Crucible 1972

<p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Truly magnificent - USMC Col. Andrew R. Finlayson (Ret.)</strong><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> author of </span><em style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Leader in Vietnam 1967-1968 </em><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>and </span><em style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Rice Paddy Recon: A Marine Officer's Second Tour in Vietnam 1968-1970</em></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>J. Keith Saliba award-winning author</strong><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> of </span><em style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Death in the Highlands: The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me</em><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> returns to the fiery crucible of America's final harrowing year in Vietnam.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>1972...the Year of the Rat.</strong></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>America is on its way out. Troop strength plummets to its lowest ebb since early 1965. President Richard Nixon's Vietnamization program to train and equip the South to stand alone continues apace. All that remains is to secure his honorable peace.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>But the president's overtures fall on deaf ears. Convinced military victory is at last within reach North Vietnam's ruling politburo instead launches a massive three-pronged invasion of the South. As tanks roll and artillery thunders the plan is brutally simple: crush South Vietnam's military depose its puppet regime and drive the Americans into ignominious retreat.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Yet communist leaders severely underestimate their adversary in Washington. Despite overwhelming public and Congressional pressure to call it quits in Vietnam Nixon instead vows to destroy Hanoi's very ability to wage war. What follows is the most devastating air and naval campaign of the conflict drowning the North's military industrial and economic infrastructure in a deluge of fire and steel.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Can Hanoi's massive invasion be rolled back before South Vietnam collapses? And what of Nixon's honorable peace? After sacrificing so much blood and treasure would America's nearly two-decade effort to realize a stable and non-communist South Vietnamese republic finally come to pass? The answers would decide the fate of the Indochinese people for decades to come.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Drawing on archival research interviews with combat veterans and perspectives from all sides Saliba takes you into the heat of the last desperate fight for peace in Vietnam.</span></p>