Patriot Pages: A Research Collection on Service, Memory, and Society

America's preeminent naval historian offers a history of the Second World War based on the experiences of the young officers--fresh out of the United States Naval Academy--who served on its front lines. They arrived in Annapolis as teenagers the year Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland and graduated as young men the week the British Army evacuated Dunkirk. Annapolis Goes to War tells the story of their four transformative years at the Naval Academy, and then four more annealing years in the cauldron of war. More than a hundred of them were on duty in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Ten of them died that day-seven remain entombed in the USS Arizona still. Over the next four years, these former Midshipmen participated in virtually every significant engagement in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, from North Africa to Normandy. They were at the front edge of the war in battleships, carriers, destroyers, submarines, and airplanes, and led Marine Corps units ashore. Some experienced the war as prisoners of the Japanese. Fifty-six of them died in the Second World War, the greatest wartime loss any service academy ever experienced.Taking readers into and through the lives of these young men in wartime, Craig Symonds offers a poignant and powerful story of adjustment, growth, pain, loss, and eventually triumph. Using their diaries, memoirs, and letters, he evokes unforgettably their trials and bonds, their loss of innocence and their discovery of the meaning of sacrifice. Annapolis Goes to War is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the experience of fighting the bloodiest war in human history.

A renowned military historian and frequent television commenter brings to life the generalship of the North during the Civil War in sparkling, information-filled vignettes. For both the Civil War completist and the general reader! Anyone acquainted with the American Civil War will readily recognize the names of the Union's most prominent generals. Ulysses S. Grant. William Tecumseh Sherman. George McClennan. These men have long been lionized as fearless commanders and genius tacticians. Yet few have heard of the hundreds of generals who led under and alongside them. Men whose battlefield resolve spurred the Union through four years of the bloodiest combat Americans have ever faced. In The Encyclopedia of Union Generals, veteran Civil War historian, Samuel W. Mitcham, documents the lives of every Union general from birth to death, highlighting their unique contributions to the battlefield and bringing their personal triumphs and tragedies to life. Packed with photos and historical briefings, The Encyclopedia of Union Generals belongs on the shelf of every Civil War historian, and preserves in words the legacies once carved in stone.  

Provides vital new evidence that Union veterans remained stubbornly opposed to the nation's reconciliationist tendencies and unwilling to surrender the causes for which they fought Union soldiers' service to the nation did not end in 1865. Instead, it persisted well into the twentieth century as hundreds of thousands of veterans joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and directed the reform and improvement of their communities through their fraternal membership in thousands of local posts around the country. In Our Onward March, Jonathan D. Neu shows how Union veterans of the GAR drew on lessons they learned in the Civil War--lessons about broad principles like democracy, freedom, and loyalty--to undertake grassroots civic projects designed to address the rampant social ills and challenging foreign policy issues associated with US modernization. Armed this time with sage wisdom and unwavering principles, they mobilized again to consummate their wartime victory with reform-minded activism on behalf of establishing an even more perfect Union. Extending the boundaries of America's post-Civil War era, Neu investigates the GAR during the Progressive era, a period in the organization's history that scholars have overlooked. Counter­ing stubborn notions that the GAR was merely a pension advocacy group or an insular bastion of sentimental nostalgia, he reveals instead that the organization reached a turning point in 1890, after which it became an active and decentralized civic association whose members worked to instill a commitment to public life, engagement with community issues, and pride in the democracy they had defended as young men. Anchored by illuminating new source material, including post-minute books and fraternal records, Our Onward March places aging GAR members squarely among the diverse constel­lation of turn-of-the-century social reformers, using their memory of the Civil War to promote robust, veteran-led civic engagement. By situating Union veterans in this context, we see a more accurate portrait of the GAR post in American culture--as a local center of progressive activism.

Fresh perspectives on the implications of gender and race in US military history from a diverse group of scholars in the field of war and society

