The most recommended Vietnam War books

McMaster’s book confirms the corruption, lies, and hubris of national leaders, including the military during the Vietnam era. As a high-ranking officer in the army, I found his in-depth analysis of deception at the top levels very troubling. This is a must-read for every person interested in our history—especially to understand the mistakes of the Vietnam War—the quagmire that pulled us in. 

Who knew that a war could strike the human psyche so hard that those who survived did not have the words to describe it? The First World War was such an assault on innocence that new words were invented to write about it.

I love this book because it illustrates how language developed by looking at the writings of the soldiers in the trenches. War poetry is a special kind of writing, and that which came from the frozen mud fields in France between 1914 and 1918 is my favorite.

This is yet another book that convinced me that the human spirit is stronger than the destructive nature of war. I read it whenever I need inspiration.

This is the book that forever changed how superheroes were written.  

In Watchmen, masked vigilantes started as a craze in the 1930s, and history got slightly bent in the process. We won the Vietnam War, Nixon stayed president, and...you'll have fun picking out all the bits of altered history in the background.

The heart of the book is its unforgettable characters - slightly over-the-hill superheroes brought out of retirement by the murder of one of their own, to face an ever-deepening mystery and their own midlife crises.

This is my favorite book because Halberstam works so hard to help us understand the intellectual, moral, and personality flaws plaguing the architects of America’s Vietnam debacle.

I believe Marines must understand the civilians who hold the reins if the Corps is to become wiser. This book tells a tragic story, but wisdom and moral courage surface occasionally. Several bright moments belong to Gen. David Shoup, the 22nd Commandant of the Marine Corps.

I love the time he did his best to tell wonkish officials in the Kennedy Administration that their delusional plans for meddling in Cuba (what became “The Bay of Pigs” incident) didn’t square with his military experience (he had earned a Medal of Honor at Tarawa during World War II).

Absolution is about the wives of American men with non-combat roles in the U.S. government in Vietnam. The men have brought their families to Saigon. Tricia is a new arrival, and Charlene lures her into the insular world of the American wives. I’ve always been interested in the politics of the late 1960s in the U.S., so I found this book fascinating because it takes place in 1963, before the Kennedy assassination. 

I was captivated by Tricia and Charlene’s friendship because it is complicated and intense. I loved how Tricia is intrigued by Charlene but also intimidated by her and aware that they’d never be friends if they’d met under different circumstances. McDermott skillfully portrays the ambiguity inherent in many friendships, and I appreciated her exploration of this dynamic.

For me, this book is the best of the Vietnam War “aftermath” novels, books dealing with veterans’ post-war physical and psychological struggles. Winner of the 1987 National Book Award for fiction, this novel, according to the author in our 2005 interview, was written to “get the hair up on the back of your [reader’s] neck.” Haunting, as well as times cynical, ironic, and brutally graphic, the author accomplishes his goal. Heinemann deftly portrays Army veteran Paco Sullivan’s cross-country odyssey, via interstate buses, in search of both spiritual and physical homes. This interstate nomad is a tragic character—mysterious and complex. At the end of this thought-provoking and uncomfortable novel, I am left with an unresolved question: is Paco a sympathetic victim of the war and America’s indifference to veterans or an active agent in his own physical and psychological turmoil? 

A searing, brutally honest, brilliantly written depiction of the war that defined an era in American history and a period in my life and in the lives of millions of young men (and women) in the 1960s. 

Dozens of portraits of compelling characters caught in hellish conditions and carrying out seemingly impossible missions against impossible odds.

It is a celebration of incredible bravery by Marines as well as a lament over the appalling waste of human lives and national wealth. A condemnation of myopic and criminal foreign policies, of politicians for their cynical self-interest and ignorance, and of some senior military officers for their egotism and blindness. But also simultaneously a celebration of other commanders for their humanity and wisdom. A portrait of tragic race relations that would spill over into civilian life.

It is a novel about love, ambition, tragic failure, and personal transformation.

Reading a novel in letters feels like snooping into someone's private thoughts, and that's exactly how I felt as I read Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth. Reenie, age 11, writes letters that highlight the conflict between those who supported the Vietnam War and those who opposed it. Her letters ultimately reveal the situation faced by her family and by Mr. Marsworth. They are funny and heartfelt. History and family drama mix together in Reenie's letters and Mr. Marsworth's occasional response. O'Connor does a fabulous job of presenting controversial history in an engaging way. 

James Stockdale was a fighter pilot who was shot down whilst flying over Vietnam in 1964. He had read, and absorbed, The Enchiridion, by Epictetus, and it was this knowledge of Stoicism that helped him to survive seven years of torture and captivity as a Prisoner of War. Fortunately, I’ve never been tested in a crucible akin to Stockdale’s laboratory of human behaviour. But Epictetus speaks to all of us still, and Stockdale’s book is fascinating both as an account of a POW’s survival and as an introduction to a philosophy that I’ve leaned on in my own life.

Slam Marshall is the author of many books about the American military. He was a Brigadier General and served in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. This book will give the reader a view of what it’s like to fight under the worst possible conditions, under constant surveillance, and over ground where the enemy continually held the advantage. This is a tribute to the GIs who fought those impossible battles.