SOMETIMES I wonder why they smile so pleasantly at me, And pat my head when they pass by as friendly as can be; Sometimes I wonder why they stop to tell me How-d’-do, And ask me then how old I am and where I’m going to; And ask me can I spare a curl and say they used to know A little girl that looked like me, oh, years and years ago; And I told Mamma how they smiled and asked her why they do, So she said if you smile at folks they always smile at you. I never knew I smiled at them when the...

Expand slavery or limit it? By 1818, the United States was deeply divided about what to do in Missouri, a territory that wanted to be a state. At issue was whether slavery would be legal in the new state. But how did the fight start? And how would the fate of Missouri change the United States?

An absolutely harrowing first-person account of the 94th Infantry Division’s bold campaign to break through Hitler’s “impregnable” Siegfried line at the end of World War IIEighteen-year-old William Foley was afraid the war would be over before he got there, but the rifleman was sent straight to the front lines, arriving January 25, 1945–just in time to join the 94th Infantry Division poised at Hitler’s legendary West Wall. By the time Foley finally managed to grab ...

An absolutely harrowing first-person account of the 94th Infantry Division’s bold campaign to break through Hitler’s “impregnable” Siegfried line at the end of World War IIEighteen-year-old William Foley was afraid the war would be over before he got there, but the rifleman was sent straight to the front lines, arriving January 25, 1945–just in time to join the 94th Infantry Division poised at Hitler’s legendary West Wall. By the time Foley finally managed to grab ...

In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as “Maggie” to his fellow paratroopers, joined the 82d Airborne Division, his new “home” for the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains outside Naples.In October 1943, when most of the 82d departed Italy to prepare for the D-Day invasion of France, Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, the Fifth Army commander, requested that the division’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Maggie’s outfit, stay behind for a daring new operation that would...

“The infantryman’s war is . . . without the slightest doubt the dirtiest, roughest job of them all.”He went in as a military history buff, a virgin, and a teetotaler. He came out with a war bride, a taste for German beer, and intimate knowledge of one of the darkest parts of history. His name is Dean Joy, and this was his war.For two months in 1945, Joy endured and survived the everyday deprivations and dangers of being a frontline infantryman. His...

“Before we got to Vietnam, the troops all thought you would be the first lieutenant killed, and in the end, you were the only one left. We were all wrong. You were the best.”—Sgt. Lonnie “Tallman” CaldwellDecember, 1966: Platoon leader Lt. Joseph Callaway had just turned twenty-three when he arrived in Vietnam to lead forty-two untested men into battle against some of the toughest, most experienced, and best-trained guerrilla soldiers in the world. ...

Elite paratrooper Sgt. Don Malarkey takes us not only into the World War II battles fought from Normandy to Germany, but into the heart and mind of a soldier who lost his best friend during the nightmarish engagement at Bastogne.Drafted in 1942, Malarkey arrived at Camp Toccoa in Georgia and was one of the one in six soldiers who earned their Eagle wings. He went to England in 1943 to provide cover on the ground for the largest amphibious military attack in history...

They were the men of the now-legendary Easy Company. After almost two years of hard training, they parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and, later, Operation Market Garden. They fought their way through Belgium, France, and Germany, survived overwhelming odds, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler's hideout in the Alps.Here, revealed for the first time, are stories of war, sacrifice, and courage as experienced by one of the most revered comba...

A remarkable memoir of small-unit leadership and the coming of age of a young soldier in combat in Vietnam.'"Using a lean style and a sense of pacing drawn from the tautest of novels, McDonough has produced a gripping account of his first command, a U.S. platoon taking part in the 'strategic hamlet' program. . . . Rather than present a potpourri of combat yarns. . . McDonough has focused a seasoned storyteller’s eye on the details, people, and incidents that best communicate a visc...

In January 1968, the 26th Marine Regiment was ordered to a place in the far northwest corner of South Vietnam called Khe Sanh. John Corbett, an untested replacement in a clean, green uniform, and his fellow leathernecks were responsible for building and defending the combat base, and holding positions on the strategic hills overlooking the Ho Chi Minh Trail as it crossed into Laos and South Vietnam from nearby North Vietnam.Only days after Corbett arrived at Khe Sanh, some twenty t...

From the Japanese soldiers' carefully calculated—and ultimately foiled—attempt to build a series of impregnable island forts on the ground to the tireless efforts of the Americans who struggled against a tenacious adversary and the temperature and terrain of the island itself, Robert Leckie captures the loneliness, the agony, and the heat of twenty-four-hour-a-day fighting on Guadalcanal. Combatants from both sides are brought to life: General Archer Vandegrift, who first assembled an amph...