Inverviews with over 100 veterans of the Vietnam War.

Draws on interviews with former operatives and on government documents to present a highly positive account of the controversial rural pacification program from its inception in 1967 to the departure of its American advisors and collapse of the program in 1973. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In this powerful work about the tragic aftermath of the Vietnam War, author MH Murphy presents the stories of Vietnamese people who fled their beloved country and those who stayed behind and endured, creating a new life in their ever-changing country. The Ashes of War begins in Saigon, in April of 1975, just before its surrender to the Communists. With the war over, the victors set about punishing the vanquished. The policies, rules and laws, enacted by the new government, made many South Vietnamese feel targeted, and lit the fuse for an exodus unlike any other. Over two decades more than two and a half million Vietnamese people fled their country, some overland, but most by water in anything that would float. This created the greatest humanitarian crises in modern history and coined a new term recognized all over the world, "Boat People." Those who stayed behind to create a new life in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam endured unthinkable hardships, changes, and re-education. Charged, controversial-and incredibly prescient, and this book tells stories of the Vietnamese people at the end of and after the war. It speaks for the millions of Vietnamese who have had little voice, and still-decades later-suffer the fate of what happened after "Black April," April, 30, 1975.

A Vietnam War veteran paints a searing portrait of his one-year tour of duty as an Army draftee, shedding light on the emotional and physical casualties of war In this intimate memoir, Perry A. Ulander chronicles with powerful clarity the bewildering predicament he confronted and the fellowship and guidance that transformed him during the year he served as an American GI in the jungles of Vietnam. Conveying with unadorned precision the harrowing experiences that shatter his core beliefs, Ulander also captures the camaraderie and humor of his platoon, the hostility between “lifers” and draftees, the physical hardships of reconnaissance missions, and the unrelenting apprehension underlying everyday life. Ultimately, he describes the surrendering of social norms and accepted identities that allows him to glimpse a previously unimagined realm of heightened awareness. Written after a lifetime of reflection on the nature of war and the effect of violence and domination on the minds and spirits of those forced to practice it, Walking Point offers a powerful narrative for readers with an interest in the effects of war and violence, American involvement in Vietnam, PTSD, and how trauma can be a catalyst for spiritual transformation. Giving voice to profound insights gained through extreme adversity, Ulander movingly captures the depth of trust and commitment among a group of unwitting warriors who struggle to stay alive and sane in unchartered territory.

In 1968 Nguyen Qui Duc was nine years old, his father was a high-ranking civil servant in the South Vietnamese government, and his mother was a school principal. Then the Viet Cong launched their Tet offensive, and the Nguyen family’s comfortable life was destroyed. The author’s father was taken prisoner and marched up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam's highest-ranking civilian prisoner, he eventually spent twelve years in captivity, composing poems in his head to maintain his sanity. Nguyen himself escaped from Saigon as North Vietnamese tanks approached in 1975. He came of age as an American teenager, going to school dances and working at a Roy Rogers restaurant, yet yearning for the homeland and parents he had to leave behind. The author’s mother stayed in Vietnam to look after her mentally ill daughter. She endured poverty and “reeducation” until her husband was freed and the Nguyens could reunite. Intertwining these three stories, Where the Ashes Are shows us the Vietnam War through a child’s eyes, privation after a Communist takeover, and the struggle of new immigrants. The author, who returned to Vietnam as an American reporter, provides a detailed portrait of the nation as it opened to the West in the early 1990s. Where the Ashes Are closes with Nguyen’s thoughts on being pulled between his adopted country and his homeland.