40 Books About the Vietnam War and Era

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In 2022 – we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Throughout the year, we’ll be highlighting lists of 40 things related to the Vietnam war/era.

During The Wall’s 40 Anniversary, we look at 40 books that were shaped by the Vietnam War and Era:

  1. Boots on The Ground: America’s War in Vietnam by Elizabeth Partridge
  2. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
  3. A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
  4. We Were Soldiers Once… and Young: la Drang The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Hal Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
  5. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
  6. The Wall by Eve Bunting
  7. Hue 1968 by Mark Bowden
  8. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
  9. The Vietnam War: A Concise International History by Mark Lawrence
  10. The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John Chick Donohue and JT Molloy
  11. Vietnam a History by Stanley Karnow
  12. Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines by Jeanne Walker Harvey
  13. Dispatches by Michael Herr
  14. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
  15. The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and its Aftermath by John Musgrave
  16. Donut Dollies in Vietnam: In Baby Blue Dresses and OD Green by Nancy Smoyer
  17. Letters on The Wall: Offerings and Remembrances from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Michael Soffarelli
  18. Close Quarters by Larry Heinemann
  19. The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford
  20. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans by Wallace Terry
  21. Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam by Lynda Van Devanter
  22. Year of the Jungle by Suzanne Collins
  23. Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam by Walter Dean Myers
  24. Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata
  25. Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler from the Vietnam War and Pop Stardom to Murder and an Unsolved, Violent Death by Marc Leepson
  26. Promise Lost: Stephen Joyner, The Marine Corps, and the Vietnam War by Dan Moore
  27. Reporting Vietnam: Volume 1 and Reporting Vietnam: Volume 2 by The Library of America
  28. The Vietnam War by Geoffrey Ward and Kenneth Burns
  29. The Vietnam Reader Edited by Stewart O’Nan
  30. The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point’s Class of 1966 by Rick Atkinson
  31. Embars of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Frederick Logevall
  32. My Father, My Son by Elmo Zumwalt and John Pekannen
  33. Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic
  34. Father, Soldier, Son: The Memoir of a Platoon Leader in Vietnam by Nathaniel Tripp
  35. Fortunate Son by Lewis B. Puller Jr.
  36. Our Year of War: Two Brothers, Vietnam, And a Nation Divided by Daniel P. Bolger
  37. The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War by Denise Chong
  38. Healing Wounds: A Vietnam War Combat Nurse’s 10-Year Fight to Win Women a Place of Honor in Washington, D.C. by Diane Carlson Evans
  39. Hill 488 by Ray Hildreth and Charles W Sasser
  40. Siege of Khe Sanh: The Story of the Vietnam War’s Largest Battle by Robert Pisor
Category : Vietnam Veterans Memorial