Best Vietnam War Memoirs - April 2024

Vietnam: The Good Times, The Bad Times

The book you are about to read is a dramatic story of a Vietnam tour of duty written by a U.S. Marine veteran of South Vietnam. I am that Marine. The storyline centers on me and my particular field company, my battalion, and regiment. The writing tells, in depth, about my experiences, recollections, and feelings while in the battlefields and rear base area of northern South Vietnam.

• ASIN: B07PS5QZSY
• ASIN: B07PS5QZSY

THERE IT IS...IT DON'T MEAN NOTHIN': A Vietnam War Memoir

There it is, and It don’t mean nothin' are two phrases the grunts used to describe their situation in Vietnam. The first covered the insanity, and the second, the result.At the request of his daughters, Charles Hensler set out to write a brief summary of his time in Vietnam. The project evolved into a cathartic journey, resulting in a compelling, heartfelt memoir. Weaving threads of the events back home throughout his personal story, Hensler skillfully sets a scene integral to understanding how he and his compatriots felt in Vietnam in 1968, a year of transition. A year many Americans turned... [Read More]

• ASIN: 1723970743
• ASIN: 1723970743
• ISBN: 1723970743
• Manufacturer: Independently published

Vietnam: A Tale Of Two Tours

A U.S. Army helicopter pilot's candid first-hand account and photos of his Vietnam experience in the air and on the ground at the height of US troop strength and then again when he returned for a second tour of duty at the very end of the war. It is a non-political description of what life was really like for him and others who served with him in Vietnam. The author describes a first tour in the Central Highlands while assigned to the 4th Infantry Division as a pilot in an Assault Helicopter Company flying the UH-1H (Huey) and later during his first tour as an OH-6A Light Observation Helic... [Read More]

• ASIN: B07B48PV26
• ASIN: B07B48PV26

Alpha One Sixteen: A Combat Infantryman's Year in Vietnam

A Military Book Club main selectionPeter Clark's year in Vietnam began in July 1966, when he was shipped out with hundreds of other young recruits, as a replacement in the 1st Infantry Division. Clark was assigned to the Alpha Company. Clark gives a visceral, vivid and immediate account of life in the platoon, as he progresses from green recruit to seasoned soldier over the course of a year in the complexities of the Vietnamese conflict.Clark gradually learns the techniques developed by US troops to cope with the daily horrors they encountered, the technical skills needed to fight and survive,... [Read More]

• ASIN: 1612005993
• ASIN: 1612005993
• ISBN: 1612005993
• Manufacturer: Casemate

A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition)

• ASIN: B0039PH70O
• ASIN: B0039PH70O
• Manufacturer: Holt Paperbacks

Tiger Bravo's War: An epic year with an elite airborne rifle company of the 101st Airborne Division's "Wandering Warriors", during the height of the Vietnam War

A war that defined a generation. A band of paratroopers that defied the odds. A bond that couldn’t be broken. In the bloodiest year (1968) of a decade long war, a company called “Tiger Bravo” fought across the battlefields of Vietnam, as part of an elite Strike Force nicknamed the “Wandering Warriors.” By the time the last chopper departed, Tiger Bravo had amassed a staggering 150 Purple Hearts and mourned the loss of 30 brothers in arms. In Tiger Bravo’s War, you’ll discover the trials and tribulations of life in the combat zone from soldiers’ letters and the personal stories ... [Read More]

• ASIN: 0998854204
• ASIN: 0998854204
• ISBN: 0998854204
• Manufacturer: Currahee Press LLC

Vietnam: There & Back: A Combat Medic's Chronicle

I n 1967, Jim Purtell left his small Midwestern town to join the U.S. Army. He did so at a time when the country was pro-Vietnam and serving seemed an honorable thing to do. Little did he know that the tide would turn a mere six months later as drastically as it did. VIETNAM--THERE & BACK: A COMBAT MEDIC'S CHRONICLE is a candid account of the time when he and several other combat vets found themselves conducting operations in the jungles of Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive. Purtell describes in gritty detail what it was like to live and fight with an infantry company only to return ... [Read More]

• ASIN: B07B844YCK
• ASIN: B07B844YCK
• Manufacturer: Hellgate Press

19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam: A Memoir by Lew Jennings

"19 Minutes to Live" illustrates the incredible courage and determination of helicopter pilots and crews supporting those heroes that carried a rucksack and a rifle in Vietnam. Over 12,000 helicopters were used in the Vietnam War, which is why it became known as "The Helicopter War". Almost half of the helicopters, 5,086, were lost. Helicopter pilots and crews accounted for nearly 10 percent of all the US casualties suffered in Vietnam, with nearly 5,000 killed and an untold number of wounded. Lew Jennings flew over 700 Air Cavalry Cobra Gunship Helicopter missions and received Three Distingui... [Read More]

• ASIN: 1548484539
• ASIN: 1548484539
• ISBN: 1548484539
• Manufacturer: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

When I Turned Nineteen: A Vietnam War Memoir

It’s the year 1969. I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who’d enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who’d all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time. I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, carrying a 60-pound rucksack, monsoons, a forest fire, a typhoon, building a firebase, fear, death and figh... [Read More]

• ASIN: 0998209511
• ASIN: 0998209511
• ISBN: 0998209511
• Manufacturer: Glyn Haynie

