Vietnam

Vietnam was an experience like none other. You seldom knew who your enemy was. Always be prepared. Base camp was the closest thing to a safe place. I just did not spend much time there. I got into searching tunnels because the need arose and I felt I could do something about it using my Chemical Corps training. That decision would push me to fight for my life.

There is a saying that time brings about change, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. Jakie Ray Spencer is a Black military veteran who fought in Vietnam with Charlie company 5th and 12th, the 199th infantry brigade. He was given medals at the time, but refused to accept them because he felt the soldiers who had died on the battlefield deserved them more. God let Jakie witness and live through all the death and destruction, and he was not so proud of what he'd had to do to survive in the jungles of Vietnam. Only to face the struggles encountered after coming back home from war, being an African American soldier. Of being denied the rights of a human being, beaten-down because of the color of his skin, even after serving in Vietnam. Of being intimidated and abused by others for no apparent reason. Things that continue on today. <BR>This memoir shows in vivid detail how one man has dealt with poverty, racism, and war for over 50 years. The Lord placed this story upon Jakie's heart many years ago, asking him to get it out to people who grew up during a time when few of the leadership principles and qualities existed that had been instilled in him growing up. As you embark upon this adventure and read about his life story, his hope is that you take from it the principles of love, kindness, caring, helping, and respect for one another that seem to have vanished from the earth today. Trust in the Lord; He is always there for you to lean on.

A man leaves behind his autobiography. A treasure in a stack of notebooks. A life filled with love, pain, honor, and hope. A family will never forget their dad, Boopa, and hero. This book serves as a way to help them honor his memory. All proceeds will be donated to charity in honor of Billy Ikner. All contents of the autobiography were compiled by Jen Lowry, daughter of William Richard Ikner, Sr.

In The CrossRoads Diaries, you will embark on a year-in-the-life journey through the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. You will journey alongside a combat sailor assigned to the unique Army-Navy battle-seeking unit known as the Mobile Riverine Force.This book is for: veterans, to let them know there is always hope those seeking knowledge of what combat situations can create young people moving from childhood to adulthood combat veterans' significant others seeking insight about their loved ones anyone wanting information about one of the most specialized combat units ever to exist The CrossRoads Diaries is a mixture of narrative, poetry, pictures, Bible scripture musical lyrics, and the innermost feelings of a young man who spent hundreds of hours per month on deadly river operations in Vietnam, engaged in more than 100 firefights, and then came home. He returned for another tour of duty, this time as a minesweeper on the Cua Viet River. Come along with Tom Center on this riveting journey through the Mekong Delta.

I Guess I Just Wasn't Thinking-Part Four: At the End of the Rainbow picks up where Part Three left off. Roger finally finds that one woman-who for reasons not to be understood, decisively unlocks his manhood. He is now a changed being, emboldened and empowered; however he is now faced with a daunting challenge-he has to find a way to construct a life with Mireille. After seeing and feeling the majesty of snow-capped mountains and the pastoral French countryside, he is fearful Mireille would not be able to abide the States (especially hot, flat Florida). In spite of this doubt Roger must investigate any stateside opportunity, and is hugely lucky in attaining a position with a Fortune 500 company. There he is sabotaged by a jealous superior and we see him reeling in the disgrace of being "Outplaced for Management Convenience." (Fired.) Within the aviation industry this nomenclature is usually a euphemism for some other dastardly act felt to be unmentionable. It denies the bearer any future chance at a respected aviation position. We cannot expect Roger to "change his spots" so we again find ourselves screaming instructions at him as he retreats to more familiar territory: engaging in a string of dangerous, disjointed and sometimes illicit jobs (such as being hired to break an old friend out of a Columbian jail). The unfolding of momentous events in this part see Roger having the highest hopes, the gravest disappointments, and finally-to your amazement, all that one might expect.Roger finally finds that one woman-who for reasons not to be understood, decisively unlocks his manhood. He is now a changed being, emboldened and empowered; however he is now faced with a daunting challenge-he has to find a way to construct a life with Mireille. After seeing and feeling the majesty of snow-capped mountains and the pastoral French countryside, he is fearful Mireille would not be able to abide the States (especially hot, flat Florida). In spite of this doubt Roger must investigate any stateside opportunity, and is hugely lucky in attaining a position with a Fortune 500 company. There he is sabotaged by a jealous superior and we see him reeling in the disgrace of being "Outplaced for Management Convenience." (Fired.) Within the aviation industry this nomenclature is usually a euphemism for some other dastardly act felt to be unmentionable. It denies the bearer any future chance at a respected aviation position. We cannot expect Roger to "change his spots" so we again find ourselves screaming instructions at him as he retreats to more familiar territory: engaging in a string of dangerous, disjointed and sometimes illicit jobs (such as being hired to break an old friend out of a Columbian jail). The unfolding of momentous events in this part see Roger having the highest hopes, the gravest disappointments, and finally-to your amazement, all that one might expect.

