Vietnam War Fiction

This is the second installment in the Wars of the United States series. The Vietnam War follows the story of countless soldiers, sailors, and Marines who gave their lives in the fight to preserve freedom for future generations of Americans.

Duty. Honor. Country. The motto by which Major Harry Russell lived as a United States Army Special Forces officer. How does he move forward when his entire life has been turned on its head? Everything Harry worked toward all his life is gone. Gone like his foot in a nighttime mortar attack. Gone like his career since the Army kicked him out as worthless dead weight. Gone like his friends, missing on a secret mission. All he has now is himself. And as a Vietnam veteran, that may not be enough.

The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren’t so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam.

The cover of darkness was pulled back by the NODS scopes in their hands. The enemy had no idea what was about to befall them. With the rush of wings of dragons, the sounds of M-14s, M-870 shotguns, M-16s, and grenades spoke the finality of death. This gave the human pack mules a taste of what would continue to reign upon them in the House of the Dragon. North and South Vietnam were at war. Indeed, all of Southeast Asia was at war. Due to national commitments, the US military was drawn into the fray.

From award-winning author Tom Bissell comes a riveting book that offers a fresh perspective on the Vietnam War: that of veterans' adult children. In 2003 Tom and his veteran father, John, traveled to Vietnam, reliving John's experiences in the war while familiarizing themselves with a new and peaceful country.

"The war keeps us together." Plain-faced Toan is an American general's translator, and slim, model-handsome Minh is the general's driver. Toan spends long drives staring at Minh: he's never seen another Vietnamese guy with such a stylish haircut and chiseled face. Minh returns his interest, sometimes. Even if a refined, good-looking guy like Minh is way out of simple Toan's reach. "I wish I could be myself." Minh has a secret. His father kicked him out of the house when he found him with another boy. And Minh has another secret: he's a communist spy, counting down the days until the attack ...

The controversial Battle at Xa Long Tan was not only a critical episode in Australia's Vietnam involvement; it was also a textbook nightmare in the history of jungle warfare. Reconstructing this dramatic action from secret documents and the vivid recollections of many diggers who fought at Long Tan, Terry Burstall challenges the official army version.

US Army Warrant Officer Carl Yeager, on his second tour of Vietnam, reaches Khe Sanh in late January 1968. His mission is to arrest an ARVN officer, guilty of murder and selling stolen weapons to the Vietcong. Things start to go wrong when the aircraft on which is due to fly back with the prisoner to Tan Son Nhut, outside Saigon, is destroyed by enemy shellfire. The shells do more than damage the aircraft. They uncover the body of an American officer in a hastily dug grave.

The year is 1969. U.S. Army Major Chris Patterson receives his orders for Vietnam. A conflict that has been raging since 1954. Even after a personal tragedy, Chris goes to war. Again. He throws himself into his duty, fighting within himself about losing men and friends. Including one lost, found, and lost again, best friends from their West Point days. They become ravaged by a war that changes them forever. Will their bond survive what Vietnam took away?

This is a fictitious account of Pete Peterson's adventures in the navy, based in part on the author's own real-life experiences.

In 1938, the Nazis come to Vienna. They hate anyone who is different, especially Jewish people. Fritz and Kurt's family are Jewish, and that puts them in terrible danger. Fritz, along with his father, is taken to a Nazi prison camp, a terrible place, full of fear. When his father is sent to a certain death, Fritz can't face losing his beloved Papa. He chooses to go with him and fight for survival. Meanwhile, Kurt must go on a frightening journey, all alone, to seek safety on the far side of the world.

Second Lieutenant Tyler "Ty" Carter embarks on his first test as an officer in the jungles of Vietnam. As fate delivers its first brutal blow, he finds himself wounded. Courageously battling through physical and emotional obstacles, he struggles to reclaim his rightful place in the Army ranks. Destiny's twisted hand plays the joker, thrusting him back into the Vietnam War, where his mettle as a leader comes under a fiery crucible of death and destruction. At the end, he is faced with a make-or-break choice that will define his destiny forever.

19 October 1950. The war is not going to plan. In Paris, politicians gather to discuss what to do about Indochina. The conflict is unpopular back home in France: too expensive, and too far away for the public to care. Withdrawal is not an option – a global power cannot surrender to an army of peasants – but victory is impossible without more soldiers and more money. The soldiers can be sourced from the colonies, but the money is out of the question. A solution needs to be found.

Under Betrayal is an incredible and fictional story based loosely on the war in South Vietnam. A story of brave, tough soldiers fighting for their lives in the dense, hostile Vietnamese jungle. Often hindered by dubious and sometimes corrupt decisions from Washington.

In 1980, the Vietnam War was a distant memory for Eddie Henderson. He has a loving wife, a beautiful home, and a good job as a teacher. He’s built a new life for himself in Austin, Texas. But when a local newspaper reveals that his most hated enemy still lives, he soon finds himself dragged back into the violence and bloodshed of wartime memories.

Hippies wear beads, demonstrators march against the Vietnam War, and the world waits to see the first human steps on the moon's surface. But at Gibbers Creek, Jed Kelly sees ghosts, from the past and future, at the Drinkwater billabong where long ago the swaggie leaped to his defiant death. But is 17-year-old Jed a con artist or a survivor? When she turns up at Drinkwater Station claiming to be the great-granddaughter of Matilda Thompson's dying husband, Jed clearly has secrets. As does a veteran called Nicholas, who was badly wounded in the Vietnam War.

In 1961, equipped with a master’s degree from famed Columbia Journalism School and letters of introduction to Associated Press bureau chiefs in Asia, 26-year-old Beverly Deepe set off on a trip around the world. Allotting just two weeks to South Vietnam, she was still there seven years later, having then earned the distinction of being the longest-serving American correspondent covering the Vietnam War and garnering a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

When sixty-eight-year-old Vietnam War veteran David Granger wakes up from emergency surgery, he finds himself repeating a name: Clayton Fire Bear, a soldier from whom he stole something long ago. And now, David knows he must make amends. It might be the only way to find happiness in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to protect, and it might also help him recover from the loss of the wife he grieves for every day.

During the Vietnam War, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece - more or less - were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes "Freedom Birds". This is the story of three young men - from wildly different backgrounds - who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime.

Amity Whitford dared to stake her own claim on the endless plains of Western Kansas. She built her homestead, Dove's Nest, with her bare hands. But the ravages of the sun and drying winds took their toll.