We Few: U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam

A Green Beret’s gripping memoir of American Special Forces in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.   In 1970, on his second tour to Vietnam, Nick Brokhausen served in Recon Team Habu, CCN. Officially, it was known as the Studies and Observations group. In fact, this Special Forces squad, which Brokhausen calls “an unwashed, profane, ribald, joyously alive fraternity,” undertook some of the most dangerous and suicidal reconnaissance missions ever in the enemy-controlled territory of Cambodia and Laos. But they didn’t infiltrate the jungles alone. They fought alongside the Montagnards... [Read More]

• ASIN: B07CMHKC5Q
• ASIN: B07CMHKC5Q
• Manufacturer: Casemate Publishers

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir

National bestseller2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist ABA Indies Introduce Winter / Spring 2017 Selection Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Spring 2017 Selection ALA 2018 Notable Books Selection An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui.   This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui docum... [Read More]

• ASIN: 1419718789
• ASIN: 1419718789
• ISBN: 1419718789
• Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams

Things I'll Never forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam

Things I’ll never forget is the story of a young high school graduate in 1965 who faces being drafted into the Army or volunteering for the Marine Corps. These are his memories of funny times, disgusting times and deadly times. The author kept a journal for an entire year; therefore many of the dates, times and places are accurate. The rest is based on memories that are forever tattooed on his brain.This is not a pro-war book, nor is it anti-war. It is the true story of what the Marine Corps was like in the late 1960’s, when the country had a draft and five hundred thousand Americans were ... [Read More]

• ASIN: B06Y34KWQL
• ASIN: B06Y34KWQL
• Manufacturer: Do Right Press

To the Limit: An Air Cav Huey Pilot in Vietnam

The riveting memoir of a Vietnam War helicopter pilot.“When you step into a Huey with Tom Johnson, you’re in for the real thing. No one has previously captured the Vietnam helicopter experience with such gripping authority.”—Robert F. Dorr, author of Chopper  From June 1967 to June 1968, Tom Johnson accumulated an astonishing 1,600 flying hours piloting the UH-1 “Iroquois”—better known as the “Huey”—as part of the famous First Air Cavalry Division. His battalion was one of the most decorated units of the Vietnam War, and helped redefine modern warfare.   Johnson’s rivet... [Read More]

• ASIN: 0451222180
• ASIN: 0451222180
• ISBN: 0451222180
• Manufacturer: Dutton Caliber

The Vietnam War: A Graphic History

When Senator Edward Kennedy declared, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam," everyone understood. The Vietnam War has become the touchstone for U.S. military misadventures―a war lost on the home front although never truly lost on the battlefront. During the pivotal decade of 1962 to 1972, U.S. involvement rose from a few hundred advisers to a fighting force of more than one million. This same period saw the greatest schism in American society since the Civil War, a generational divide pitting mothers and fathers against sons and daughters who protested the country's ever-growing military involveme... [Read More]

• ASIN: 0809094959
• ASIN: 0809094959
• ISBN: 0809094959
• Brand: Zimmerman, Dwight/ Vansant, Wayne (ILT)/ Horner, Chuck (FRW)
• Manufacturer: Hill and Wang

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

• ASIN: B07H72LJ5V
• ASIN: B07H72LJ5V
• Manufacturer: Penguin Press

A Rumor of War : The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition)

"Originally published in hardcover in 1977 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston"--Title page

• UPC: 55519525
• Rating: 4.833

Vietnam Labyrinth : Allies, Enemies, and Why the U.S. Lost the War

"The memoir of Tran Ngoc Chau, one of the few Vietnamese Army officers who also saw service in Ho Chi Minh's National Liberation Army"--Provided by

• UPC: 21087338

An Unending War : A Memoir of Vietnam

This story is about the war in Vietnam from April 1967 to April 1968, as seen and experienced through the eyes of a young infantry sergeant.It is a story that is punctuated with personal accounts

• UPC: 796189327

Steinbeck in Vietnam : Dispatches from the War

Although his career continued for almost three decades after the 1939 publication of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck is still most closely associated with his Depression-era works of social struggle. But from Pearl Harbor

• UPC: 22114737
• Rating: 4.0

Means of Escape : A War Correspondent's Memoir of Life and Death in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Vietnam

The author of "A Rumor of War" recounts his harrowing tales of life as a foreign correspondent. (SEE

• UPC: 56157900
• Rating: 5.0

A Vietcong Memoir : An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath

Offers a first-hand account of Viet Cong activity in South Vietnam, the torments of the war, and the country's

• UPC: 455230
• Rating: 3.0

Guns Up! : A Firsthand Account of the Vietnam War

Training, faith, and luck carry Marine machine gunner Johnnie Clark and his buddy, Chan, through months of deadly Vietnam

• UPC: 1631873
• Rating: 4.5

Vietnam Unplugged: Pictures Stolen - Memories Recovered : Reflections On War While Serving With the 101st Airborne Division

Vietnam Unplugged: Picture Stolen - Memories

• UPC: 245025911

Secrets : A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Three decades after making history by releasing the Pentagon Papers, the former U.S. Marine and Pentagon insider reveals why he did it and discusses the consequences to his

• UPC: 2358404
• Rating: 5.0

God Said Let There Be Light and There Was Llumo : Transitioning from Apollo 11 Mission Control to Combat in Vietnam and Healing the Scars of War

God Said Let There Be Light And There Was "LLUMO" is an autobiographical book about the author when he was a 22-year old college graduate forced, by way of the draft, to transition from working

• UPC: 334578463