How pivotal American defeats fueled crucial victories through resilience and strategic adaptation, shaping the nation's path from loss to triumph in warfare Like all armed forces, the United States military--while celebrated for its victories--has been repeatedly defeated on the battlefield throughout its long history. Unlike other nations, the United States has shown a remarkable ability to bounce back from defeat: to learn from the loss, recover, and achieve victory. In this book James Ellman, who has established a reputation for his reconsiderations of military history, takes a close look at eight such pivot points on the ground, in the air, and at sea, from the American Revolution through the Korean War: Long Island (1776) to Trenton and Princeton (1777) Charleston (1780) to Cowpens and Guilford Court House (1781) Invasion of Canada (1812) to Battles of Lake Erie and the Thames (1813) First Bull Run (1861) to Antietam (1862) Pearl Harbor (1941) to Midway (1942) Luzon (1942) to Buna-Gona (1943) Schweinfurt (1943) to the "Big B" (1944) Chongchon River (1950) to Operation Ripper (1951) In brisk narratives, Ellman describes each battle, explaining how it was fought and lost, and then shifts gears to detail how leaders--military as well as civilian--such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Chester Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur, James Doolittle, and Matthew Ridgway assessed the factors that led to defeat, and made changes to training, tactics, and strategy, so that American forces entered the next battle wiser and able to win. Ellman then uses this framework to evaluate the wars waged in more recent decades in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Surprisingly, despite the accepted consensus that these conflicts resulted in painful defeats, the American military repeatedly showed its historic ability to react and recover, and if not achieve victory, at least stabilize the situation on the battlefield. While US forces eventually pulled out of these three conflicts, the overarching Cold War and War on Terror were still concluded in America's favor. As this book makes clear, the history of the United States at war is, to a surprising degree, the story of tenacity in the wake of defeat, of flexibility and adaptability on the path to victory. This is essential reading for understanding how battles are lost and won.

The first in a new "authoritative, shocking" (Brad Meltzer, #1 New York Times bestselling author) nonfiction series examining the devastating terrorist attacks that changed the course of history from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr and Pulitzer Prize finalist James M. Scott, beginning with the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. 1983: the United States Marine Corps experiences its greatest single-day loss of life since the Battle of Iwo Jima when a truck packed with explosives crashes into their headquarters and barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. This horrifying terrorist attack, which killed 241 servicemen, continues to influence US foreign policy and haunts the Marine Corps to this day. Now, the full story is revealed as never before by Jack Carr and historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist James M. Scott with this "definitive, behind-the-scenes account of a mission and a fight that changed America" (Doug Stanton, #1 New York Times bestselling author). Based on comprehensive interviews with survivors, extensive military records, as well as personal letters, diaries, and photographs, this is "a masterwork of research and storytelling" (Peter Schweizer, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

"Remarkable... the best overview of America's misadventure in Southeast Asia, and it is sure to become the standard one-volume book on the war." - Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war. Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, Geoffrey Wawro's The Vietnam War offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. In devastating detail, Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America's ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated. Broad, definitive, and illuminating, The Vietnam War offers an unsettling, resonant story of the limitations of American power.

'The emotional environment of warfare has always been compelling,' writes J. Glenn Gray in his incomparable World War II memoir and mediation, The Warriors. 'Reflection and calm reasoning are alien to it.' The struggle to make sense of the experience of war, to find some meaning in the savagery and senseless destruction, animates the five brilliant and unforgettable memoirs gathered here. Company Commander (1947), by Charles B. MacDonald, describes with startling immediacy and candor the 'cold, dirty, rough, frightened, miserable' life of the infantryman and company commander from the aftermath of D-Day in September 1944 through the war's terrifying final days. The Warriors (1959), by J. Glenn Gray, a counterintelligence officer who served in Italy, France, and Germany and a scholar with a PhD. in philosophy, is a sensitive and revelatory meditation on the nature of war and its effects on both soldiers and civilians, interspliced with his letters, journals, and wartime memories. All the Brave Promises (1966) is novelist Mary Lee Settle's memoir of her year as an airfield radio operator in the Royal Air Force. Settle brilliantly evokes both the working-class culture of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force's 'other ranks' and the petty and demeaning regimentation inherent in military life. The Fall of Fortresses (1980), by former B-17 navigator Elmer Bendiner, vividly recalls the fear and excitement he experienced flying bomber missions deep into Germany in 1943 without fighter escort. The Buffalo Saga (2009) is James Harden Daugherty's heartfelt account of his frontline service as a Black soldier in the 92nd Infantry Division, as he fights the Germans, endures the harsh Italian winter, and confronts the racism of his own army. This deluxe Library of America volume includes full-color endpaper maps of the European Theater, an eight-page photo insert, an introduction by West Point professor Elizabeth D. Samet, and detailed notes.

Twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath has always lived by the rules, sheltered by conservative parents in sunny Southern California. But in 1965, as the world changes, so does she. Inspired by her brother's deployment to Vietnam, Frankie joins the Army Nurse Corps, trading her sheltered life for the chaos of war. Overwhelmed yet determined, Frankie faces life and death daily, forming deep bonds with soldiers while enduring the destruction around her. The war shapes her, but the true challenge begins when she returns to a divided America, where veterans are met with anger and indifference.The Women is a poignant story of friendship, sacrifice, and courage, honoring the often-overlooked contributions of women in war. Through Frankie’s journey, it captures the resilience of those who dared to serve in a tumultuous era.

FINALIST FOR THE 2025 PULITZER PRIZE IN FICTION "One of our greatest living authors."--Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston Globe Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots. The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud's private mythology. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.