Non-Fiction

Title: Dog Tags: The History, Personal Stories, Cultural Impact, and Future of Military Identification
Author: Ginger Cuculo
Genre: Non-Fiction & Fiction
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0983305706

The 100 year anniversary of the official use of American personal identity tags, affectionately known as Dog Tags, recently passed without fanfare. We are currently in a war where the Dog Tag is once again a highly personal item to warriors of every service and to their families as well. Every Dog Tag carries its own human interest story. Receiving it, hanging it around the neck, and feeling it is a silent statement of commitment. The tag itself individualizes the human being who wears it within a huge and faceless organization. While the armed forces demand obedience and duty to a higher cause, the Dog Tag, hanging under each service member's shirt and close to their chest, becomes a part of them. It brings comfort to that fear of every soldier facing death: I do not want to be forgotten; I will not become an "unknown."

Understanding and sharing the history of Dog Tags and their deeply personal meaning in today's world is at the core of this book.

Title: Circle of Service: Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne & the Family Business
Author: Richard P. Bessette
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0974797049

In 2008 Michael Wynne was forced to resign from the Pentagon’s top civilian post in the Air Force. Here’s the whole story ... his life story and that of his family’s service to America.

Title: Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam
Author: Thomas P. McKenna
Genre: Non-Fiction History
Reviewer: Bob Doerr

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 081313398X

In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in what became known as the Easter Offensive. There were American advisors with the South Vietnamese armed forces but almost all other American forces had already withdrawn from Vietnam. When the invasion started, powerful U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy forces returned to Southeast Asia. South Vietnam's 23rd Infantry Division and its American advisers were sent to defend the provincial capital of Kontum in the Central Highlands. They were surrounded and attacked by three enemy divisions with heavy artillery and tanks but, with the help of air power, managed to successfully defend Kontum and prevent South Vietnam from being cut in half and defeated in 1972. Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam is the first in-depth account of this violent engagement. It describes the events leading up to the invasion and then the battle in Kontum.

Title: Letters to Louise
Author: Russell J. Jewett
Genre: Non-Fiction Memoir
Reviewer: Steve Phillips

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1453513019

An autobiography about a naive young man coming from a very stable and protected environment and went into the navy. As a Navy hospital corpsman, he became a combat corpsman with the US Marines. This story includes memories of events and the actual text of letters written over a period of four years to his girlfriend who was still in high school while he was in the States, Japan, and Vietnam.