Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization

Assorted books with a Harvard-US Military connection. Suggestions welcomed.

This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University
An intense yet enlightening study of the scope and impact which the carnage on our Civil War battlefields had on our country for generations. A noted historian of the Civil War, she dedicated this book to her father, an Army officer wounded in WW II.

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, by Nate Fick, joint degree recipient from HBS and HKS.
This Dartmouth College graduate and fellow Harvard Veteran writes of his personal experience in the USMC, which included 2 tours as a combat leader in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My American Journey, by Colin Powell, Harvard LLD (Hon.), 1993.
A wonderful memoir of a truly accomplished life, by this fellow Harvard Veteran, Chairman of the JCOS and Secretary of State.

Bush at War, by Bob Woodward.
Gripping, firsthand, behind-the-scenes account of President, and Harvard Veteran, George W. Bush and his national security team as it prepares for war following the attacks of 11 September.

The Roses of No Man’s Land, by Lyn Macdonald.
This recounting of the hardship and endurance of young volunteers aiding the suffering, dying soldiers in WW I. It includes extensive coverage of 100 members of the First Harvard Medical Unit, which established a field hospital in Camiers, France in the summer of 1915. Doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers from Harvard staffed the hospital through the end of the war.

Harvard’s Civil War, by Richard F. Miller, Harvard Class of 1974.
"A compelling history of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, known as the Harvard Regiment due to its large number of Harvard educated officers."

My Deteachment: A Memoir, by Tracy Kidder, Harvard Class of 1966.
The personal story of this Harvard Veteran’s year in Vietnam as an intelligence officer.

Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, by Helen P. Trimpi, Harvard PHD, 1966.
An exhaustive work which includes biographical coverage of 357 alumni who fought for the South in the Civil War, including 71 who died. Robert E. Lee’s son, “Rooney” Harvard Class of 1858 was one of 15 Harvard general officers in the Confederate Army. Trimpi also details Harvard's inability to acknowledge this element of its history, to this day.

The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russessl Lowell, Jr., 1835-64, by Carol Bundy
The brief life of this leading scholar of the Harvard Class of 1854, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek, while leading his regiment, the Second Massachusetts Calvary. He became a symbol of idealism in action.

We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, by LTG Hal Moore, Harvard M.A.
Firsthand account of one of the first and most brutal battles of the Vietnam War. Then LTC Moore led the 1st Battalion of the 7th Air Cav. during this savage fight in November 1965 in the la Drang Valley.

The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation, by Richard N. Smith, Harvard Class of 1975.
This book reports extensively on Harvard during WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War, as well as Harvard ROTC from its grand beginnings in 1915 to near demise in the 1980’s.

The Long Gray Line, by Rick Atkinson
This is the story of the West Point Class of 1966, from the Academy through the Vietnam War. It is centered on a member of the class who later graduated from HBS, and also covers a young Army infantry officer who attended and graduated from Harvard College as a Rhodes Scholar, following his tours in Vietnam.

CRIMSON VALOR, by Captain Philip Keith '68 (USN Ret)

Biographies of the 17 remarkable Sons of Harvard who have received the Medal Of Honor from the Civil War to Vietnam.

FIVE LIEUTENANTS, by James Carl Nelson

The related stories of 5 young Harvard officers (of some 11,000 Harvard men in WW I), told from their own writings, as they entered World War I, and met very different ends.