1. In War without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam, German historian Bernd Greiner explains his focus: “At the heart of this book are the wartime atrocities and war crimes committed by the ground troops. To…
1. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps…
1. American Heritage Dictionary Napalm, incendiary material used in bombs and flame throwers. Developed during World War II, napalm is a mixture of gasoline (sometimes mixed with other petroleum fuels) and a thickening agent. The…
I came across the following when preparing tonight’s session of our reading circle of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (the chapters on the Black Freedom struggle and the Vietnam War). Why should…
Among themselves GIs were able to rationalize their own brutal behavior by dismissing their victims as mere “gooks” or “dinks.” “They were only VC,” they said as a woman was raped or an old man…
A Reflection on Claude Anshin Thomas, At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace. Shambhala Publications, 2004. In one of the most fascinating pieces I’ve read on the U.S. war in Iraq, the litany-esque,…