Time was meaningless. Death was waiting. Anything touching ground zero that showed the barbarous revenge of the Vietcong ended in a dried bloodbath for whoever served South Vietnam’s government. This all happened after North Vietnam’s last invasion succeeded on April 30, 1975.Humanity absented itself into the hell of a prison that was called re-education. Vietcong killed the soldiers and public servants of South Vietnam using the cruel methods of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.Prisoners were executed, tortured, lacked food, endured illness without medicine, and were subjected to forced labor, which created spiritual intimidation. The Vietcong killed about 165,000 among 800,000 prisoners, while the leftists in society concealed the human rights violations of the Vietcong.Author Quang Hong Mac survived, escaping by boat after spending more than five years in a Vietcong re-education camp. He resettled in the U.S. and continues to fight for democracy.Sharing his untold stories with U.S. public officials and another former Vietcong prisoner, this book was written to debunk paranoid socialists in democratic countries.The author believes his book can inform the Western World the truth about communism and socialism.About the Author : Quang Hong Mac, a captain in the South Vietnam Army (ARVN) and an injured pilot in the 1968 Tet offensive battle, was imprisoned for five years after Saigon fell in 1975. In 1980, he escaped and resettled in the United States. The following year, his wife and three children came to a Malaysia refugee camp. They reunited in 1981. He rebuilt his life from zero, graduating as an electrical engineer. Now retired, the author was editor of Philadelphia R¿ng ¿ông Sunrise magazine and was an adviser on Asia for Pennsylvania’s governor. He has never returned to Vietnam.

War is hell is an understatement! Kenny knew something was wrong as his best friend tripped a wire. For a couple of seconds, they just stared at each other. It was as if his friend was saying good-by. Even though it was only seconds it lasted so long! Then came the explosion! His friend put his back against the mortar on the tree and took the entire load! Kenney flew back about 10 feet and thought he was dying as he was covered in so much blood and body parts. As it turned out it was his friend who just saved his life! Kenney went into a state of shock and was flown out to a Field Hospital for observation. After one week he was sent back into combat! A letter from Mom stated that my Aunt was worried Kenney was losing his will to live! When I heard this, I knew that I had to get Kenney out of the fighting for a week to rest up and give him a reason to live again! To do this, I will need to make up Fake Orders as I have done before but nothing to this extreme!

