ENGL 1102 - Bussey

'Compelling... a fine blend of military and social history, sympathetic, well-written but analytically rigorous' (Professor Gary Sheffield, BBC History Magazine Best Books of the Year 2012) In the spring of 1966, while the war in Vietnam was still popular, the US military decided to reactivate the 9th Infantry Division as part of the military build-up. Across the nation, farm boys from the Midwest, surfers from California and city-slickers from Cleveland opened their mail to find greetings from Uncle Sam. Most American soldiers of the Vietnam era trickled into the war zone as individual replacements for men who had become casualties or had rotated home. Charlie Company was different as part of the only division raised, drafted and trained for service. From draft to the battlefields of South Vietnam, this is the unvarnished truth from the fear of death to the chaos of battle, told almost entirely through the recollections of the men themselves. This is their story, the story of young draftees who had done everything that their nation had asked of them and had received so little in return - lost faces of a distant war.

This is Who We Were: In the 1960s explores American life in the 1960s - a truly tumultuous and pivotal decade in our nation. Readers will uncover what life was like for ordinary Americans as they lived through a Social Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War, all in the span of 10 short years. This new series is sure to be of value as both a serious research tool for students of American history as well as an intriguing climb up America's family tree. The richly-illustrated text provides an interesting way to study a truly unique time in American history.