In 1844 the USS Yorktown sailed from New York, as part of the U.S. Navy's newly established African Squadron, to interdict slave ships leaving the African coast. Aboard the sloop of war, Master's Mate John C. Lawrence, an educated New Yorker in his early twenties, kept a private journal describing what happened during the extraordinary two-year voyage and his reactions ...
Presented in cooperation with the Association of the U.S. Army, this is the story of life as an infantryman during the final phases of World War II. Having served as an 81-mm mortar forward observer with the 1st Infantry Division (the"Big Red One"), the author skillfully recreates this military combat experience through both personal recollections and excerpts from his letters ...
Foreword by Richard Holbrooke
Five American and three Vietnamese participants in the early days of U.S. involvement in southeast Asia compellingly argue that the failure of American policy in Vietnam was not inevitable. The common theme of their individual essays suggests that the war in Vietnam might have had a much different—and far less tragic—outcome if U.S. policy makers had ...