DescriptionOn Easter morning, 1972, Marine captain John Ripley braved intense enemy fire to blow up a bridge during the North Vietnamese "Easter Offensive." Ripley became a legend within the Marine Corps for his daring act of heroism. His story is described here by fellow Marine John Grider Miller. Miller lays bare Ripley's innermost thoughts during the 3 hours it took to place and set the fuses while some 30, 000 enemy troops and 200 tanks prepared to cross just yards away. Such a compelling act of raw courage and personal resolve is rarely encountered.
DescriptionFrom the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of the Vietnam conflict: Philip Caputo, Tim O'Brien, and Gustav Hasford. In the stripped-down, unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells his story of the war. Straight from high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, he enters a world of mud and heat, blood and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom that awaits every soldier. In the tradition of The Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line, Close Quarters is the harrowing story of how a decent kid from Chicago endures an extraordinary trial and returns profoundly altered to a world on the threshold of change.
DescriptionTwenty-five years after the fall of Saigon, the legacy of the war affects lives on both sides of the Pacific. In this series of reports, American RadioWorks reveals how events fading into memory still influence our environments, institutions, and cultures. Project Producer/Editor: Deborah George Associate Producer: Stephanie Curtis Audio Engineers: Tom Mudge, Maggie Villager, and Michael Cullen Production Support: Carlos Briceno, Jeff Feddersen, Dan Gorenstein, Jennifer Woebke, and Nicole Zeuner Managing Editor: Stephen Smith Executive Producer: Bill Buzenberg Major funding for American RadioWorks® comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. American RadioWorks is the national documentary unit of American Public Media.
DescriptionThis gripping novel is not only one of the best books written about Vietnam; it is also one of the most powerful anti-war novels in American literature. Walter James has no face. Braiden Chaney has no arms or legs. They lost them 22 years ago, in Vietnam. Now, in the course of one long night in a V.A. hospital, these two soldiers, one black, the other white, reveal how they came to be where they are and what they can only hope to become.
