Ballantine Books imprint: 2188 books

A gripping account of ordinary men with extraordinary courage and heroism who had one last chance to make good—and one helluva war zone to do it in. The new commander of the Company E, 52d Infantry LRRPs, Capt. George Paccerelli, was tough, but the men’s new AO was brutal. It was bad enough...

"Vietnam was a fantasy life of gunfire, blood, heat, and superhuman toil." By late 1969, the end of the war was just over the horizon. But for Ches Schneider, a drafted schoolteacher turned infantry grunt in the deadly Central Highlands, it was just beginning. This story of a Missouri...

Experience the pain, the pride, and the triumph of the Marine Corps All the members of 1st Lt. James J. Kirschke’s mortar platoon and then rifle platoon knew the stakes: the Marines are America’s military elite, expected to train harder, fight longer, sacrifice more. Kirschke led by example...

SNAKES, VIPERS, CROCS, SHARKS, AND THE VC With 257 combat missions in Vietnam under his belt, Gary Smith is a living witness to the realities of Naval Special Warfare. He worked with some of the toughest and most highly motivated men in the world, executing missions in the murderous terrain of Rung...

No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox,...

"The risk of a fatal catastrophe was constant. The NVA was the enemy, but the ultimate opponent was, quite simply, death. . . ." For assault helicopter crews flying in and around the NVA-infested DMZ, the U.S. pullout from Vietnam in 1970-71 was a desperate time of selfless courage....

It used to be said that the night belonged to Charlie. But that wasn't true where SEALs patrolled. For six months in 1970, fourteen men in Juliett Platoon of the Navy's SEAL Team One--incuding the author--carried out over a hundred missions in the Mekong Delta without a single platoon fatality. Their primary mission: kidnap enemy soldiers--alive--for interrogation.

In 1st Force Recon you performed at a very high level of proficiency. Or you died. . . . In 1969, First Lieutenant Bill Peters and the Force Recon Marines had one of the most difficult, dangerous assignments in Vietnam. From the DMZ to the Central Highlands, their job was to provide strategic...

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS--WHERE DANGER REIGNED SUPREME AND DEATH WAS A CONSTANT COMPANION The fighting was fierce in the Central Highlands where Green Beret George Dooley served with elite Special Forces A-teams, training the rugged Montagnards in guerrilla warfare and accompanying them on patrols....

HE LIVED ON THE ABYSS OF DEATH AS A RECON SCOUT IN WORLD WAR II. From Africa’s Sahara Desert, where he met Churchill, to the plains of Tunisia, where he served under Patton, Fred Salter executed daring nightly solo missions, risking his life to gather the vital intelligence the U.S. Army...

Even as a boy growing up amid the green hills of rural Pennsylvania, Robert W. Black knew he was destined to become a Ranger. With their three-hundred-year history of peerless courage and independence of spirit, Rangers are a uniquely American brand of soldier, one foot in the military, one in the...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From America’s “forgotten war” in Korea comes an unforgettable tale of courage by the author of A Higher Call. Devotion tells the inspirational story of the U.S. Navy’s most famous aviator duo, Lieutenant Tom Hudner and Ensign Jesse Brown, and the Marines they...

In the 101st Airborne, if you cared enough to send the very best, you sent The Howlers. Gary Linderer volunteered for the Army, then volunteered for Airborne training. When he reached Vietnam in 1968, he was assigned to the famous “Screaming Eagles,” the 101st Airborne Division. Once there,...

For readers of the historical works of Robert K. Massie, David McCulough, and Alison Weir comes the first biography on the life of Abigail Adams and her sisters. ** ** “Never sisters loved each other better than we.”—Abigail Adams in a letter to her sister Mary, June 1776   Much has been written...