A small country in Southeast Asia where conflict between old and new had been going on for years was to engulf the United States in a war that eventually expanded beyond expectations to become one of the longest and most bitter engagements in American History. Despite an overwhelming advantage in material, using instruments of war such as the helicopter in ways never before seen in combat, the United States and its allies found themselves battling a determined foe in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. Regardless of the political and moral outcome of the war, the individual Army and Marine soldier who fought there saw events in a very definitive manner, of war as it had always been fought, man against man in small firefights that would otherwise be lost to history. These small battles together form the story of war unique to history and to America's experience. For more information available at the HPS website, click here.

The men who served in Vietnam fought in a war without front lines, one where action came quickly and unexpectedly. They fought in the rice paddies, in the air, in the cities, and along the rivers of Vietnam. They came from many backgrounds and nationalities, all wanting to serve their country. Together, their combat experiences formed a story, one they would take with them, one that would forever represent their "Tour of Duty." For more information available at the HPS website, click here.

On a rainy summer morning, June 25th, 1950, the emerging Cold War between Communist nations and those of the Free World suddenly got very hot. For a little over three years, Korea became the center of world attention. The so-called "Police Action" was all out war for those who served there. Through a series of seesaw actions the violence of this conflict shook the world. For more information available at the HPS website, click here.

On Christmas Eve, 1979, Soviet paratroopers seized the airports at Bagram and Kabul. Three days later, motorized infantry of the Soviet 40th Army crossed the border into the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan. The following nine years saw a fierce guerilla war as the Soviets with their communist Afghan allies battled the Muslim rebels, the Mujahideen. It was a war of small units and small unit leaders and one the Soviets were not prepared to fight. Now you can plan an ambush against a Soviet convoy or try to take a mountain redoubt from the Mujahideen with support from Hind helicopters and T-62 tanks. For more information available at the HPS website, click here.

May 7th, 1954 - the guns fell silent as the last organized resistance in the fortified camp of Dien Bien Phu came to an end. The loss of Dien Bien Phu struck a death knell for the French effort to retain control of their former colony of Indochina. For the Viet Minh it was a long sought victory over significant French forces and heralded an end to this first phase of their war of liberation from their imperial masters. The war had begun 8 years previously in the wake of World War II and would end 21 long years later with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Dien Bien Phu covers the period of 1946 - 1954 when a polyglot force of Moroccans, Senegalese, Algerians, Legionnaires, Vietnamese, Thos and others under the auspices of the French sought to retain France's hold on Indochina and were opposed by the nationalist communist forces of the Viet Minh. For more information available at the HPS website, click here.
 

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