Synopses & Reviews
Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence is a compelling story of courage, community, endurance, and reparation. It shares the experiences of Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, fighting on the front lines in Italy and France, serving as linguists in the South Pacific, and working as cooks and medics. The soldiers were from Hood River, Oregon, where their families were landowners and fruit growers. Town leaders, including veterans' groups, attempted to prevent their return after the war and stripped their names from the local war memorial. All of the soldiers were American citizens, but their parents were Japanese immigrants and had been imprisoned in camps as a consequence of Executive Order 9066. The racist homecoming that the Hood River Japanese American soldiers received was decried across the nation.
Linda Tamura, who grew up in Hood River and whose father was a veteran of the war, conducted extensive oral histories with the veterans, their families, and members of the community. She had access to hundreds of recently uncovered letters and documents from private files of a local veterans' group that led the campaign against the Japanese American soldiers. This book also includes the little known story of local Nisei veterans who spent 40 years appealing their convictions for insubordination.
Linda Tamura is professor of education at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. She is the author of The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley.
"An important book about significant wartime events, a group of heroic World War II veterans, and the anguished experience of a community coming to grips with its own social sins. It is a superb oral history, a compelling community history, and a cautionary story about what happens when a democracy goes to war." -William L. Lang, Portland State University
"Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence speaks to contemporary concerns about multiculturalism and diversity with an absorbing and powerful story that encompasses both U.S. military and civilian life and strategically links the past with the present in a manner that vivifies what William Faulkner meant when he said that 'the past is not dead, it is not even past.'" -Arthur A. Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History and Asian American Studies, California State University, Fullerton
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"This important chronicle of the community's wartime contributions interweaves fact and anecdote . . . Tamura provides an engaging outlet for a hidden voice . . ." -Publishers Weekly, June 2012
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"Tamura has done well to write this book, which strikes a blow at historical amnesia and resonates in Puget Sound country." -Mike Dillon, City Living, October 2012
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"An important book about a shameful era in the history of the Columbia gorge. . . . Tamura uses interviews and newly uncovered documents to tell a shocking story." -Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
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". . . an excellent history of the Hood River Nisei who served during WW II. Her book is backed by all of the expected (and nicely utilized) sources . . . what helps to distinguish the book as unique are the multitude of rare interviews . . . Highly recommended." -J. T. Rasel, Choice
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"Nisei Soldiers touches deeply into America's reckoning with race and bigotry and deserves a wide reading. The author offers a persuasive and compelling account of the treatment of Japanese Americans in peace and wartime." -William G. Robbins, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Summer 2013
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"Professor Linda Tamura, author of Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence: Coming Home to Hood River explains the national notoriety which Hood River, Oregon received after WWII, and how and why she broke the code of silence surrounding the situation." -KBOO Community Radio
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"Tamura's Nisei Soldiers is an interesting, solidly researched, and well-written piece of history, one that fills a gap in the literature on the American war experience." -Thomas Saylor, Oral History Review
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"Linda Tamura's revelatory community history, Nisei Soldiers, exposes the racism experienced by Japanese American soldiers from Hood River, Oregon during World War II and the postwar years. . . . Her poignant case study fills a necessary gap in the social history of Japanese American postwar resettlement." -Melanie English, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Winter 2013
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“Bruce Stanleys scholarly work gets to the heart of Americas inexorable drift toward contracted military services. . . . This book is a must-read for strategic-level military practitioners and their civilian overseers, providing valuable insights into the contemporary dynamics of raising armies for war.”—Stephen L. Melton, author of
The Clausewitz Delusion
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“Stanleys hypotheses set down some rational benchmarks that policymakers should consider when deciding on whether and how much to use the PMC industry in future conflicts.”—David Isenberg, senior analyst at Wikistrat and the author of
Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq
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“A worthy inclusion in a course on statistics and almost any international relations or security studies course. Stanley is the first to offer a coherent theory explaining why the United States is increasingly relying on private military contractors, and he tests this theory exhaustively.”—Dan G. Cox, professor at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies and author of
Terrorism, Instability, and Democracy in Asia and AfricaReview
andldquo;Robert Gregoryandrsquo;s discussions of Odyssey Dawn (Libya) and Allied Force (Kosovo) are of great value and cut away the myths surrounding these air campaigns. Most strongly recommended!andrdquo;andmdash;John T. Kuehn, Major General William Stofft Professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command and General Staff Collegeand#160;and#160;
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andldquo;This is essential reading for anyone attempting to understand how America makes war in the twenty-first century.andrdquo;andmdash;Jonathan M. House, author of Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Centuryand#160;
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andldquo;A must-read for anyone interested in the use of airpower in the postandndash;Cold War security environment.andrdquo;andmdash;Sean N. Kalic, author of U.S. Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946andndash;1967and#160;
Synopsis
Faced with a decreasing supply of national troops, dwindling defense budgets, and the ever-rising demand for boots on the ground in global conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, decision makers are left with little choice but to legalize and legitimize the use of private military contractors (PMCs).
Outsourcing Security examines the impact that bureaucratic controls and the increasing permissiveness of security environments have had on the U.S. militarys growing use of PMCs during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Bruce E. Stanley examines the relationship between the rise of the private security industry and five potential explanatory variables tied to supply-and-demand theory in six historical cases, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia in 1995, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Outsourcing Security is the only work that moves beyond a descriptive account of the rise of PMCs to lay out a precise theory explaining the phenomenon and providing a framework for those considering PMCs in future global interaction.
Synopsis
After the United States, along with NATO allies, bombed the Serbian forces of Slobodan Milosevic for seventy-eight days in 1999, Milosevic withdrew his army from Kosovo. With no troops on the ground, political and military leaders congratulated themselves on the success of Operation Allied Force, considered to be the first military victory won through the use of strategic air power alone. This apparent triumph motivated military and political leaders to embrace a policy of using andldquo;clean bombsandrdquo; (precision munitions and air strikes)andmdash;without a dirty ground warandmdash;as the preferred choice for answering military aggression. Ten years later it inspired a similar air campaign against Muammar Gaddafiandrsquo;s forces in Libya as a groundswell of protests erupted into revolution.
Clean Bombs and Dirty Wars offers a fresh perspective on the role, relevance, and effectiveness of air power in contemporary warfare, including an exploration of the political motivations for its use as well as a candid examination of air-to-ground targeting processes. Using recently declassified materials from the William J. Clinton Presidential Library along with primary evidence culled from social media posted during the Arab Spring, Robert H. Gregory Jr. shows that the argument that air power eliminates the necessity for boots on the ground is an artificial and illusory claim.
About the Author
Robert H. Gregory Jr. is a career soldier and scholar. He has served in a variety of armor, cavalry, airborne, and advisory units in the United States, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. His expert opinions have been published in Parameters and Small Wars Journal. Gregory is a graduate of West Point and the Naval Postgraduate School.