“A rare insider’s experience paired with a scholarly historical approach, making it an essential standout for any military library.” —Midwest Book Review More than 8.7 million Americans reported for military duty in Southeast Asia, but only a select few wore the Green Beret, the distinctive symbol of the U.S. Army Special Forces. These elite soldiers played a crucial role during the protracted conflict. Special Forces at War: an Illustrated History, Southeast Asia 1957–1975 by wartime veteran and military historian Shelby L. Stanton shows Special Forces’ activity from the first deployments of Green Berets into battle, through their training, wartime advisory, border surveillance, strike force, and special operations roles. Unprecedented in scope, this photographic history features rare and unpublished images, providing an exclusive, insider view of covert activities such as Project Delta, whose Special Forces-trained Vietnamese commandos posed as North Vietnamese Army or Viet Cong troops behind communist lines. It depicts Special Forces’ camps before, during, and after enemy assaults. It features an array of lethal weapons used by resourceful Green Berets fighting to preserve their remote outposts, as well as allied and enemy documents and propaganda. From ordinary camp life to special missions, no aspect of Special Forces activities during the Second Indochina War has been overlooked. Stanton knows his subject first hand. During six years of active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, he served as a paratrooper platoon leader, an airborne ranger advisor to the Royal Thai Army Special Warfare Center, and a Special Forces long-range reconnaissance team commander in Southeast Asia before being wounded in combat in Nam Yu, Laos.
“THE MEN WHO SACRIFICED FOR THEIR COUNTRY ARE RIGHTFULLY HERALDED . . . This is an honest book–one well worth reading. . . . Stanton has laid his claim to the historian’s ranks by providing his reader with well-documented, interpretive assessments.” –Parameters The Vietnam War remains deep in the nation’s consciousness. It is vital that we know exactly what happened there–and who made it happen. This book provides a complete account of American Army ground combat forces–who they were, how they got to the battlefield, and what they did there. Year by year, battlefield by battlefield, the narrative follows the war in extraordinary, gripping detail. Over the course of the decade, the changes in fighting and in the combat troops themselves are described and documented. The Rise and Fall of an American Army represents the first total battlefield history of Army ground forces in the Vietnam War, containing much previously unreleased archival material. It re-creates the feel of battle with dramatic precision. “Stanton’s writing . . . gives the reader a terrifying graphic description of combat in the many mini-environments of Vietnam.” –The New York Times “[A] MOVING, IMPORTANT BOOK.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
This book is a monumental, encyclopedic work of immense detail concerning U.S. and allied forces that fought in the Vietnam War from 1962 through 1973. Includes extensive lists of units (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and allied countries) when they arrived and when they left the theater, shoulder patches and distinctive unit insignia of all divisions and battalions. Also extensive maps portraying unit locations at each six-month interval, lists of friendly and enemy casualties by campaign or phase of the war, and photographs and descriptions of all major types of equipment employed in the conflict.
“THE MEN WHO SACRIFICED FOR THEIR COUNTRY ARE RIGHTFULLY HERALDED . . . This is an honest book–one well worth reading. . . . Stanton has laid his claim to the historian’s ranks by providing his reader with well-documented, interpretive assessments.” –Parameters The Vietnam War remains deep in the nation’s consciousness. It is vital that we know exactly what happened there–and who made it happen. This book provides a complete account of American Army ground combat forces–who they were, how they got to the battlefield, and what they did there. Year by year, battlefield by battlefield, the narrative follows the war in extraordinary, gripping detail. Over the course of the decade, the changes in fighting and in the combat troops themselves are described and documented. The Rise and Fall of an American Army represents the first total battlefield history of Army ground forces in the Vietnam War, containing much previously unreleased archival material. It re-creates the feel of battle with dramatic precision. “Stanton’s writing . . . gives the reader a terrifying graphic description of combat in the many mini-environments of Vietnam.” –The New York Times “[A] MOVING, IMPORTANT BOOK.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Shelby Stanton has emerged as the leading military historian on the war in Southest Asia." COL. CHARLES B. MacDONALD Author of COMPANY COMMANDER and A TIME FOR TRUMPETS One of the toughest and most challenging jobs in Vietnam was to be a U.S. Army Ranger running Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols. The LRRPs took volunteers only, and training was designed to weed out all but the best. What emerged was an elite outfit of warriors in the finest sense of the word. Now Shelby Stanton, renowned military authority on the war in Southeast Asia, presents the first and only definitive history of the LRRPs and the U.S. Army Rangers in Vietnam. They're all here: the Screaming Eagle Patrollers, Cochise Raiders, Charlie Rangers, Cobra Lightning Patrollers, and more.
Talks about the evolution of Army uniforms from World War II to Vietnam. This work traces uniform systems from conception through actual field development and issue.
“A rare insider’s experience paired with a scholarly historical approach, making it an essential standout for any military library.” —Midwest Book Review More than 8.7 million Americans reported for military duty in Southeast Asia, but only a select few wore the Green Beret, the distinctive symbol of the U.S. Army Special Forces. These elite soldiers played a crucial role during the protracted conflict. Special Forces at War: an Illustrated History, Southeast Asia 1957–1975 by wartime veteran and military historian Shelby L. Stanton shows Special Forces’ activity from the first deployments of Green Berets into battle, through their training, wartime advisory, border surveillance, strike force, and special operations roles. Unprecedented in scope, this photographic history features rare and unpublished images, providing an exclusive, insider view of covert activities such as Project Delta, whose Special Forces-trained Vietnamese commandos posed as North Vietnamese Army or Viet Cong troops behind communist lines. It depicts Special Forces’ camps before, during, and after enemy assaults. It features an array of lethal weapons used by resourceful Green Berets fighting to preserve their remote outposts, as well as allied and enemy documents and propaganda. From ordinary camp life to special missions, no aspect of Special Forces activities during the Second Indochina War has been overlooked. Stanton knows his subject first hand. During six years of active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, he served as a paratrooper platoon leader, an airborne ranger advisor to the Royal Thai Army Special Warfare Center, and a Special Forces long-range reconnaissance team commander in Southeast Asia before being wounded in combat in Nam Yu, Laos.
The first complete military history of the U.S. ground forces in the Vietnam War. It has been hailed by military publications as well as the New York Times as an absolutely essential addition to any complete Vietnam library.
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