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Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States (open access)

Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States

On 23 April 1964, five months after assuming the office of President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "More Flags" program as United States policy. While the publicly stated purpose of.the "More Flags" program was to obtain as much non-military free world aid for the Republic of Vietnam as possible, the program's principle goal centered around Lyndon Johnson's desire to obtain an international consensus for America's policies toward Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The "More Flags" program continued to serve both goals for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Although started with high expectations of success, the "More Flags" program never succeeded in achieving the levels of international cooperation Lyndon Johnson desired. In fact, the program's significant lack of success necessitated a number of changes, during the program's first year, in both its stated goals and in the methods used to prosecute it's implementation. The most important of these changes would be Washington's use of the program's beneficent objectives to mask it's use as the means through which the United States would purchase mercenary troops to fight in South Vietnam. "Mercenaries in Service to America: The 'More Flags' Foreign Policy of the United States," presents the available history of …
Date: August 1992
Creator: Blackburn, Robert M. (Robert Michael)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Shoot the Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Anshel Brusilow was born in 1928 and raised in Philadelphia by musical Russian Jewish parents in a neighborhood where practicing your instrument was as normal as hanging out the laundry. By the time he was sixteen, he was appearing as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also met Pierre Monteux at sixteen, when Monteux accepted him into his summer conducting school. Under George Szell, Brusilow was associate concertmaster at the Cleveland Orchestra until Ormandy snatched him away to make him concertmaster in Philadelphia, where he remained from 1959 to 1966. Ormandy and Brusilow had a father-son relationship, but Brusilow could not resist conducting, to Ormandy's great displeasure. By the time he was forty, Brusilow had sold his violin and formed his own chamber orchestra in Philadelphia with more than a hundred performances per year. For three years he was conductor of the Dallas Symphony, until he went on to shape the orchestral programs at Southern Methodist University and the University of North Texas. Brusilow played with or conducted many top-tier classical musicians, and he has opinions about each and every one. He also made many recordings. Co-written with Robin Underdahl, his memoir is a fascinating and unique view of American …
Date: July 2015
Creator: Brusilow, Anshel & Underdahl, Robin
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, November 11, 2015 captions transcript

Oral History Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, November 11, 2015

Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, a retired professor from Kerrville, Texas. He recalls his time as an Air Rescue Medic in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as his time as a professor at a few different universities, some of which were in foreign countries.
Date: November 11, 2015
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes & Luther, Joseph Neal
Object Type: Video
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, November 11, 2015 transcript

Oral History Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, November 11, 2015

Interview with Joseph Neal Luther, a retired professor from Kerrville, Texas. He recalls his time as an Air Rescue Medic in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as his time as a professor at a few different universities, some of which were in foreign countries.
Date: November 11, 2015
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes & Luther, Joseph Neal
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018

Edited transcript of an interview with cousins Sam Adams and Al Bishop who discuss growing up in Center Point, Sam's time serving the marines (including Vietnam), Al's teaching and coaching high school students before working in insurance, and their families. Copies of photos are included at the end of the transcript.
Date: November 15, 2018
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes; Webb, Jeanie Archer; Leonard, Julie Mosty; Bishop, Charles Alfred & Adams, James Sam
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018 transcript

Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018

Interview with cousins Sam Adams and Al Bishop who discuss growing up in Center Point, Sam's time serving the marines (including Vietnam), Al's teaching and coaching high school students before working in insurance, and their families.
Date: November 15, 2018
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes; Webb, Jeanie Archer; Leonard, Julie Mosty; Bishop, Charles Alfred & Adams, James Sam
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018 captions transcript

Oral History Interview with Sam Adams and Al Bishop, November 15, 2018

Interview with cousins Sam Adams and Al Bishop who discuss growing up in Center Point, Sam's time serving the marines (including Vietnam), Al's teaching and coaching high school students before working in insurance, and their families.
Date: November 15, 2018
Creator: Collins, Francelle Robison; Flory, Bonnie Pipes; Webb, Jeanie Archer; Leonard, Julie Mosty; Bishop, Charles Alfred & Adams, James Sam
Object Type: Video
System: The Portal to Texas History
More Than A Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy Man's World (open access)

More Than A Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy Man's World

An autobiographical account by Captain Winifred Quick Collins of her early life, the integration of women into the United States Navy, her Navy career, and her accomplishments in the service. The book focuses on Captain Collins's experience as a woman in a predominantly male division of the US military, as well as the history of women in the Navy. Includes a forward Arleigh Burke
Date: 1997
Creator: Collins, Winifred Quick & Levine, Herbert M.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

War in the Villages: The U.S. Marine Combined Action Platoons in the Vietnam War

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Much of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. In War in the Villages, Ted Easterling examines how well the CAPs performed as a counterinsurgency method, how the Marines adjusted to life in the Vietnamese villages, and how they worked to accomplish their mission. The CAPs generally performed their counterinsurgency role well, but they were hampered by factors beyond their control. Most important was the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps over an appropriate strategy for the Vietnam War, along with weakness of the government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the strategic and the tactical ability of the North Vietnamese Army. War in the Villages helps to explain how and why this potential was realized and squandered. Marines who served in the CAPs served honorably in difficult circumstances. Most of these …
Date: March 2021
Creator: Easterling, Ted N.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Bridges of Vietnam: From the Journals of U. S. Marine Intelligence Officer

