In July 1963 President John F. Kennedy stated about the war in Vietnam, "To withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but of Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there."
Men in Green Faces: Novels about the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a
protracted military conflict between the Communist forces of North Vietnam
supported by China and the former USSR and the non-Communist forces of South
Vietnam supported by the United States. These stories cover different aspects
of the war
Berent, Mark. Storm
Flight.
Special Forces Colonel Wolf Lochert exposes that American POWs with special
skills or knowledge are held in a secret prison waiting transport to Russia and
they can only be saved by a daring raid.
Butler, Robert Olen. The
Deep Green Sea.
Traces the romance between a Vietnamese woman whose family is killed in the war
and an American veteran returning to Vietnam to make peace with the past.
Coonts, Stephen Flight
of the Intruder.
During the Vietnam War, attack pilot Jake Grafton, struggling with his
conscience and trying to find meaning to all the senseless death and
destruction, decides to plan an illegal bombing raid into the heart of Hanoi.
Clancy, Tom. Without
Remorse.
In order to save himself and stop a sinister group of men, John Clark
undertakes a terrifying mission into the netherworld of international
conspiracy.
Crocker, Gareth. Finding
Jack.
Joining
the flagging war effort in Vietnam after losing his young family in a tragic
accident, Fletcher Carson rescues a wounded yellow Labrador during a mission
and faces a difficult choice when the government refuses to transport military
dogs back home.
Heath, Layne. Blue Deep.
As the battle for Dien Bien Phu rages, a small-detached regiment of American
soldiers assesses the black market in arms being sold to the Viet Minh to gauge
the prospects for a U.S. engagement with the insurgents.
Hogan, Linda. People
of the whale.
Raised
in a remote seaside village, Thomas Witka Just marries Ruth, his beloved since
infancy. But an ill-fated decision to fight in Vietnam changes his life
forever: cut off from his Native American community, he fathers a child with
another woman. When he returns home a hero, he finds his tribe in conflict over
the decision to hunt a whale, both a symbol of spirituality and rebirth and a
means of survival.
Holland,
Thomas. K.I.A.
Dedicated
military forensics investigator Kel McKelvey is called upon to apply his
exhaustive scrutiny in a case involving suspicious coroners and desperate
criminals.
Hunter,
Stephen. Dead zero : a Bob Lee Swagger
novel.
Marine
Corps master sniper Bob Lee Swagger travels to the remote deserts and caves of
Afghanistan to track down a renegade Marine who is using extreme measures to
complete a mission.
Janko,
James. Buffalo Boy and Geronimo : a
novel.
The two
heroes of the book, Nguyen Luu Mong, the Vietnamese buffalo boy, and Antonio
Lucio, the US Chicano medic (Geronimo), both have a deep respect for the
natural world, and it is through their eyes that we witness the devastation of
the natural world of which they are a part.
Johnson,
Denis. Tree of smoke.
The
lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations
against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift
out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during
the Vietnam War.
Just, Ward. Dangerous
Friend.
In 1965 Saigon, French planters, American "democratizers," and the
Vietnamese become caught up in the growing unrest in Southeast Asia, in a novel
that follows political scientist Sydney Parade as he begins to discover the
roots of the conflict that is tearing the country apart.
Leimbach,
Marti. The man from Saigon : a novel.
It's
1967, and Susan Gifford is one of the first female correspondents on assignment
in Saigon, dedicated to her job and passionately in love with an American TV
reporter. Son is a Vietnamese photographer anxious to get his work into the
American press.
Marlantes,
Karl. Matterhorn : a novel of the
Vietnam War
In
the tradition of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" and James
Jones's "The Thin Red Line," Marlantes tells the powerful and
compelling 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.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things
They Carried.
Heroic young men carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in
a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness.
Rabe,
David. Girl by the road at night : a
novel of Vietnam.
Private
Joseph Whitaker, with his Vietnam deployment papers in hand, spends his last
weekend trying to find anyone who will acknowledge what he is about to do
matters. In Saigon a prostitute, Quach Ngoc Lan, spends her days haggling and
submitting to physical mortification - their chance encounter in Saigon forges
a surprising connection.
Soli,
Tatiana. The lotus eaters.
A
novel that follows an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War as
she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two
men.
Webb, James. Lost
Soldiers.
Sent to Vietnam to recover the skeleton of an American MIA, former combat
Marine Brandon Condley investigates the case of Army Specialist Theodore
Deville, a deserter and traitor who had led a Viet Cong ambush against
Condley's own men, and embarks on a fierce quest for vengeance, justice, and
redemption after he discovers that Deville is still alive.
Wetterhahn, Ralph, Shadowmakers.
Receiving recent photographs of his believed-dead Vietnam POW father, Air Force
fighter pilot Will Cadence investigates with the help of forensic
anthropologist Gabrielle DeJean and discovers a massive cover-up.
