, and Special Forces SOG Units in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bien Hoa, Hue, Northern I Corps, & the A-Shau Valley.

Vietnam Saga is a very personal story of Stan Corvin's often perilous times in the US Army as a two-tour combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam. It is a true-life story of soldiers who fought for freedom and often for their very lives. Vietnam Saga is also a story about the meaning of life. Standing back from his war experience, Stan reflects on his ever-present faith and how it carried him through this challenging period of his life.

Con Thien was a United States Marine Corps firebase that was the scene of fierce combat for months on end during 1967. Staving off attacks and ambushes while suffering from ineffectual leadership from Washington as well as media onslaughts, courageous American Marines protected this crucial piece of land at all costs. They would hold Con Thien, but many paid the ultimate price. By the end of the war, more than 1,400 Marines had died and more than 9,000 sustained injuries.

Lt. Col. Ed “Fast Eddie” Cobleigh flew as a fighter pilot with the US Air Force, the US Navy (TOPGUN), the Royal Air Force, the Imperial Iranian Air Force, and the French Air Force. This is his story--a prequel and a sequel to his number-one best-selling memoir, War for the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot’s View of Vietnam.

Terry Buckler is an all-American boy from the Heartland who is selected for one of the most daring Special Operations missions in world history. See the 1970 Son Tay Raid through his eyes, with top secret planning by CIA, Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine special warfare legends in secret locations both in the US and in Southeast Asia. Twists in the story will take the listener from Hanoi, some of the most highly-defended airspace in the world, to idyllic farmlands in America to a secret CIA compound to the East Room of the White House.