Veteran Memoirs

Memoirs written by veterans of wars
Updated September 19, 2022
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The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien
Paper Book
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of...
Born on the Fourth of July
Ron Kovic
Paper Book
This New York Times bestseller (more than one million copies sold) details the author's life story - portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film version - from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country's most outspoken anti-Vietnam War advocate...
Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him
Luis Carlos Montalvan
Paper Book
A heartwarming dog story like no other: Tuesday, a lovable golden retriever, changes a former soldier's life forever. A highly decorated captain in the U.S. Army, Luis Montalván never backed down from a challenge during his two tours of duty in Iraq. After returning home from...
What It Is Like to Go to War
Karl Marlantes
Paper Book
From the author of the award-winning, best-selling novel Matterhorn, comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war In 1968, at the age of twenty-three, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of...
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941
Victor Klemperer
Paper Book
The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. "In its cool, lucid style and power of observation," said The New York Times, "it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third...
Testament of Youth
Vera Brittain
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell, and Taron Egerton   In 1915 Vera Brittain abandoned her studies at Oxford to enlist as a nurse in the armed forces, serving in London, in Malta, and at the Western Front in France. By war's end...
Lone Survivor : The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Marcus Luttrell
Paper Book
Follow along a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan in this true story of survival and difficult choices. On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the...
American Sniper
Chris Kyle
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir of U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, and the source for Clint Eastwood's blockbuster movie which was nominated for six academy awards, including best picture. From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United...
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
Anthony Swofford
Audiobook
A Marine who served during Desert Storm shares his experience in this raw New York Times bestselling memoir, now a major motion picture from Universal Pictures, directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford. Unabridged. 8 CDs.
Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning
Elliot Ackerman
Paper Book
From a decorated Marine war veteran and National Book Award finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. "War hath determined us..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost Toward the...
War Flower: My Life after Iraq
Brooke King
Paper Book
Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war--the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting...
Beyond the Call: Three Women on the Front Lines in Afghanistan
Eileen Rivers
Paper Book
A riveting account of three women who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with men and worked with local women to restore their lives and push back the Taliban They marched under the heat with 40-pound rucksacks on their backs. They fired weapons out of the windows of military vehicles,...
Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained
Kate Germano
Paper Book
A Marine Corps combat veteran with twenty years of service describes her professional battle against gender bias in the Marines and the lessons it holds for other arenas. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano arrived at Parris Island convinced that if she expected more of...
Full Battle Rattle: My Story as the Longest-Serving Special Forces A-Team Soldier in American History
Changiz Lahidji
Paper Book
Over 100 combat missions, 24 years as a Green Beret--Full Battle Rattle tells the legend of a soldier who served America in every war since Vietnam. Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred...
The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior
Robert O'Neill
Paper Book
This instant New York Times bestseller--"a jaw-dropping, fast-paced account" (New York Post) recounts SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's incredible four-hundred-mission career, including the attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain...
God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War
Lieutenant Colonel Bill Russell Edmonds
Paper Book
A powerful and intimate look into torture and its effect on both the tortured and the torturer.   In May 2005, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Russell Edmonds of the U.S. Army Special Forces, a decorated counter-terrorism expert, was deployed to the Iraqi city of Mosul, which...
Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII
Chester Nez
Paper Book
The first and only memoir by one of the original Navajo code talkers of WWII. His name wasn't Chester Nez. That was the English name he was assigned in kindergarten. And in boarding school at Fort Defiance, he was punished for speaking his native language, as the teachers sought...

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