William Manchester served in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. He was wounded during the Battle of Okinawa. After the war, Manchester established himself as a journalist in Baltimore, an adjunct professor at Wesleyan University, and an author. In 1978, he returned to the Pacific and visited various places connected either with his service or the Pacific campaign. That trip forms the basis of this book, “Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War.”

Bill Peters was commissioned in the Marine Corps via Officer Candidate School. After completing the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, he was assigned to Vietnam as a platoon commander in First Force Reconnaissance Company in 1969. Peters conducted twenty-three long-range patrols in enemy-controlled territory, was wounded, and decorated for bravery. He tells the story in “First Force Recon Company: Sunrise at Midnight.”

The Algerian War of Independence lasted from 1954 to 1962. It carried heavy costs for both sides. Estimates vary but upwards of a million Muslim Algerians died; roughly a million Pied Noir (settlers of European descent) were driven into exile; and France was driven to the brink of civil war. Alistair Horne tells the story in “A Savage War of Peace.”