George D. Aiken, a hillside farmer and a liberal Republican Depression-era Governor, rose to national prominence as a leading GOP U. S. Senator and enduring critic of the Vietnam War from 1962-1975. Aiken’s long-standing friendship with Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, an unheard of political alliance in today’s sharply divided Washington, forged bi-partisan opposition to the war. Aiken was neither "hawk" nor "dove", but a "wise owl" who spoke his mind forcefully and bluntly to all against the war. He advised President Johnson to declare that the U. S. won the Vietnam War and to get out. Later, Aiken told President Nixon to stop bombing in Cambodia or he couldn’t be elected "dogcatcher." This is pure Aiken speaking truth to power for ending America’s most controversial war, a common-sense voice that the Nation sorely needs today.This book demonstrates that bi-partisan Senate leadership has worked in the past and must be present in order to solve urgent national problems. Senator Aiken was a catalyst for forging consensus on issues from civil rights to foreign policy by being open-minded to all ideas that would help his constituents. Aiken’s philosophy was always to help people first. He never made decisions based on his party, a lost art in the current political environment. A Senator like George Aiken today would help show how to restore bi-partisanship.

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WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEFinalist for the Lambda Literary AwardFinalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for BiographyNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by: OMagazine, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, SeattleTimesThe definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private faceNo writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down; in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel, in besieged Sarajevo. She was in New York when artists tried to resist the tug of money—and when many gave in. No writer negotiated as many worlds; no serious writer had as many glamorous lovers. Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based. It explores the agonizing insecurity behind the formidable public face: the broken relationships, the struggles with her sexuality, that animated—and undermined—her writing. And it shows her attempts to respond to the cruelties and absurdities of a country that had lost its way, and her conviction that fidelity to high culture was an activism of its own. Utilizing hundreds of interviews conducted from Maui to Stockholm and from London to Sarajevo—and featuring nearly one hundred images—Sontag is the first book based on the writer’s restricted archives, and on access to many people who have never before spoken about Sontag, including Annie Leibovitz. It is a definitive portrait—a great American novel in the form of a biography.

The book describes the life of a young boy growing up with a father who was very strict leading him to join the military then finding himself severely disabled and going on to what he terms as a rebirth and a new life. About the Author: He was young and patriotic growing up in a home in the 40's in a house with the love of his mother and the discipline of his father. His father was a World War II combat D Day veteran and as former a POW. Growing up as a young athlete in school he wanted a life in the military and chose the United States Marine Corps. Returning from the Vietnam War with severe disabling injuries he began his new life only to have roadblocks thrown in his face.

I Am Ready to Talk covers 160+ personal stories from members of the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association who answered our nation’s call to fight in Vietnam between 1959 and 1975. Stories come from all branches of our military and cover the war from the DMZ to the Delta, and those who served in the waters of the South China Sea and flew from bases in surrounding countries.Stories cover the tapestry of the Vietnam War experience. There is no better way to learn about the Vietnam war than through the eyes of those Americans who answered our country’s call to duty. After fifty years of being silent, Vietnam vets are ready to talk – and this book will open your eyes to the kaleidoscope of their experiences."Taken individually, and collectively, these veterans do indeed tell quite a story ... a microcosm of things that happened and were experienced over the span of the Vietnam War."LTC (Ret) Norman E. Zoller, JAG Two Tours in RVN, Field Artillery Special Forces (64-'65); 82nd Abn Div ('68-'69)

The author has always remembered an incident that occurred during on of the many artillery swing operations. These operations involved two guns in fire support of Special Forces approximately 100 Montagnard positioned along the Cambodian border. The normal artillery battery comprised of six guns positioned in a group to produce overlapping explosive power. However, during these operations, only two guns would be sent out as fire support. The guns and crew along with the Special Forces Cadre would helicoptered out and dropped on a hill (Landing Zone) LZ and remain in place for weeks or months depending upon the situation.The incidences that most haunted the author occurred during the Siege of Special Forces Camp Bu Prang along the Cambodian border. It was these incidents that kept the author always wondering what the meaning of the situation, and how that applied in his life. The culmination to this quest for the meaning happened forty years after the events of that time and inspired the author to write down his experiences and the epiphany about that meaning.The book is a reflection on the author's experiences with the realization that God has always been with him throughout his life.

