Combat Veterans

June 1966. Hollis Caudill, nineteen years old, stands in the open door of a Huey and learns what the valley costs. He is a door gunner with the 227th Assault Helicopter Battalion, flying resupply and extraction missions into the Vinh Thanh Valley during Operation Crazy Horse — one of the bloodiest helicopter operations of the Vietnam War. He has an M60, a crew chief who speaks in facts rather than comfort, and a 1964 Ford Galaxie waiting under a tarp at home in West Virginia. By the time the operation ends, he will have carried the dead from a burning ridge, watched a ship go down in a ...

David W. Powell enlisted for a tour of duty in April 1966 with the US Marines after receiving an imminent draft notice. Believing he would be able to leverage his existing skills as a computer programmer, he never thought all they would see on his resume was his Karate expertise. Even less that he would wind up serving as a Rocket man in the jungles of Da Nang and Chu Lai for a 13 month tour in hell. David's journey from naive civilian to battle-hardened combat veteran shows us all how fragile our humanity really is.

On his second combat tour, Nick Brokhausen served in Recon Team Habu, CCN. This unit was part of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group), or Studies and Observations Group as it was innocuously called. The small recon companies that were the center of its activities conducted some of the most dangerous missions of the war, infiltrating areas controlled by the North Vietnamese in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The companies never exceeded more than 30 Americans, yet they were the best source for the enemy's disposition.

Over one million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past four years, but fewer than 500 from this group have earned a Silver Star, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, or the Medal of Honor. Those who have been awarded these distinguished honors all demonstrated an extraordinary courage under fire in the worst of circumstances.

The Rifle is the inspirational story of a 28-year-old US Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all - WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years.

Vietnam, 1968. Daniel Cofield is nineteen years old, a helicopter crew chief with the 1st Cavalry Division. He will spend twelve months in the air above a war that will never leave him. Daniel arrives at Bien Hoa with sixty-two pounds of gear and no understanding of what waits for him. He is assigned to a Huey helicopter crew — Chalk One — under a pilot who communicates in three taps on the cyclic and says almost nothing else. His crew chief, Lou, teaches him the only rule that matters: The gun wants to fire. You just let it. Over twelve months, Daniel flies into landing zones where the...

This volume, Combat Veterans’ Stories of the Vietnam War, contains 11 autobiographical stories. The first begins in October 1966, and is told by a Marine infantry forward observer who was in 13 operations. The final story in this volume is told by a Marine machine gunner that was in multiple skirmishes and ambushes, in I Corps, including the battle for Hue. Other stories in Volume 2 include those told by a marine infantry officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism and leadership in fighting at villages named Dai Do and Dinh To.

The stories of 20 combat veterans in this book tell experiences of average Americans that fought enemies of the US in World War II. They relate much previously unavailable information about the military in which they served and the battles they fought, from North Africa to Europe, where the possibility of death and permanent physical and mental injury was their common experience. This book is a "must listen" for those that think they have learned all there is to know about World War II.

The revised and updated edition of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's modern classic about the psychology of combat. "An illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experiences of having killed." —Washington Post The twentieth century, with its bloody world wars...

November 1967. Central Highlands, Vietnam. Six men walk into the jungle on a routine patrol. None of them will come back the same. Sergeant Hargrove carries the weight of a brother who came home in a box. Jefferson walks point, running from a secret he's never told anyone. Delacroix reads the jungle like his Louisiana bayou, counting the days until he sees his wife again. Chen carries the radio and the unbearable weight of coordinates that turn men into smoke. Kowalski is nineteen, writing letters to a girl in a yellow dress, terrified of becoming what the war needs him to be. And Tran, the...

