Explores how Cold War men's magazines idealized warrior-heroes and sexual-conquerors and normalized conceptions of martial masculinity.

A fresh look at the how US troops played a part in the resistance of US troops to the American war in Vietnam Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming-home stories. What had gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the underlying factional divide between pro-war “hardliners” and anti-war “dissidents” among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into the postwar American culture that created the myths of the Hero-POW and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found was surprising: It wasn’t simply that some POWs were for the war and others against it, nor was it an officers-versus-enlisted-men standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and their pre-captive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the hardcore hero-holdouts—like John McCain—moved on to careers in politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them, disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary myth-buster, disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI resistance with images of suffering POWs—ennobled victims that serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America’s drift to endless war.

Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller. In this groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context—as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war. In an era when the United States so often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.

While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam. Hanoi's War renders transparent the internal workings of America's most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.

This military history chronicles the combat operations of the Blackhorse Regiment, which paved the way for armored cavalry tactics in the Vietnam War. South Vietnam, September 1966. When the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment came ashore at Vung Tau, it faced a number of challenges. In addition to the threat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, the terrain and weather posed their own dangers, adversely affecting the use of bulletproof vehicles and helicopters. The dearth of doctrine and tactics for the employment of armored cavalry in a counterinsurgency was equally challenging—especially during pre-deployment training and initial combat operations. But despite all this, the leaders of Blackhorse Regiment found a way to accomplish their mission. Within a year of their arrival in Vietnam, Blackhorse troopers overcame ambushes that featured anti-tank weapons, numerous landmines, and coordinated assaults. They not only defeated an enemy division twice their size, but also demonstrated how to succeed while operating on and off the roads, in the jungle, and during both the wet and dry seasons. By the spring of 1967, army leaders were beginning to realize the value of troops stationed in Vietnam. And with the Blackhorse Regiment leading the way, armor came to be considered an essential part of the combat team. Written by a Blackhorse veteran, this regiment history features firsthand accounts from soldiers who served in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The war stories and combat narratives of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment during five-and-a-half years of combat in Vietnam. When the U.S. Army went to war in South Vietnam in 1965, the general consensus was that counterinsurgency was an infantryman’s war; if there were any role at all for armored forces, it would be strictly to support the infantry. However, from the time the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment arrived in the country in September 1966, troopers of the Blackhorse Regiment demonstrated the fallacy of this assumption. By the time of Tet ’68, the Army’s leadership began to understand that the Regiment’s mobility, firepower, flexibility, and leadership made a difference on the battlefield well beyond its numbers. Over the course of the 11th Cavalry’s five-and-a-half years in combat in South Vietnam and Cambodia, over 25,000 young men served in the Regiment. Their stories—and those of their families—represent the Vietnam generation in graphic, sometimes humorous, often heart-wrenching detail. Collected by the author through hundreds of in-person, telephone, and electronic interviews over a period of twenty-five-plus years, these “war stories” provide context for the companion volume, The Blackhorse in Vietnam. Amongst the stories of the Blackhorse troopers and their families are the tales of the wide variety of animals they encountered during their time in combat, as well as the variable landscape, from jungle to rice paddies, and weather. Blackhorse Tales concludes with a look at how the troopers dealt with their combat experiences since returning from Vietnam. “Without question, Donald Snedeker has paid a fitting tribute to this superb unit, its soldiers, and their families.” —Military Review