Must Reads...

by Former U.S. Rep. Bill Hendon (R-NC) and Elizabeth Stewart

I am resolved to the fact that my Government has, beyond all reasonable doubt, left American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines behind to wither away in Laos and Vietnam.  The 'Why' in that statement is slowly coming to the surface...a question I have asked for many years.  Many, like Steve Golding and Dave Murray, have tried to beat it into me (before their passing), but to no avail...until now. 

The website for this book can be found at http://www.enormouscrime.com.

I highly suggest you purchase this book and maybe an extra few for your Congressman and Senators. You can place your order with Amazon.com

A SENSE OF DUTY: My Father, My American Journey

by Quang X. Pham

(Random House/April 2005)

A Sense of Duty is a memoir written by Quang X. Pham about he and his father, Hoa V. Pham, who served as a pilot with the South Vietnamese Air Force during the Vietnam War.  After the fall of Saigon, Lt. Col. Pham was taken as a prisoner of war and held for 12 years. 

The book is due to be published in April 2005 and should prove to be a noble testament to honor, courage, and sacrifice for two generations who felt and answered the call of duty during their countries time in need.  After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, young Pham earned his wings as an aviator with the United States Marine Corps and served as a helicopter pilot -- having flown missions in the first Gulf war and in Somalia.  According to an article published in the Orange County Register (April 30, 2004), Quang "is the first Marine aviator of Vietnamese Heritage."

Form more information, I invite you to pay a visit to http://www.asenseofduty.com/

Leave No Man Behind
by Garnett "Bill" Bell with George J. Veith

"The Vietnam War's POW/MIA issue has haunted America since the early stages of the war. Shrouded in controversy, a subject of great emotion amid charges of governmental conspiracy and Communist deceit, the possibility of American servicemen being held in secret captivity after the war's end has influenced U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia for three decades. Now, the first chief of the U.S. POW/MIA office in postwar Vietnam provides an insider's account of that effort. In an illuminating and deeply personal memoir, the government's top POW/MIA field investigator discusses the history of the search for missing Americans, reveals how the Communist Vietnamese stonewalled U.S. efforts to discover the truth, and how the standards for MIA case investigations were gradually lowered while pressure for expanded commercial and economic ties with communist Vietnam increased. Leave No Man Behind is the compelling story of one man's quest, at great individual cost, to find the truth about America's missing in action from the Vietnam War."

Part of the proceeds of Leave No Man Behind will be donated to:

• Rolling Thunder
• The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia
• National Alliance Of Families For the Return of America's Missing Servicemen

Also, volume discounts are available!  Email Goblin Fern Press, Inc. to make your request.  As stated on the GFP website, "This is a good fundraising opportunity for POW/MIA or other Veterans' groups."

Hardcover
(October 2002)

Paperback
(October 2002)

The Flag-My Story: Kidnapped by Red China

by Steve E. Kiba

"The Flag-My Story: Kidnapped by Red China reveals & emphasizes this disturbing, chilling message which ALL Americans, most especially our young people, need to hear. With our nation still at war & with some of our brave military personnel still in the hands of a cruel & sadistic enemy, it is imperative that our fellow American countrymen know that NOT ALL MIAs/POWs came home from those previous wars, & it is even more imperative that we NEVER AGAIN allow such an horrendous act to happen again!"

--Text quoted from email by Mr. Kiba

Paperback
Reprint edition
(December 1998)

Code-Name Bright Light: The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War
by George J. Veith

"They were caged and bound like animals and often moved minutes before Special Forces raiders came looking for them. Caught in a nightmarish no-man's-land between the U.S. government and a cunning enemy, they were the American POWs in Vietnam. Based on exhaustive research from recently released government documents, Veith chronicles every aspect of the harrowing missions and the political infighting that often tragically deterred them. The result is a drama of soldiers turned into tragic pawns and haunting evidence that many may have been left behind..."

Truly spellbinding and captivating.  I found myself constantly reminding myself that this book was not purchased in the fiction/fantasy aisle. --jmb.

Hardcover
706 pages
(March 1, 1999)

Honor Bound : American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973
by Stuart I. Rochester, Frederick T. Kiley

"Among the many horrors of the Vietnam War, some of the most brutal and, until now, least documented were the experiences of the American prisoners of war, many of whom endured the longest wartime captivity of any POWs in U.S. history. With this book, two respected scholars in the field offer a comprehensive, balanced, and authoritative account of what happened to the nearly eight hundred Americans captured in Southeast Asia. The authors were granted unprecedented access to previously unreleased materials and interviewed more than one hundred former POWs, enabling them to meticulously reconstruct the captivity record as well as produce an evocative narrative of a once sketchy and misunderstood yet key chapter of the war..."

Paperback 
(October 1999)

"In Vietnam, Mobile Guerrilla Force was the only American unit that truly carried out guerrilla-style hit-and-run military operations. Armed with silencer-equipped MK-II British Sten guns, M-16s, M-79s, and M-60s, the men of the Mobile Guerilla Force roamed for weeks at a time through steamy triple-canopy jungle in areas owned by NVA and VC, destroying base camps, ambushing enemy forces, and gathering the intelligence Saigon desperately needed.

