David H. Hackworth

Called “everything a twentieth century war memoir could possibly be” by The New York Times, this national bestseller by Colonel David H. Hackworth presents a vivid and powerful portrait of a life of patriotism.From age fifteen to forty David Hackworth devoted himself to the US Army and fast became a living legend. In 1971, however, he appeared on television to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam. With About Face, he has written what many Vietnam veterans have called the most important book of their generation.From Korea to Berlin, from the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam, Hackworth’s story is that of an exemplary patriot, played out against the backdrop of the changing fortunes of America and the American military. It is also a stunning indictment of the Pentagon’s fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and of the bureaucracy of self-interest that fueled the war.

In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the US Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary.David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th—a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos.Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.

The author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller About Face, Colonel David H. Hackworth is one of America's most decorated soldiers, having served at the end of World War II, and in Korea and Vietnam. Retired from the military since 1971, he has completed second tour of battlefield duty -- this time as a war correspondent -- accompanying our nation's fighting men and women to the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Somalia, Korea and Haiti. What he learned of high-level military incompetence, futility and corruption in the heat and fury of Desert Storm -- and in the desperation of the Balkans and Mogadishu -- is shocking, frightening and infuriating...and it must be told. Hazardous Duty is a necessary wake-up call for military reform -- a no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled exposé that calls America's top political and military leaders to account for selling out duty, honor and country. It is riveting, real-life adventure of courageous warriors on the world's new battlefields -- and of their systematic betrayal by the weakness of an increasingly wasteful and inept high command. It offers essential solutions to problems that must be addressed if our nation is to remain the foremost military power in a volatile and ever-changing world.

Captain Sandy Caine has always been haunted by the mystery of his father's cowardice in Vietnam, and together with reporter Abigail Mancini, he begins investigating circumstances that some people would like to be kept secret. Reprint.

Odyssey of an Infantryman Condensed from Colonel David H. Hackworth's blockbuster New York Times bestseller, About Face, Brave Men is an explosive battlefield chronicle from one of America's most decorated soldiers. Vividly recalling his experiences as an infantry leader, Hackworth takes you to the steep, razor-backed hills and bone-chilling cold of Korea, to the steamy guerrilla-infested jungles of Vietnam, to the real wars fought in the chaos of close combat. Here is Hackworth himself, jumping onto tanks to fire .50 caliber guns...charging through the smoke of frag grenades to land in front of the enemy...taking prisoners at bayonet point with an empty rifle...revealing the brutal emotions of battle...and witnessing heroism of the highest order. Here is the hard-fought, hard-won legacy of one man, who in 25 years amassed more than 110 medals. Brave Men stands as one of the most extraordinary military memoirs of our time.

The Vietnam Primer is a critique of U.S. Army tactics and command practices in the small combat unit, digested from historical operations from May 1966 to February 1967.