Want to know what Vietnam was really like? A 3-Volume BOX SET with 200 veteran interviews, 688 Photos, 1,236 pages, and 4.6 Stars on 2,270 Amazon Reviews for the individual books, at half price! Real stories told by real people in their own words, men and women, caught up in an all too real war. From the Delta to the DMZ, come walk in their boots. If you were there, you'll understand. If you weren't, grab a copy and you will, because they’re like Doritos. Try a few and you won't be able to stop. The Vietnam War dominated my generation and affected so many lives in so many different ways. ...

Who, or what, was the real enemy in Vietnam? The ever-elusive, jungle-wise Viet Cong and their NVA allies? The oppressive heat and torrential rains? The leeches, mosquitoes, and the jungle itself? Or the army whose regulations made you carry a .45 even though the firing pin was broken? Perhaps, each in their own way, they all were... and John Shook battled them all. In One Soldier, he recounts his experiences and describes how he faced—and overcame—all the enemies a machine-gunner encountered in the Nam. Straight-from-the-shoulder, Shook tells of search and destroy patrols and night ...

From the author of the bestselling and award-winning Matterhorn comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war and the psychological and spiritual toll it takes on those who fight. “I wrote this book primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. So far—reading, writing...

STINGERS One Tour. 362 Days. A Thousand Lifetimes. Stingers is the brutally honest, firsthand account of an 18-year-old crew chief and door gunner thrust into the blood-soaked heart of the Vietnam War. From the cramped, bullet-riddled cabins of UH-1C Huey gunships to nighttime rocket attacks that shattered any illusion of safety, Fred Allen tells it exactly like it was—with no filter and no apologies. Flying with the elite “Stingers” of the 116th Assault Helicopter Company, Allen survived rocket barrages, crash landings, and relentless firefights over hostile terrain. But survival ...

Fred Tomasello Jr. served three years as an officer in the U. S. Marine Corps. He earned two Purple Hearts, five Air Medals and a heavy dose of Post Traumatic Stress. Born and raised in West Tampa, Florida, Fred graduated from the University of South Florida and worked 27 years at the Tampa Postal Service. Retiring in 1999, he and his wife Kathy Blair sold their home, bought a truck and trailer, and traveled cross-country for five years as full-time RV'ers before settling in Cheektowaga, NY, a suburb of Buffalo. Soon after September 11, 2001 Fred started writing and discovered the spiritual...

The stories of 15 combat veterans featured in this audiobook tell of the experiences of average Americans who fought US enemies on Pacific islands, in China, and in Burma during World War II. They relate much previously unavailable information about the military in which they served and the battles they fought. The possibility of death and permanent physical and mental injury was a common experience. This audiobook is a "must listen" for those who think they have learned all there is to know about World War II.

This volume of Combat Veterans’ Stories of the Vietnam War contains 15 autobiographical stories.
The first begins in late October 1967, and is told by a Marine rifleman who fought in battles at Mike’s Hill, Foxtrot Ridge, and numerous others. The final story in this volume is told by an Army cavalry officer who led a platoon of armored personnel carriers with such ability and daring that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, three Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts.

Vietnam, 1968. A hilltop in the Central Highlands. A gun crew of six. PFC Jack Lowe arrives at Firebase Blackjack with black boots and orders assigning him to Gun Two — an M102 howitzer crewed by men who do not look at him, do not welcome him, and do not explain the rules. The section chief gives him a title and a prohibition: You're Number Three. Don't touch anything until I tell you to touch it. Over twelve months, Lowe learns the gun. He learns the weight of a thirty-three-pound shell carried ten meters in the dark. He learns the difference between HE and illumination by feel. He ...

The intelligence said platoon. The jungle said more. Vietnam, 1967. Captain Dan Decker and eleven Special Forces soldiers walk eighteen kilometers into triple-canopy jungle to ambush an NVA supply column on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The mission brief says platoon-size element. A Montagnard elder who has survived three wars says the number is higher. The FOB says proceed as planned. The ambush works. The extraction doesn't. Cut off from radio contact, carrying a wounded man through terrain that wants to kill them, hunted by a tracking element that reads the jungle better than they do, Decker's ...

The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.