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As an intelligence officer during the Vietnam War, Fred L. Edwards, Jr., was instructed to visit every major ground unit in the country to search for intelligence sources—long range patrols, boats, electronic surveillance, and agent operations. “Edwards found time to keep a journal, an extremely well-written, sharply observed report of his adventures. Along with contemporary postscripts and a helpful historical chronology, that journal is a significant improvement on most Vietnam memoirs. It is the record of a Marine’s on-the-job education.”—Proceedings
Date: May 15, 2001
Creator: Edwards, Fred L., Jr.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam (open access)

The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam

Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail …
Date: August 1999
Creator: Garrett, Dave L.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with James H. Gilbert, February 4, 2004 transcript

Oral History Interview with James H. Gilbert, February 4, 2004

Interview with James H. Gilbert, a member of the 1st Airborne Cavalry, 82nd Airborne Division during the Vietnam War. Gilbert gives lengthy answers and descriptions concerning his time in Vietnam, action he saw, weaponry, etc. Gilbert also shares some memorable stories, and his feelings towards the war as it was happening and in hindsight.
Date: February 4, 2004
Creator: Gilbert, Matthew & Gilbert, James H.
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Capability and cost assessment of the major forest nations to measure and monitor their forest carbon (open access)

Capability and cost assessment of the major forest nations to measure and monitor their forest carbon

According to the Executive Summary, the aims and objective of this report are to provide an assessment of national capacity and capability in 25 tropical countries for measuring and monitoring forest as a requirement for reporting on REDD under IPCC guidelines. This paper was commissioned by the United Kingdom Office of Climate Change as background work to its report 'Climate Change: Financing Global Forests' (the Eliasch Review).
Date: April 7, 2008
Creator: Harcastle, P. D.; Baird, David & Harden, Virginia
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Phantom Vietnam War: An F-4 Pilot’s Combat over Laos

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David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons. In the air, a routine day mission turned into an unexpected duel with a deadly adversary. Complacency during a long night mission escorting a gunship almost led to death. A best friend died just before New Year’s. A RF-4 crashed into the base late in Buff’s tour of duty. The reader will experience Buff’s war from the cockpit of a supersonic F-4D Phantom II, doing 5-G pullouts after dropping six 500-pound bombs on trucks hidden beneath triple jungle canopy. These were well defended by a skillful, elusive, determined enemy firing back with 37mm anti-aircraft fire and tracers in the sky. The man who left the States …
Date: September 2018
Creator: Honodel, David R.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Robert A. Lawyer, August 31, 1997

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Interview with Robert A. Lawyer, an anesthetist and Army veteran of the Vietnam War. In the interview, Lawyer recalls memories from when he served as an Army nurse in Vietnam. He discusses what it was like working in the field, and includes details concerning living accommodations, operating room experiences, battle casualties, American relations with Vietnamese civilians, the treatment of prisoners-of-war, entertainment, and recreational activities. Lawyer also recollects memories of Nurse training at the Bellevue Hospital in New York City, Tet Offensive, and his assignment to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon, South Vietnam. He explains what it was like adjusting after the war was over.
Date: August 31, 1997
Creator: Houser-Hess, Lucinda & Lawyer, Robert A.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Letters of Captain Edward P. Jaeger to Mrs. Elizabeth Pierce Jaeger 1968-1969

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Transcript of recorded letters sent by Captain Edward P. Jaeger (Ed) to his wife, Elizabeth Jaeger (Libby) while stationed in South Vietnam as part of the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He discusses both personal and military topics including plans for having children; future personal financial planning; racial tensions and Black Power activities; shopping for civilian consumer goods; renovation of the Officer's Club; physicians’ negative attitudes about serving in Vietnam; procurement of medical supplies; holiday celebrations; planning for a post-Vietnam cross- country vacation in the U.S. and Canada; personnel problems; comments about various senior officers; procurement of captured enemy equipment for use as trading items and gifts; comments about the Paris peace negotiations for ending the war; planning for a leave in Hawaii with his wife and parents; personnel morale problems; discipline problems among enlisted personnel; preparation for leaving Vietnam and the Army; comments about student unrest and anti-war demonstrations in the U.S.
Date: August 1, 1998
Creator: Jaeger, Edward P.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War

