This is a revised and expanded 2nd edition of Absolution, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry. Absolution is a story of horror and of love, based upon the experiences of the author during the Vietnam War. Between 1960 and 1975, hundreds of thousands of young men, most of them barely teenagers, were thrust into the barbarity of an Asian civil war. They were inadequately trained for jungle warfare, and initially armed with a defective weapon, so they acquired their killer skills by instinct and imagination. Transformed by necessity, these genteel sons quickly became the brutal gladiators that their government expected them to be. For the foot soldier in Vietnam, death by any means was the ultimate objective. What s your body count? Commanders asked their soldiers each evening, as if a scorecard named the winner. From that shortsighted viewpoint emerged a legion of men, struggling with an even greater battle, personal and private. It was a moral conflict that only those who have taken another life can comprehend. Then, undermining their gallant service, a powerful and biased news media created a myth that quickly spread across America. They said that the Vietnam-era soldier was a misfit; a perverse example of a military machine gone awry, wreaking havoc upon innocent civilians. Soon after the fighting was done, someone coined a new phrase: The only war we ever lost, they said. They want you to believe that the soldier lost the war, when, in fact, he lost only his youth, his innocence and many of his friends. These Vietnam Veterans were some of the finest soldiers that ever served America.

Absolution, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry

History

Charles J. Boyle

Military

St. John's Press

The Secrets of Silk: From Textiles to Fashion

Priscilla Lowry

It is the first spring of the new millennium. Susanna Marcasi prowls Washington, D.C., looking for lost love. Thoughts of her brutal New Orleans youth haunt her. She suffers physical and mental anguish stemming from a so-called “accident” of which she has no memory and believes something more occurred. The banished Marine Corps officer receives a surprise 3 a.m. call. She meets estranged Lori O’Reilly. Susanna senses an opportunity for redemption and truth and agrees to unravel the apparent suicide of Lori’s lover, Joe Earhardt While stringing at a White House ceremony, Susanna surprises Naval Academy classmate Mike Singleton. The carnage from a bitter lovers’ struggle has kept the couple apart until now. Singleton, on a special tour with the Defense Intelligence Agency, hunts Earhardt for suspicious liaisons. Susanna finders herself toe-to-toe with Manfred Stahl, a man to whom all are beholden and whom a cowering president has crowned defense secretary. Stahl’s unabashed lust for power and emotional instability are eclipsed only by his vile and vindictive nature. She waged war with the senator and Marine War hero on the Hill, but feels their relationship may transcend Washington. She has learned the powerful have secrets and Stahl has his share. Susanna has worked to decipher the disappearance of billions targeted for New Orleans’ aging levees. Her spot-on funding query enrages the new cabinet secretary-cum-clandestine paramilitary broker, sending the two on the deadly collision course they shared a lifetime earlier.

Blood Stripe: The Susanna Marcasi Chronicles

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

DiNicolo, Gina Maria

Thrillers & Suspense

The fifteen years that preceded the outbreak of the American Civil War were eventful ones for the U.S. Army. After invading and defeating Mexico, the Army dispersed across the vast Western frontier undertaking a myriad of duties. It subdued American Indian tribes, explored and governed new territories, and generally worked to maintain peace. Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destruc- tive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle.

The Regular Army Before the Civil War, 1845-1860: The U.S. Army Campaigns of The Civil War

Newell, Clayton R.

Americas

The contest for the Western Theater in 1862 was monu-mental in scope and importance. Containing an area of about 230,000 square miles—roughly the size of France—the Western Theater extended from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Mississippi River in the west, and from the Ohio River in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Seven states—Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Louisiana, and western Florida—lay within its boundaries. The region was vital to the Confederacy. Not only was it rich in human and agricultural resources, but it also contained the Confederacy’s largest city (New Orleans, Louisiana), important ports (New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama), and critical industrial and railroad centers (Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia).

The Civil War in the Western Theater 1862: The U.S. Army Campaigns of The Civil War

Bowery Jr., Charles R.

The Black Panthers at War: The 761st Tank Battalion and General Patton's Drive on Germany, tells the full and unvarnished history of this important American fighting force. Known as the first African American armored unit to see combat in World War II and as future baseball star Jackie Robinson’s one-time outfit, the 761st Tank Battalion emerged from the adversity. Led by a small cadre of white and black officers, the men trained to the pinnacle of their craft to fight a common enemy. They proved their battle prowess on the parched Texas training fields against tank destroyer units bound for combat. (Formerly, The Black Panthers: A Story of Race, War, and Courage. The 761st Tank Battalion in World War II. Westholme Publishing 2014)

The Black Panthers at War: The 761st Tank Battalion and General Patton's Drive on Germany

DiNicolo, Gina M.

Vietnam War Paintings

Vietnam War paintings

Nelson, James Davis

One motive for doing this book is to preserve an authentic presentation of Vietnam as it was experienced by the common soldier. History is always susceptible to new interpretations that reflect more a cultural bias of a new generation rather than an accurate account of true history. This book is meant to stand against such anticipated historical distortions (back cover)

James Davis Nelson

A personal Narrative about a second generation Italian-American growing up on the mean streets of New York. Fortunate to receive a scholarship and excellent education at Hofstra University, he travels Germany and other parts of Europe while studying languages at the Goethe Institute. Back in New York in the late 1960s, he faces down Vietnam War protestors, takes a commission as a lieutenant of infantry, and leads a platoon in combat in Vietnam and Cambodia. That experience; one of bloodshed and terror, motivates Dr. Candela to study medicine and attempt to relieve as much of human suffering that he can.  Denied admission to American medical schools through some archaic selection processes, he travels to Mexico and pursues his medical education there. The poor conditions of the people of Mexico, contrasted against the privileges of the elite in that society, appall Dr. Candela. He contributes his time and growing medical knowledge to the poorest, thereby gaining invaluable experience that most young doctors never see. He finishes at the top of his class and arrives back in New York, serving in some of the busiest hospital emergency rooms in the country. His day to day episodes involve treating heart attacks, drug overdoses, gunshot wounds, beatings, dying teenagers and just about any medical condition brought about by violence and poverty. This is an inspirational story of how one man, faced with every obstacle life could throw at him, beats the odds, serves his country and society, and is today, a highly successful orthopedic surgeon in North Carolina. Dr. Candela provides a look at Europe during the height of the Cold War, then an extraordinarily vivid account of combat in Vietnam, and finally the battles he fought through medical school and the chaos of big city hospitals of New York.

Veteran of a Foreign War: From Foxhole to Physician

Candela, Stephen J.

Western novel. Reformed gunslinger searches for lost nephew across the plains of Missouri and other western territories during the late 1880s. Fights the elements, desperadoes, Indians, and other gun fighters. Great characters, vivid descriptions of wilderness. Surprise ending.

The Cold Trail: An Untold Saga of the Old West

Phillip Gessert

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