I’m looking for some non-fiction books about the Vietnam war. I prefer memoirs but overall histories are ok.
I have read:
SOG by John L Plaster\
Things I’ll Never Forget by James M Dixon
In my wish list:
The Sniper (about Carlos Hathcock)\
Dispatches by Michael Herr\
Both of Gary Linderer’s books/
The Killing Zone by Frederick Downs
Thank you!
by pedote17
13 Comments
My Secret War by Richard Drury
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason
Five Years to Freedom by Nick Rowe
A Bright Shining Lie. Won the Pulitzer for nonfiction.
The Long Gray Line by Rick Atkinson
All Expenses Paid by John Launer
Seems you’ve missed a classic: *We Were Soldiers Once, and Young: Ia Drang, the Battle that Changed the Vietnam War* by Harold Moore
*Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War* by Viet Thanh Nguyen
*Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam* by Nick Turse
The things they carried by Tim O’Brien
Surprised nobody’s mentioned A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo.
The Women by Kristen Hannah
Vietnam by Stanley Karnow
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram
A Vietcong Memoir by Truong Nhu Tang
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason is a helicopter pilot’s memoir of his time in Vietnam and exceptional.
Standard Operating Procedure / Kunen
The Pentagon Papers
another vote for Dispatches
One Morning in the War, Richard Hammer
Second Bright Shining Lie – great book.
“Hue’ 1968” by Mark Bowden (who also wrote Black Hawk Down) – covers the battle of Hue specifically and the greater Tet offensive in general. For me it felt like Hue/Tet was a turning point period that is a microcosm of the entire war.