Voices of the Vietnam POWs

Voices of the Vietnam POWs
Author: Craig Howes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 1993-09-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0195358694
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Unsure whether they would be greeted as traitors or heroes, POWs returning from Vietnam responded by holding tight to their chosen motto, "Return with Honor." "We're giving the American people what they want and badly need--heroes," said a Vietnam jungle POW. "I feel it's our responsibility, our duty to help them where possible shed the idea this war was a waste, useless, as unpopular as it may have been." In the first book to explore the entire range of memoirs, biographies, and group histories published since America's Vietnam POWs returned home, Craig Howes explores the development of a collective history. He describes how these captives drew upon their national heritage to compose a unified, common story while still in prison, and how individual POWs have responded to this Official Story. Examining what racial, cultural, and political assumptions support this shared Official Story, Howes places the POWs' experiences squarely in the center of American history, and within those larger clashes of opinion and belief which characterized the nation's response to the Vietnam War. The result is an engrossing study of what these captivity narratives can tell us about the POWs, their captors, and America's Vietnam legacy.

Voices from Captivity

Voices from Captivity
Author: Robert C. Doyle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 408
Release: 1994
Genre: History
ISBN:
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Doyle shows that, though setting and circumstances may change, POW stories share a common structure and are driven by similar themes. Capture, incarceration, isolation, propaganda, torture, capitulation or resistance, death, spiritual quest, escape, liberation and repatriation are recurrent key motifs in these narratives.

Voices from Vietnam

Voices from Vietnam
Author: Barry Denenberg
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1997-08-01
Genre: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
ISBN: 9780590435307
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Explains the unique events and practices that shaped the Vietnam War, bringing together the stories of people who experienced it firsthand, as told in their own voices. Reprint.

Dissenting POWs

Dissenting POWs
Author: Tom Wilber
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1583679103
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A fresh look at the how US troops played a part in the resistance of US troops to the American war in Vietnam Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming-home stories. What had gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the underlying factional divide between pro-war “hardliners” and anti-war “dissidents” among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into the postwar American culture that created the myths of the Hero-POW and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found was surprising: It wasn’t simply that some POWs were for the war and others against it, nor was it an officers-versus-enlisted-men standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and their pre-captive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the hardcore hero-holdouts—like John McCain—moved on to careers in politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them, disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary myth-buster, disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI resistance with images of suffering POWs—ennobled victims that serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America’s drift to endless war.

Voices from Vietnam

Voices from Vietnam
Author: Michael E. Stevens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1996-12-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:
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An unforgettable collection of 174 letters and diary entries written by 92 wisconsin men and women who served in Vietnam. Includes a journal kept by Menasha native Frederic Flom on cigarette wrappers during his final 16 days of captivity — the only known diary smuggled out by a Vietnam prisoner of war.

Tap Code

Tap Code
Author: Carlyle S. Harris
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0310359120
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Discover never-before-told details of POW underground operations during the Vietnam War told through one airman's inspiring story of true love, honor, and courage. Air Force pilot Captain Carlyle "Smitty" Harris was shot down over Vietnam on April 4, 1965 and taken to the infamous Hoa Lo prison--nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton." For the next eight years, Smitty and hundreds of other American POWs--including John McCain and George "Bud" Day--suffered torture, solitary confinement, and unimaginable abuse. It was there that Smitty covertly taught many other POWs the Tap Code--an old, long-unused method of communication from World War II. Using the code, they could softly tap messages of encouragement to lonely neighbors and pass along resistance policies from their leaders. The code quickly became a lifeline during their internment. It helped the prisoners boost morale, stay unified, communicate the chain of command, and prevail over a brutal enemy. Meanwhile, back home in the United States, Harris's wife, Louise, raised their three children alone, unsure of her husband's fate for seven long years. One of the first POW wives of the Vietnam War, she became a role model for other military wives by advocating for herself and her children in her husband's absence. Told through both Smitty's and Louise's voices, Tap Code shares the riveting true story of: Ingenuity under pressure Strength and dignity in the face of a frightening enemy The hope, faith, and resolve necessary to endure even the darkest circumstances Praise for Tap Code: "Tap Code is an incredible story about two American heroes. Col. "Smitty" Harris and his wife, Louise, epitomize the definition of commitment--to God, to country, and to family. This tale of extreme perseverance will restore your faith in the human spirit." --Brigadier General John Nichols, USAF "The incomprehensibly long ordeal of the Harris family is agonizing. Their love, faith, loyalty, and courage epitomize all that is good about America." --Lt. Col. Orson Swindle, USMC (ret.), POW, Hanoi, 11/11/1966 to 3/4/1973

Captive Warriors

Captive Warriors
Author: Sam Johnson
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1992
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780890964965
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Former fighter pilot recounts his experiences as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

The Longest Rescue

The Longest Rescue
Author: Glenn Robins
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2013-09-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 081314325X
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While serving as a crew chief aboard a U.S. Air Force Rescue helicopter, Airman First Class William A. Robinson was shot down and captured in Ha Tinh Province, North Vietnam, on September 20, 1965. After a brief stint at the "Hanoi Hilton," Robinson endured 2,703 days in multiple North Vietnamese prison camps, including the notorious Briarpatch and various compounds at Cu Loc, known by the inmates as the Zoo. No enlisted man in American military history has been held as a prisoner of war longer than Robinson. For seven and a half years, he faced daily privations and endured the full range of North Vietnam's torture program. In The Longest Rescue: The Life and Legacy of Vietnam POW William A. Robinson, Glenn Robins tells Robinson's story using an array of sources, including declassified U.S. military documents, translated Vietnamese documents, and interviews from the National Prisoner of War Museum. Unlike many other POW accounts, this comprehensive biography explores Robinson's life before and after his capture, particularly his estranged relationship with his father, enabling a better understanding of the difficult transition POWs face upon returning home and the toll exacted on their families. Robins's powerful narrative not only demonstrates how Robinson and his fellow prisoners embodied the dedication and sacrifice of America's enlisted men but also explores their place in history and memory.

Voices from the Vietnam War

Voices from the Vietnam War
Author: Xiaobing Li
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2010-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813173868
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The Vietnam War's influence on politics, foreign policy, and subsequent military campaigns is the center of much debate and analysis. But the impact on veterans across the globe, as well as the war's effects on individual lives and communities, is a largely neglected issue. As a consequence of cultural and legal barriers, the oral histories of the Vietnam War currently available in English are predictably one-sided, providing limited insight into the inner workings of the Communist nations that participated in the war. Furthermore, many of these accounts focus on combat experiences rather than the backgrounds, belief systems, and social experiences of interviewees, resulting in an incomplete historiography of the war. Chinese native Xiaobing Li corrects this oversight in Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans. Li spent seven years gathering hundreds of personal accounts from survivors of the war, accounts that span continents, nationalities, and political affiliations. The twenty-two intimate stories in the book feature the experiences of American, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and North and South Vietnamese veterans, representing the views of both anti-Communist and Communist participants, including Chinese officers of the PLA, a Russian missile-training instructor, and a KGB spy. These narratives humanize and contextualize the war's events while shedding light on aspects of the war previously unknown to Western scholars. Providing fresh perspectives on a long-discussed topic, Voices from the Vietnam War offers a thorough and unique understanding of America's longest war.

Prisoners of Culture

Prisoners of Culture
Author: Elliott Gruner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 245
Release: 1993
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780813519302
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