This is a "can't put it down" book of a series of stories written by the author from the heart about his experiences serving in the Vietnam War. The author came out of the Vietnam War closet to be healed from the deep, hidden pain of his war experiences. Investing in this book will help other Vietnam War veterans heal after years of unwanted suffering. He was rewarded for his bravery as a Crew Chief/Gunner on a Scout LOACH (Light Observation Aerial Combat Helicopter). These stories will take you into the Vietnam War as if you were there. You will feel the pain of war. You will feel the humor of war. You will feel the fear, loneliness and stress of war. You will learn how this fear, stress, and loneliness led to heroin addiction and marijuana use by over half of our soldiers in Vietnam. America did not understand the Vietnam War. Vietnam War soldiers returning home were abandoned and shunned. No one wanted to listen. No help was available to help these war heroes heal. Young men went to Vietnam to fight expecting nothing. When they returned home, nothing is what they got. The author knew we should be in Vietnam to protect our national interests because of research done in college for a speech class. Find out how the news media lied to the American people about the purpose of the war in Vietnam and how we could have easily won. Forty-six years later the author pulled out his Vietnam War memorabilia to share with family at a family reunion. Even his wife had not seen these things. The family feelings erupted being upset because he had not shared his Vietnam War experiences sooner. He just couldn't! The pain was buried to deep! He promised his family to write his stories down. Take this journey as you cry with the author through his painful healing process.

They were little more than boys in the turbulent 1960s when Lee Roy Herron and his high school buddy, David Nelson, signed up for Marine Corps officer training. Decisions during college took the pair in different directions—Lee Roy to the infantry, language school, and the cauldron of Vietnam, David to law school, the JAG office, and eventually to Okinawa. When Lt. Lee Roy Herron was killed on the front lines in February 1969, only two months into his tour of duty, Nelson mourned the tragic loss. Haunted for years afterward, he questioned his own choices, his relative safety, and his backstage role in the conflict while his friend paid the ultimate price. A chance encounter with a retired officer in 1997 spurred Nelson to delve more deeply into Lee Roy's death. What really happened that day on the hillside above A Shau Valley on the Laotian border? A quest to understand his old friend's experience and sacrifice led Nelson to military archives, to the homes of friends and family back in West Texas, and even to battle sites in Vietnam. What he learned caused him to rethink the nature of fate, friendship, and heroism—and touches lives even today. The final chapter in Nelson's journey to honor his fallen friend, David and Lee Roy will resonate with Vietnam veterans, their families, and survivors of any war who carry the memory with them.

President Bill Clinton's My Life is the strikingly candid self-portrait of a world leader who decided in early life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the people of America and the entire world population. It is the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written, and a testament to the positive impact that his work and his political ideals had on America and on the world. Here is the life of a great national and international figure, revealed with all his talents and contradictions. Filled with fascinating moments and insights, it is told openly, directly, in President Clinton's immediately recognisable voice. A fascinating journey through American politics, and one of the world's most famous politicians, and popular presidents.

Don's Nam is a vivid first-person account of war in Vietnam centered around the daily activities of the Orient Express, it is a story unlike any other account of the war. Written from a diary, and documented with operational reports, eyewitness accounts, journals, and photos, Rast eloquently and passionately takes the reader on a gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of horror, courage, and sacrifice that the headlines and TV news never saw. It is essential, poignant reading for those veterans who were in `Nam and cannot forget, and also for those who were not there, but strive to understand the electrifying intensity of what war is about. Ride the primitive roads on dangerous convoys with the men of the Orient Express, and get a true feeling what it was like to be ambushed or mined in 1969 and 1970. Experience "Rat Patrols," rocket attacks, reconnaissance missions, and the political intrigue that made the war so difficult to fight using conventional methods. The men's stories, taken down in his muddy diary, and kept locked in an old army footlocker for twenty-eight years, jump to life off the pages and leave the reader crying, laughing, or just plainly boiling with rage as this dramatic account of the Vietnam war unfolds in a story that is truly spellbinding.