A Noble Cause - American Battlefield Victories In Vietnam

Informationen zum Autor Douglas Niles is the author of MacArthur’s War: The Invasion of Japan and other novels, as well as a fantasy game designer. He lives in Delavan, Wisconsin. Klappentext A stirring tribute to the valor and courage of the allied forces in the Vietnam War and a vivid re-creation of hard-won battles from Ia Drang Valley to Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill… Celebrating the skill and bravery of the United States armed forces and their South Vietnamese allies! A Noble Cause presents a gripping chronicle of both large and small unit successful combat engagements! including the Battle of Dong Xoai (1965); the Battle of Ia Drang Valley (1965)! the first major ground battle of the Vietnam War; the Battle of Loc Ninh (1967) by the Cambodian border; the Battle of Khe Sanh (1967-1968) leading up to the Tet Offensive; the Battle of Dong Ha (1968); the bloody siege on Hamburger Hill (1969); and the Battle of An Loc (1972)! sixty-five miles north of Saigon! which contributed to the failure of the Vietcong's Eastertide Offensive. A Noble Cause chronicles the crucial strategic decisions that led to victory-often against steep odds-and honors the bravery of every soldier who stood his ground! faced the enemy! and gave his all. INCLUDES PHOTOS AND MAPS Leseprobe MAPS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Corps Tactical Zones in South Vietnam CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY, UNITED STATES ARMY INTRODUCTION The United States is a country that is always looking to the future, moving forward with greater intensity, seeming to increase its national velocity with every passing decade, each succeeding generation. It is not surprising, then, that as we begin to pass the 50-year anniversary mark of America’s involvement in Vietnam, the image of the Vietnam War grows ever more blurry and unfocused in our collective rearview mirror. The veterans who fought in that war, and who survived to come home, are in their sixties now—at least, the youngest of them are. And this, like all wars, was a conflict fought primarily by young men, each of whom was affected, some profoundly, by his tour of duty. Many Vietnam veterans have spent their adulthood living with the uncomfortable perception that the war that asked so much of them was not a successful war, that it is the first war that America “lost.” And of course, that outcome is not in doubt, in the sense that the Communist forces achieved their objective of a single nation, controlled by Hanoi, and the United States did not prevent that from happening. It is one of the universal truths of war, even if a little counterintuitive, that it is not the winner that decides when the conflict is over. It is the losing side that must make that bitter decision. In the early 1970s, the United States of America, as a true representative democracy, collectively decided that fighting the war was no longer worth paying the toll it was costing—most notably, the toll in American lives. The toll in American unity had also been high, and both costs would have continued to soar so long as young men were being drafted and sent to Vietnam to face the very real threat of dying there. Almost all wars are asymmetrical, in the sense that the opposing sides are not usually fighting for the same goals. For example, one nation might be fighting for its survival, while its foe may be fighting to gain territory and treasure. In this regard, the Vietnam War was more asymmetrical than most. The North Vietnamese and the insurgent Viet Cong in the south were fighting to attain national unity—and doing so under the banner of the Communist cause. They had the backing, and the doctrinal and material support, of the USSR and Communist China, very much a pair of uneasy bedfellows but united in their opposition to America and its allies. The South Vietnamese, conversely, were fighting for the very surviv...

Product details

• Authors: Douglas Niles
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2015
• EAN: 9780425278345
• ISBN: 978-0-425-27834-5
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 236 mm x 26 mm
• Subject: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous