“What are the best books about The Vietnam War?” We looked at 279 of the top Vietnam books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 34 titles, all appearing on 3 or more “Best Vietnam War” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 225+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

Top 34 Best Vietnam War Books

34 .) 365 Days written by Ronald J. Glasser

Lists It Appears On:

• Early Bird Books
• Five Books
• Goodreads

In this gripping account of the human cost of the Vietnam War, Ron Glasser offers an unparalleled description of the horror endured daily by those on the front lines. “The stories I have tried to tell here are true, ” says Glasser in his foreword. “Those that happened in Japan I was part of; the rest are from the boys I met. I would have liked to disbelieve some of them, and at first I did, but I was there long enough to hear the same stories again and again, and then to see part of it myself.” Assigned to Zama, an Army hospital in Japan in September 1968, Glasser arrived as a pediatrician in the U.S. Army Medical Corps to care for the children of officers and high-ranking government officials. The hospital’s main mission, however, was to support the war and care for the wounded. At Zama, an average of six to eight thousand patients were attended to per month, and the death and suffering were staggering. The soldiers counted their days by the length of their tour–one year, or 365 days–and they knew, down to the day, how much time they had left. Glasser tells their stories–of lives shockingly interrupted by the tragedies of war–with moving, humane eloquence.

33 .) America in Vietnam written by Guenter Lewy

Lists It Appears On:

• Chomsky List
• Chomsky List
• Wikipedia

An inside look at America’s most divisive war… our strategy, and tactics, our conduct, our ‘guilt’ … using documents never before open to public scrutiny

32 .) Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans written by Wallace Terry

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• NY Times

“Simply the most powerful and moving book that has emerged on this topic.” UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL The national bestseller that tells the truth of about Vietnam from the black soldiers’ perspective. An oral history unlike any other, BLOODS features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off in disproportionate numbers and the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, BLOODS is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective.

31 .) Born on the Fourth of July written by Ron Kovic

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NY Times
• Wikipedia

“A great, courageous fellow, a man of deep moral convictions and an uncompromising disposition.”—John Kerry on Ron Kovic “As relevant as ever, this book is an education. Ron is a true American, and his great heart and hard-won wisdom shine through these pages.” —Oliver Stone, filmmaker “Born on the Fourth of July brings back the era of the Vietnam War at a time when the Establishment is trying to make the nation forget what they call the “Vietnam syndrome.” Ron Kovic’s memoir is written with poetic passion and grips your attention from the very first page to the last.

30 .) Close Quarters written by Larry Heinemann

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net

From 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 the story of his 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 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.

29 .) Dirty Work written by Larry Brown

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net

Dirty Work is the story of two men, strangers—one white, the other black. Both were born and raised in Mississippi. Both fought in Vietnam. Both were gravely wounded. Now, twenty-two years later, the two men lie in adjacent beds in a VA hospital.Over the course of a day and a night, Walter James and Braiden Chaney talk of memories, of passions, of fate. With great vision, humor, and courage, Brown writes mostly about love in a story about the waste of war.

28 .) Dog Soldiers written by Robert Stone

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he’ll find action – and profit – by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers – and the price of survival was dangerously high.

27 .) Going After Cacciato written by Tim O’Brien

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• History Net
• Softonic

Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars. In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it’s about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.

26 .) Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu written by Bernard B. Fall

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Depository
• Goodreads
• Softonic

From the acclaimed scholar and reporter, a thorough and revealing account of the historic turning point in Vietnam’s long struggle–the 1954 battle for Dien Bien Phu Like Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, and Tet, the battle at Dien Bien Phu–a strategic attack launched by France against the Vietnamese in 1954 after eight long years of war–marked a historic turning point. By the end of the 56-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large, tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese victory would not only end French occupation of Indochina and offer a sobering premonition of the U.S.’s future military defeat in the region, but would also provide a new model of modern warfare on which size and sophistication didn’t always dictate victory. Before his death in Vietnam in 1967, Bernard Fall, a critically acclaimed scholar and reporter, drew upon declassified documents from the French Defense Ministry and interviews with thousands of surviving French and Vietnamese soldiers to weave a compelling account of the key battle of Dien Bien Phu.

25 .) Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam written by Lynda Van Devanter

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net

Lynda Van Devanter was the girl next door, the cheerleader who went to Catholic schools, enjoyed sports, and got along well with her four sisters and parents. After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long and arduous hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die. Witnessing a war close-up, operating on soldiers and civilians whose injuries were catastrophic, she found the very foundations of her thinking changing daily. After one traumatic year, she came home, a Vietnam veteran. Coming home was nearly as devastating as the time she spent in Asia. Nothing was the same — including Lynda herself. Viewed by many as a murderer instead of a healer, she felt isolated and angry. The anger turned to depression; like many other Vietnam veterans she suffered from delayed stress syndrome. Working in hospitals brought back chilling scenes of hopelessly wounded soldiers. A marriage ended in divorce. The war that was fought physically halfway around the world had become a personal, internal battle.Home before Morning is the story of a woman whose courage, stamina, and personal history make this a compelling autobiography. It is also the saga of others who went to war to aid the wounded and came back wounded — physically and emotionally — themselves. And, it is the true story of one person’s triumphs: her understanding of, and coming to terms with, her destiny.

24 .) In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam written by Robert S. McNamara

Lists It Appears On:

• Chomsky List
• Goodreads
• Signature Reads

McNamara’s controversial book tells the inside and personal story of America’s descent into Vietnam from a unique point of view, and is one of the most enlightening books about government ever written.

23 .) Street Without Joy: Indochina at War, 1946-54 written by Bernard Fall

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• History Net
• Wikipedia

This classic account of the French War in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia

22 .) The 13th Valley written by John M. Del Vecchio

Lists It Appears On:

• Early Bird Books
• Goodreads
• Softonic

21 .) The Vietnam Reader: The Definitive Collection of Fiction and Nonfiction on the War written by Stewart O’Nan

Lists It Appears On:

• Chomsky List
• Signature Reads
• The Culture Trip

An extraordinary selection of the finest and best-known art from the American war in Vietnam, from Tim O’Brien to Marvin Gaye, from mainstream bestsellers to radical poetry. This authoritative and accessible volume includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, photography, and popular song lyrics from the Vietnam War era, covering a breadth of experiences and perspectives. Also included are incisive reader’s questions–useful for educators and book clubs–in a volume that makes an essential contribution to a wider understanding of the Vietnam War. An indispensable and provocative read for anyone who wants to know more about the war that changed the face of late-twentieth-century America.

20 .) What It is Like to Go to War written by Karl Marlantes

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Depository
• Goodreads
• Softonic

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Matterhorn, this is a powerful nonfiction book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for war.War is as old as humankind, but in the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion and literature — which also helped bring them home. In a compelling narrative, Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination and his readings — from Homer to the Mahabharata to Jung. He talks frankly about how he is haunted by the face of the young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters and how he finally finds a way to make peace with his past. Marlantes discusses the daily contradictions that warriors face in the grind of war, where each battle requires them to take life or spare life, and where they enter a state he likens to the fervor of religious ecstasy.Just as Matterhorn is already being acclaimed as a classic of war literature, What It Is Like To Go To War is set to become required reading for anyone — soldier or civilian — interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience.

19 .) Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam written by Andrew X. Pham

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Depository
• The Culture Trip
• Wanderlust Storytellers
• Words Without Borders

Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland. Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California. His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as “boat people.” Following the suicide of his sister, Pham quit his job, sold all of his possessions, and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert, around a thousand-mile loop from Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds “nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness.” In Vietnam, he’s taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen, except, of course, by his relatives, who doubt that as a Vietnamese he has the stamina to complete his journey (“Only Westerners can do it”); and in the United States he’s considered anything but American. A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and an eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity.

18 .) The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War written by Denise Chong

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Depository
• Goodreads
• Signature Reads
• The Culture Trip

On June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc, severely burned by napalm, ran from her blazing village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph – one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century – was seen around the world and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. This book is the story of how that photograph came to be – and the story of what happened to that girl after the camera shutter closed. Award-winning biographer Denise Chong’s portrait of Kim Phuc – who eventually defected to Canada and is now a UNESCO spokesperson – is a rare look at the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point-of-view and one of the only books to describe everyday life in the wake of this war and to probe its lingering effects on all its participants.

17 .) The Short-Timers written by Gustav Hasford

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Softonic

This novel was the source text of Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”. It follows the career of the sardonic narrator from the organized sadism of Marine basic training to an assignment as a combat reporter in Vietnam to his experiences as a platoon commander after the Tet offensive, portraying the descent into barbarism that marked America’s intervention in Vietnam.

16 .) They Marched Into Sunlight written by David Maraniss

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• History Net
• Huffington Post
• Wikipedia

Here is the epic story of Vietnam and the sixties told through the events of a few gripping, passionate days of war and peace in October 1967. They Marched Into Sunlight brings that tumultuous time back to life while exploring questions about the meaning of dissent and the official manipulation of truth, issues as relevant today as they were decades ago. In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America’s anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate.

15 .) Vietnam: A History written by Stanley Karnow

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Depository
• Chomsky List
• Goodreads
• NY Times

This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its undertsanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with participants-French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Originally published a companion to the Emmy-winning PBS series, Karnow’s defining book is a precursor to Ken Burns’s ten-part forthcoming documentary series, The Vietnam War. Vietnam: A History puts events and decisions into such sharp focus that we come to understand – and make peace with – a convulsive epoch of our recent history.

14 .) Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam written by Frances FitzGerald

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Explore The Archive
• Goodreads
• Quintessential Collection
• Wikipedia

Frances FitzGerald’s landmark history of Vietnam and the Vietnam War, “A compassionate and penetrating account of the collision of two societies that remain untranslatable to one another.” (New York Times Book Review) This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald’s many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam–the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America’s ill-fated intervention–and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, FIRE IN THE LAKE was the first history of Vietnam written by an American, and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam.

13 .) Chickenhawk written by Robert Mason

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Depository
• Early Bird Books
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Wikipedia

A true story from the battlefield that faithfully portrays the horror, the madness, and the trauma of the Vietnam War More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Mason’s astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death—the extreme emotions of a “chickenhawk” in constant danger.

12 .) The Best and the Brightest written by David Halberstam

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Riot
• Explore The Archive
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Wikipedia

The Best and the Brightest is David Halberstam’s masterpiece, the defining history of the making of the Vietnam tragedy. Using portraits of America’s flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our country’s recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam and why did it lose? As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded. It’s an American classic.

11 .) The Quiet American written by Graham Greene

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Softonic
• Wanderlust Storytellers

Graham Greene’s classic exploration of love, innocence, and morality in Vietnam “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused,” Graham Greene’s narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous “Quiet American” of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas. As young Pyle’s well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler’s motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has stolen Fowler’s beautiful Vietnamese mistress. Originally published in 1956 and twice adapted to film, The Quiet American remains a terrifiying and prescient portrait of innocence at large. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Robert Stone.

10 .) The Sympathizer written by Viet Thang Nguyen

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• Huffington Post
• The Culture Trip
• Wanderlust Storytellers
• Words Without Borders

It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.

