Veterans Services Library Guide: Books and Videos

There is a very stark line between before boot camp and after boot camp, a veteran recalls. As recruits take the oath to serve, they leave the civilian world to become a soldier, sailor, marine, airman or woman. This is the start of their transformation

Thoughts on War questions the long-held traditions and heroes to encourage the US military to reexamine whether its current beliefs and practices are the best for its future. The result is often controversial, with many chapters offering unpopular suggestions to change time-honored principles.

The U.S. military can be thought of as a microcosm of American society, bringing in people from diverse backgrounds and history to defend one nation. Military leaders must address the same issues and concerns as those found in the civilian world, including exclusion, segregation, and discrimination. In some cases, the military has led the nation by creating policies of inclusion before civilian laws required them to do so.

The most significant military engagements in history define the very nature of war. Considered in relation to each other, such battles--and others of less immediate renown--offer insight into the changing nature of armed combat, advances in technology, shifts in strategy and thought, as well as altered geopolitical landscapes.

In Children of Military Families, several children share their personal stories of what it is like to have a parent in the military serving overseas.

In A People's History of the U.S. Military, historian Michael A. Bellesiles draws from three centuries of soldiers' personal encounters with combat—through fascinating excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, as well as audio recordings, film, and blogs—to capture the essence of the American military experience firsthand, from the American Revolution to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Both a resource for struggling veterans and a useful tool for their loved ones or anyone looking for ways to support the veterans in their lives.

Lenora Allbright is 13 when her father convinces her mother, Cora, to forgo their inauspicious existence in Seattle and move to Kaneq, AK. It's 1974, and the former Vietnam POW sees a better future away from the noise and nightmares that plague him. Having been left a homestead by a buddy who died in the war, Ernt is secure in his beliefs, but never was a family less prepared for the reality of Alaska, the long, cold winters and isolation

Before shrapnel severed his left arm during the Iran-Iraq war, Amir Khan lived the life of a carefree playboy. Five years later, his mother and sister Reyhaneh find him in mental hospital for shell-shocked soldiers and bring him home to Tehran. His memories decimated, Amir is haunted by the vision of a mysterious woman he believes is his fiancee. Wildly inventive and radically empathetic, steeped in Persian folklore and contemporary Middle East history, Moon Brow is the great Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour's unforgettable epic of love, war, morality, faith, and family.

As the tales of Luther and Bobby unfold, Mark Powell masterfully engages with the vexing, bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.

In the title story, a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After-Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Mortuary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains-of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball.

A classic collection of short stories on the Vietnam War. The title story is a must read.

A satire set in Texas follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive "Victory Tour" at Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders. Made into a movie-available at Cascade.

The war tried to kill us in the spring." So begins this powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. The novel also offers insight into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home.

The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban.

In this book, Lebovic identifies a common pattern that explains how the US failed to accomplish its goals in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Planning to Fail presents a detailed analysis of American decision-making in chapters devoted to each of these conflicts

Douglas Grindle provides a firsthand account of how the war in Afghanistan was won in a rural district south of Kandahar City and how the newly created peace slipped away when vital resources failed to materialize and the United States headed for the exit

Follows nine National Guard soldiers from Oregon, who ended up in some of the heaviest fighting of the Iraq war. Most of the photographs and footage were taken from the cameras of the soldiers themselves.

Chivers traces the combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan of an F-14 pilot, a helicopter crew, a corpsman with the Marines in Anbar and infantry in the Korengal Valley. The author won a Pulitzer Prize.

Follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. By the author of "The Perfect Storm."

This short films tells the story of Alene B. Duerk, the first woman to earn the rank of Admiral in the U.S. Navy. Admiral Duerk served in World War II and during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. After retiring, she went on to deliver meals to the elderly before passing away in her late 90s.

Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military compares the integration of women, gender perspectives, and the women, peace, and security agenda into the armed forces of eight countries plus NATO and UN peacekeeping operations. The countries examined are Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, the UK, Israel, Australia, and South Africa.

After being commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, MJ Hegar was selected for pilot training by the Air National Guard, finished at the top of her class, then served three tours in Afghanistan, flying combat search-and-rescue missions, culminating in a harrowing rescue attempt that would earn MJ the Purple Heart as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device

This inspiring anthology is the first to convey the rich experiences and contributions of women in the American military in their own words—from the Revolutionary War to the present wars in the Middle East

The three become close friends, and through their daily interaction we see how military service changes their relationships with their families, their lovers, and their children.

An investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military.

When Janey Comes Marching Home juxtaposes forty-eight photographs by Sascha Pflaeging with oral histories collected by Laura Browder to provide a dramatic portrait of women at war. Women from all five branches of the military share their stori

She flew the swift P-51 and the capricious P-38, but the heavy, four-engine B-17 bomber and C-54 transport were her forte. This is the story of Nancy Harkness Love who, early in World War II, recruited and led the first group of twenty-eight women to fly military aircraft for the US Army.

Donut Dolly puts you in the Vietnam War face down in the dirt under a sniper attack, inside a helicopter being struck by lightning, at dinner next to a commanding general, and slogging through the mud along a line of foxholes.

"A war memoir of unusual literary beauty and power from the acclaimed poet who wrote the poem 'The Hurt Locker.'

Follows the experiences of four women who fought in active combat duty in Afghanistan and also worked to gather intelligence about the Taliban from local Afghani women, with whom they were able to cultivate relationships, unlike their male counterparts.

The author did three tours disarming IEDs.

The experiences of 20 African-American soldiers in Vietnam, told by the soldiers themselves.

Twenty veterans, now college students, write about who they are, hoping to undermine stereotypes about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.