Veteran Memoirs

Memoirs written by veterans of wars
Updated September 19, 2022
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The things they carried
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
"O'Brien has written a vital, important book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing...
Until Tuesday : a wounded warrior and the golden retriever who saved him
Montalvǹ, Luis Carlos.
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...
One soldier's story : a memoir
Dole, Robert J.
Paper Book
"A poignant and inspiring memoir. . . . Dole's odyssey of courage and determination can be a guideline to us all."-- Philadelphia Inquirer In his own words, Bob Dole tells his legendary World War II story--a personal odyssey of tremendous courage, sacrifice, and faith In One...
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...
Chickenhawk
Mason, Robert
Paper Book
A true, bestselling story from the battlefield that faithfully portrays the horror, the madness, and the trauma of the Vietnam War More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and...
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920 K676I V.2
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 : an autobiographical study of the years 1900-1925
Brittain, Vera
Paper Book
Giving a voice to a lost generation, this edition features a new introduction by Brittain's biographer. Now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell, and Taron Egerton Much of what we know and feel about the First World War we owe to Vera...
Lone survivor : the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10
Luttrell, Marcus.
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...
Dispatches
Michael Herr
Paper Book
"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S....
Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
Jack Coughlin
Paper Book
With more than sixty confirmed kills, Jack Coughlin is the Marine Corps' top-ranked sniper. Shooter is his harrowing first-person account of a sniper's life on and off the modern battlefield. Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin is a divorced father of two who grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb. At...
Jarhead : a Marine's chronicle of the Gulf War and other battles
Swofford, Anthony.
Paper Book
Once a Warrior: How One Veteran Found a New Mission Closer to Home
Jake Wood
Paper Book
The powerful story of one Marine who found healing and renewed purpose after returning from combat, for himself and tens of thousands of fellow veterans. Once a Warrior provides a harrowing look at the true cost of military service as the Forever War drags on - and most important, the path to...
Places and names : on war, revolution, and returning
Ackerman, Elliot
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...
Soaring to glory : a Tuskegee airman's firsthand account of World War II
Handleman, Philip
Paper Book
"This book is a masterpiece. It captures the essence of the Tuskegee Airmen's experience from the perspective of one who lived it. The action sequences make me feel I'm back in the cockpit of my P-51C 'Kitten'! If you want to know what it was like fighting German interceptors in European skies while...
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,...
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
O'Neill, Robert
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...
The long walk : a story of war and the life that follows
Castner, Brian.
Paper Book
In the tradition of Michael Herr's Dispatches and works by such masters of the memoir as Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff, a powerful account of war and homecoming. Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance...
Code talker
Nez, Chester
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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