9 .) Fields of Fire written by James Webb

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Explore The Archive
• Five Books
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Softonic
• Wanderlust Storytellers

Originally published in 1978, Webb’s classic novel of the Vietnam War follows three soldiers from different worlds who are plunged into a white-hot murderous realm of jungle warfare as it was fought by one Marine platoon in the An Hoa Basin in 1969. ‘They each had their reasons for being a soldier. They each had their illusions. Goodrich came from Harvard. Snake got the tattoo — Death Before Dishonor — before he got the uniform. And Hodges was haunted by the ghosts of family heroes. They had no way of knowing what awaited them. Nothing could have prepared them for the madness to come. And in the heat and horror of battle they took on new identities, took on each other, and were each reborn in fields of fire…. Fields of Fire is James Webb’s classic, searing novel of the Vietnam War, a novel of poetic power, razor-sharp observation, and agonizing human truths seen through the prism of nonstop combat. Weaving together a cast of vivid characters, Fields of Fire captures the journey of unformed men through a man-made hell — until each man finds his fate.’

8 .) Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War written by Karl Marlantes

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Huffington Post
• Signature Reads
• The Culture Trip
• Wanderlust Storytellers

A big, powerful saga of men in combat, written over the course of thirty-five years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran. Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature. A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals.

7 .) A Rumor of War written by Philip Caputo

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Explore The Archive
• Five Books
• Goodreads
• History Net
• NY Times
• Quintessential Collection
• The Culture Trip

The 40th-anniversary edition of the classic Vietnam memoir—featured in the PBS documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick—with a new foreword by Kevin Powers. In March of 1965, Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home—physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. A Rumor of War is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam.

6 .) Dispatches written by Michael Herr

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Depository
• Book Depository
• Explore The Archive
• Goodreads
• Quintessential Collection
• The Culture Trip
• Wikipedia

Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

5 .) The Sorrow of War written by Bao Ninh

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Explore The Archive
• Five Books
• Goodreads
• Softonic
• The Culture Trip
• The Culture Trip
• Words Without Borders

Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there. Originally published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its non-heroic, non-ideological tone, The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller

4 .) When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace written by Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Riot
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Signature Reads
• The Culture Trip
• Wanderlust Storytellers
• Wikipedia
• Words Without Borders

It is said that in war heaven and earth change places not once, but many times. This book recounts the haunting memoir of a girl on the verge of womanhood in a world turned upside down in Vietnam.

3 .) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam written by Neil Sheehan

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Depository
• Explore The Archive
• Goodreads
• History Net
• NY Times
• Quintessential Collection
• Signature Reads
• Wikipedia

This passionate, epic account of the Vietnam War centres on Lt Col John Paul Vann, whose story illuminates America’s failures & disillusionment in SE Asia. A field adviser to the army when US involvement was just beginning, he quickly became appalled at the corruption of the S. Vietnamese regime, their incompetence in fighting the Communists & their brutal alienation of their own people. Finding his superiors too blinded by political lies to understand the war was being thrown away, he secretly briefed reporters on what was really happening. One of those reporters was Neil Sheehan.–Amazon (edited) Neil Sheehan was a Vietnam War correspondent for United Press International & the NY Times & won a number of awards for reporting. In 1971 he obtained the Pentagon Papers, which brought the Times the Pulitzer gold medal for meritorious public service. A Bright Shining Lie won the National Book Award & the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. He lives in Washington DC. Maps The funeral Going to war Antecedents to a confrontation The Battle of Ap Bac Taking on the system Antecedents to the man A second time around John Vann stays Acknowledgments Interviews Documents Source Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

2 .) We Were Soldiers Once…and Young written by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Book Depository
• Book Riot
• Early Bird Books
• Explore The Archive
• Goodreads
• NY Times
• Signature Reads
• Wikipedia

Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects one book that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading by all Marines. The Commandant’s choice for 1993 was We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young. In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. How these men persevered–sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up–makes a vivid portrait of war at its most inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, as rarely before, man’s most heroic and horrendous endeavor.

1 .) The Things They Carried written by Tim O’ Brien

Lists It Appears On:

• About Great Books
• Early Bird Books
• Explore The Archive
• Five Books
• Goodreads
• History Net
• Huffington Post
• Quintessential Collection
• Softonic
• The Culture Trip
• Wikipedia

In 1979, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato – a novel about the Vietnam War – won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O’Brien’s unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.

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