The biggest impression that this extraordinarily vivid and well-written book made on me--and, I should think would make on anyone--was how incredibly brave these secret warriors had to have been. They had to have known that on almost every mission deep inside the lines of the enemy that the odds were stacked against them. They had to live on their wits and weaponry and on the wits of the organization above them, and on the stunning amount of firepower that they were able to bring in from the air, when conditions were right. The post-action statistics have reflected those odds, with many units suffering more than a 100% casualty rate, possible because a number of the SOG men were wounded multiple times. And yet, “'It was the best assignment I had,' said Blackbird crewman Don James, a sentiment almost universal among SOG veterans."
How could that possibly be, when the chances of getting killed or horribly wounded were so high and the hardships endured were so extreme? One of the reasons I can say from my own Army experience as a lieutenant, 1966-68, was that there were so many really bad assignments. One can get a bit of the flavor by searching out my article, "A Condensation of Military Incompetence" (using any search engine but Google). And in that article, my worst commander of all, a landlocked Captain Arnheiter, I would call him, makes no appearance. On my first day under him in Korea I was brought into a staff meeting over which he presided. My immediate reaction to the meeting was to go into his deputy's office and ask him what I had to do to volunteer for Vietnam so I could escape the madhouse. Fortunately, the deputy talked me out of it.
in spite of the extreme dangers, it had to be very refreshing to be working in the presence of such competence. Here's another quote from the book: “'They were the greatest troops our army ever had,' said Colonel Roger Pezzelle, 'and I’d put ’em up against anybody’s.' His opinion is shared by SOG’s former adversaries, the North Vietnamese. Nguyen Tuong Lai, an NVA officer who’d served on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, said SOG’s Green Berets 'effectively attacked and weakened our forces and hurt our morale because we could not stop these attacks.'"
My great admiration for these fellow soldiers is mixed, though, with a great feeling of sadness over the pointlessness of the larger effort in which they participated. There is virtually no doubt in my mind that had President Kennedy not been assassinated, we would have never have turned the war into America's war as LBJ did, which was a war that could not possibly be won. We learn from a recent review article on the Unz web site by Laurent Guyenot of David Nasaw's book, "The Patriarch: The Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy," that JFK was much more strongly pacifistic than is generally known, based largely upon his own WW II experience. JFK was also a lot more anti-Communist than almost any Democrat these days, but, with respect to the situation in Vietnam, he was also much more realistic than LBJ, and very knowledgeable. I have special knowledge with regard to that latter assertion. It comes from a top specialist on France for the OSS and later CIA agent who told me that when JFK was a Senator, he regularly sought this man out to pick his brain concerning matters related to France and foreign policy. You can read about it by searching "Scott Runkle CIA Plots Puerto Rico Statehood," and, in this instance, even Google works. JFK would not have repeated the errors of the French as LBJ did; he appreciated the strong anti-colonial sentiment that lay behind the enemy effort, as LBJ did not.
As a final note, the book has given me a much greater appreciation for what my late uncle, who was only a few years older than me, more like a big brother, experienced and the importance of the contribution he made. When I arrived in Korea he was just finishing his tour for the Air Force as a FAC, flying an O-1 Birddog. He survived it, but he came out of the experience embittered, I gathered. We had argued over the wisdom of the war for years, with him for and me against, and he was a lifelong Republican. His last political act before he died of cancer, though, was to vote against the re-election of George W. Bush because of Bush's taking us to war in the Middle East.
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Reviews with images
a factual and well documented book
being a special forces soldier (green beret) and having served with macvsog ccn recon i can vouch for the authenticity of this book... i recognize the names and missions for the time period i was there... i'm grateful this story is being told...
Top reviews from other countries
Louis de Paris
Excellent ouvrage sur le MACV SOG
Reviewed in France on February 17, 2017