In 1967, James Donahue was a Special Forces medic and an assistant platoon leader for the Mobile Guerrilla Force's fiercely anti-Vietnamese Cambodian mercenaries. On mission Blackjack-33, they were to act as bait and lure VC and NVA regiments into decisive engagements so that they could be targeted and destroyed by the 1st Infantry Division. Well, the MGF did its job, but the 1st Infantry Division refused to show up. . . ."

Paperback
256 pages
(June 2000)

also available in
Hardbound Edition

"Frank Anton went to Vietnam in 1967 to serve the country he loved. Now, more than thirty years later, he tells the story of how his own government failed him. . . in this harrowing first-person account and shocking expose, Frank Anton recounts his years as a POW and the aftermath - devoting his life to understanding why and how his own government left him and others to suffer and possibly die in the Vietnamese prison camps. And the answers he's uncovered will astound and disturb you..."

Paperback
383 pages 
Reprint edition
(July 1998)

"Major John L. Plaster, a three-tour veteran of Vietnam tells the story of the most highly classified U.S. covert operatives to serve in the war: The Studies and Observations Group, code-named SOG. Comprised of volunteers from America's most elite military units, SOG agents answered directly to the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs, with some missions requiring approval from the White House. Now for the first time, the dangerous assignments of this top-secret unit can be revealed..."

Hardcover
368 pages
(March 15, 1999)

"One of the Vietnam War´s most closely guarded secrets - a highly classified U.S. radar base in the mountains of neutral Laos - led to the disappearance of a small group of elite military personnel, a loss never fully acknowledged by the American government. Now, thirty years later, one book recounts the harrowing story - and offers some measure of closure on this decades-old mystery. Because of the covert nature of the mission at Lima Site 85 - providing bombing instructions to U.S. Air Force tactical aircraft from the "safe harbor" of a nation that was supposedly neutral..."

"...One Day Too Long is the story of the courageous men who agreed to put their lives in danger to perform a critical mission in which they could not be officially acknowledged. Indeed the personnel at Site 85 agreed to be "sheep-dipped" - removed from their military status and technically placed in the employ of a civilian company. Castle reveals how the program, code-named "Heavy Green," was conceived and approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government."

Paperback
375 pages
(Sept. 1998)

also available in 
Hardbound Edition

"Ten days before his tour of duty ended in 1965, Marine Pvt. Robert Garwood was taken captive by the Vietcong.

In 1979--six years after the Vietnamese government had allegedly released all American POWs--he was still a prisoner of war.

A jeep driver for a Marine Intelligence unit, Bobby Garwood suffered through fourteen years of unabated hell in a succession of prison camps in North Vietnam. But his most devastating ordeal came after his release. For Garwood returned home not to a grateful America, but to a court-martial, accusations of treachery and collusion, and to disgrace..."

Paperback Reprint edition (June 1996)

"Describes the ordeal of members of a Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol team after they are ambushed in Cambodia, as well as the heroic, ultimately successful attempts to rescue them against all odds. Reprint..."

Paperback Reissue edition (August 1991)

Autobiographical account of life as a Prisoner of War. -- jmb.

Paperback
432 pages Reissue edition (July 1997)

"Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews, this chronicle of deception, betrayal, and exceptional bravery during the Vietnam War furnishes the inside account of some of the most extraordinary operations in warfare history. Reprint..."

Paperback
512 pages
Reissue with New Afterword
(October 1999)

"The bestselling expose of a major political scandal--in the tradition of All the President's Men and Spycatcher. The story of a five-year investigation by two award-winning journalists, Kiss the Boys Goodbye reveals heartbreaking evidence of POWs abandoned in Vietnam, of official obstruction and missing files, censored testimony and thinly veiled threats from government sources. 16 pages of photographs..."

Deceit, scandal, and clandestine from cover to cover.   I've read it three times now and still pick up information that I missed previously! --jmb.

Hardcover
352 pages
(1992)

Soldiers of Misfortune: Washington's Secret Betrayal of American POWs in the Soviet Union

by James D. Sanders, Mark A. Sauer, and R. Cort Kirkwood
 

Several years ago, I sat in the lobby of the Crystal City Hotel during a break for lunch while attending the National Alliance of Families annual meeting.  I sat with Mr. Steve Golding and Mr. Dave Murray (may they both rest in peace) and stated that for all of my learning, I still did not understand why our Government abandoned our military personnel.  After having read this book, I know believe I can answer this question!

Our heroes were abandoned because of our Government's need to jump ahead in the cold war.  Our GI's were liberated from prison camps by Soviet troops in Germany.  Those troops, numbering over 20,000 were held hostage by the Communists because we could not/would not repatriate certain Soviet personnel back to the USSR.

Some product descriptions provided by Amazon.com
My personal comments marked with "--jmb."