The best Vietnam War books

In this powerful book, James Bradley takes as his starting point one of the most famous photographs of all time. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima and into a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire from 22,000 Japanese. After climbing through a hellish landscape and onto the island's highest peak, six men were photographed raising the stars and stripes. James’s father, John Bradley, a Navy Corpsman, was there. The senior Bradley never spoke to his family about the war, but after his death in 1994, they discovered closed boxes of letters and photos.

Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island - an island riddled with sixteen miles of tunnels and defended by Japanese soldiers determined to fight to the death. In the thirty-six days of fighting, almost twenty-seven thousand combatants lost their lives. Above all a human - and personal - story, few books have captured so brilliantly or so movingly the complexity of war and its aftermath and the true meaning of heroism.

Throughout the Vietnam War, one focal point persisted where the Viet Cong guerrillas and ARVN were not a major factor, but where the trained professionals of the North Vietnamese and U.S. armies repeatedly fought head-to-head. A Shau Valor is a thoroughly documented study of nine years of American combat operations encompassing the crucial frontier valley and a 15-mile radius around it--the most deadly killing ground of the entire Vietnam War.

If there ever was a time worthy of its own vernacular, it is the Vietnam Era. A generation split by peace and war spawned a library of lingo, slang, and fresh new words like no era before it. The warriors found that the torch had been passed to them by an assassinated president. It motivated them to bear any burden and to pay any price. And they created a second language to augment what they brought with them.

In this book, you will find over 2,500 terms, acronyms, jargon, slang expressions, and various lingo transported to you by Vietnam servicemen who showed remarkable insight into their own generational place in history. It is not a language for the timid nor the politically correct. But it is the language of reality.

The bloody monthlong battle for the ancient Citadel Fortress in Hue pitted U.S. Marines against an entrenched North Vietnamese Army force. By official accounts it was a tactical and moral victory for the Marines and the United States. But here survivor Nicholas Warr describes with urgency and outrage the Marines' savage house-to-house fighting--ordered without air, naval, or artillery support by officers with no experience in that type of combat.

In a world awash in books on War and in particular the unabated American obsession with Vietnam, Boot has artistically created a mosaic that uniquely combines Heller’s famous portrayal of normal society exposed to the frustrating bureaucratic logic of the military with Remarque’s description of the extreme physical and mental stress brought on by detachment from civilian life by soldiers. Boot challenges the reader to think about whether or not truth exists, whether or not there are such things as right and wrong, and finally, whether the idea of morality is flexible based on the context (in this case, in the American War in Vietnam).

With a plethora of books being written with an underlying theme of trying to justify the American War in Vietnam, many reasons have been given for the failure of the U.S. Some of the causes and significance of that failure are misunderstood interests, cultural arrogance, silly military strategies, ill-informed tactics, and adverse domestic politics, among others. Boot asks us to rethink our reasoning and our experiences during those turbulent times and consider for a moment the moral and spiritual landscape in America at this time and the corruption of the South Vietnamese government to which the U.S. turned a blind eye. It is a wound on the soul of America which will continue to fester if it remains unexamined. If you want to know why this period in our history is still controversial and still being written about, read Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam.

Vietnam was a different kind of war, calling for a different kind of soldier. The LRRPs--Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols--were that new breed of fighting man. They operated in six-man teams deep within enemy territory, and were the eyes and ears of the units they served. This is their story--of perseverence under extreme hardship and uncommon bravery--and how they carried out the war's most hazardous missions.

Vietnam was a different kind of war, calling for a different kind of soldier. The LRRPs--Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols--were that new breed of fighting man. They operated in six-man teams deep within enemy territory, and were the eyes and ears of the units they served. This is their story--of perseverence under extreme hardship and uncommon bravery--and how they carried out the war's most hazardous missions.

One of three award-winning novels in the Rick DeStefanis Vietnam War Series, Valley of The Purple Hearts is not a simple ‘war story.’ Yes, it captures well the raw grit and horror of battle, but it also takes a comprehensive ‘thousand-yard stare’ into the lives of men who served in the Vietnam War. 

Valley of The Purple Hearts is a love story with a strong secondary female protagonist, and it also takes the reader into the life of the veteran beyond battle, including that sudden and jarring return home to a thankless nation. Many veterans describe Valley of The Purple Hearts as too real to be fiction. You be the judge.

At the start of the war in Vietnam, the United States had no snipers; by the end of the war, Marine and army precision marksmen had killed more than 10,000 NVA and VC soldiers--the equivalent of an entire division--at the cost of under 20,000 bullets, proving that long-range shooters still had a place in the battlefield. Now noted military historian Michael Lee Lanning shows how U.S. snipers in Vietnam--combining modern technology in weapons, ammunition, and telescopes--used the experience and traditions of centuries of expert shooters to perfect their craft.

At the start of the war in Vietnam, the United States had no snipers; by the end of the war, Marine and army precision marksmen had killed more than 10,000 NVA and VC soldiers--the equivalent of an entire division--at the cost of under 20,000 bullets, proving that long-range shooters still had a place in the battlefield. Now noted military historian Michael Lee Lanning shows how U.S. snipers in Vietnam--combining modern technology in weapons, ammunition, and telescopes--used the experience and traditions of centuries of expert shooters to perfect their craft.