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In Beyond the Quagmire, thirteen scholars from across disciplines provide a series of provocative, important, and timely essays on the politics, combatants, and memory of the Vietnam War. The essays pose new questions, offer new answers, and establish important lines of debate regarding social, political, military, and memory studies. Part 1 contains four chapters by scholars who explore the politics of war in the Vietnam era. In Part 2, five contributors offer chapters on Vietnam combatants with analyses of race, gender, environment, and Chinese intervention. Part 3 provides four innovative and timely essays on Vietnam in history and memory.
Date: March 2019
Creator: Jensen, Geoffrey W. & Stith, Matthew M.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Afton Keeton. Keeton joined the Navy in July of 1942. He completed Hospital Corps School and became a Pharmacist Mate. He first served aboard the USS Sea Dragon (SS-194). They patrolled the Aleutian Islands. He was then stationed at the Submarine Base in Pearl Harbor, working in a sick bay. He then served aboard the USS Apollo (AS-25) with a relief crew. He provides some detail of working aboard a submarine, serving as the Doc, living conditions and undergoing his own appendectomy aboard the Apollo. In early 1945 he was assigned for 1 year to serve at a submarine base in St. Thomas. He then served as hospital corpsman on the USS Clamagore (SS-343). Keeton also worked on sonar watch, radar watch and as a cook during his time in the Navy. He spent a total of 30 years in the Navy, retiring in February of 1972.
Date: August 30, 2007
Creator: Keeton, Afton
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007 transcript

Oral History Interview with Afton Keeton, August 30, 2007

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Afton Keeton. Keeton joined the Navy in July of 1942. He completed Hospital Corps School and became a Pharmacist Mate. He first served aboard the USS Sea Dragon (SS-194). They patrolled the Aleutian Islands. He was then stationed at the Submarine Base in Pearl Harbor, working in a sick bay. He then served aboard the USS Apollo (AS-25) with a relief crew. He provides some detail of working aboard a submarine, serving as the Doc, living conditions and undergoing his own appendectomy aboard the Apollo. In early 1945 he was assigned for 1 year to serve at a submarine base in St. Thomas. He then served as hospital corpsman on the USS Clamagore (SS-343). Keeton also worked on sonar watch, radar watch and as a cook during his time in the Navy. He spent a total of 30 years in the Navy, retiring in February of 1972.
Date: August 30, 2007
Creator: Keeton, Afton
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History

Donut Dolly: an American Red Cross Girl's War in Vietnam

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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. You see the war through the eyes of one of the first women officially allowed in the combat zone. When Joann Puffer Kotcher left for Vietnam in 1966, she was fresh out of the University of Michigan with a year of teaching, and a year as an American Red Cross Donut Dolly in Korea. All she wanted was to go someplace exciting. In Vietnam, she visited troops from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta, from the South China Sea to the Cambodian border. At four duty stations, she set up recreation centers and made mobile visits wherever commanders requested. That included Special Forces Teams in remote combat zone jungles. She brought reminders of home, thoughts of a sister or the girl next door. Officers asked her to take risks because they believed her visits to the front lines were important to the men. Every Vietnam veteran who meets her thinks of her as a brother-at-arms. Donut Dolly is …
Date: November 15, 2011
Creator: Kotcher, Joann Puffer
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Pentagon Papers and Related U.S. Press Reports (open access)

The Pentagon Papers and Related U.S. Press Reports

Abstract: A compilation of articles on United States involvement in Vietnam, appearing in New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun Times, the St. Louis Dispatch and the Knight News-papers. Also reports on Congressional interest in the U.S. vs. New York Times and Washington Post cases and the Supreme Court Decision.
Date: July 11, 1971
Creator: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library

Hell in an Loc: the 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle That Saved South Viet Nam

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In 1972 a North Vietnamese offensive of more than 30,000 men and 100 tanks smashed into South Vietnam and raced to capture Saigon. All that stood in their way was a small band of 6,800 South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers and militiamen, and a handful of American advisors with U.S. air support, guarding An Loc, a town sixty miles north of Saigon and on the main highway to it. This depleted army, outnumbered and outgunned, stood its ground and fought to the end and succeeded. Against all expectations, the ARVN beat back furious assaults from three North Vietnamese divisions, supported by artillery and armored regiments, during three months of savage fighting. This victory was largely unreported in the U.S. media, which had effectively lost interest in the war after the disengagement of most U.S. forces. Thi believes that it is time to set the record straight. Without denying the tremendous contribution of the U.S. advisors and pilots, this book is written primarily to tell the South Vietnamese side of the story and, more importantly, to render justice to the South Vietnamese soldier.
Date: November 15, 2009
Creator: Lâm, Quang Thi
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Relations: Background and Issues for Congress (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Relations: Background and Issues for Congress

This report provides an overview of U.S. relations with Vietnam, including policy issues, the economic and political situation in Vietnam, and a list of pertinent legislation. The key issues in the relationship include how far to pursue strategic and military-to-military ties; whether to impose curbs on surges in imports of certain items from Vietnam; how much and what types of bilateral economic assistance to provide; whether and how to try to improve the human rights situation in Vietnam; and how to clear up legacy issues from the Vietnam war.
Date: June 19, 2008
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy (open access)

U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2009: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy

This report provides an overview of U.S. relations with Vietnam, including policy issues, the economic and political situation in Vietnam, and a list of pertinent legislation.
Date: July 29, 2009
Creator: Manyin, Mark E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library