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To: Enlightiator
Strong stomach required for reading "Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to the Vietnam War" by H. R. McMaster.Harper/Collins.

Same, even more, for Robert McNamara's really strange "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." At a public discussion of this book McNamara was asked by a woman whose son was killed in Vietnam, why, if McNamara knew at the time the war was lost, he had not spoken out. Mcnamara shouted at the woman to shut up and sit down, demonstrating that the major lesson of the Vietnam debacle, ignorance and arrogance of our non-military leaders, had still not been learned by this really odd, and insanely inept "war manager."

"Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans" by Wallace Terry. "Brothers: Black Soldiers in the Nam" by Stanley Goff, Robert Sanders, with Clark Smith. ("Brothers" a Military Book Club selection.)

"Dak To: America's Sky Soldiers in South Vietnam's Central Highlands" this is the "Blackhawk Down" of the Vietnam War.

"Prodigal Soldiers" by James Kitfield, in which you meet a young Colin Powell returning to Vietnam with the grim knowledge that the murderous policies of "the best and the brightest" had nearly destroyed the army's junior officer corps, and you see his and his colleagues in arms' determination to rebuild it. A soldier's soldier he makes short shrift of a black trouble-maker's attempt to play the race card.

You can find a comprehensive bibliography on WWI in Paul Fussell's "The Great War and Modern Memory" a really fine book "about the British experience on the Western Front from 1914-1918 and some of the literary means by which it has been remembered..."

I can recommend other books if there is continued interest on this thread. I appreciate the suggestions of other posters and thank you for taking the time to recommend your favorites.
57 posted on 07/08/2002 7:06:35 AM PDT by Barset
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To: Barset
"Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans" by Wallace Terry.

The chapter about the patrol finding an American soldier who had been captured and was still alive just about made me throw up. What an awful decision to have to make. Talk about a real horror of war!

78 posted on 07/08/2002 9:17:59 PM PDT by connectthedots
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