Vietnam War

The Giant Killer: A Fascinating Look at the Smallest Green Beret in History

The Green Berets, the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, are the military’s premier unconventional warriors. And Richard Flaherty was, perhaps, the most unconventional Green Beret warrior to ever serve.

Flaherty served with the 101st Airborne during Vietnam. He was awarded a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. After Vietnam, he did contract work for the CIA all over the world.

But he had to fight to even get into the Army and the Army’s Officer Candidate School (OCS), going so far as to get his congressman involved. The reason was that Richard Flaherty was just 4’9” tall.

Years after Vietnam, David Yuzuk, a career Miami Beach police officer, struck a friendship with a confident but unassuming homeless man. After 15 years the man told Yuzuk, “It’s time I tell you who I really am.” The homeless man was Richard Flaherty.

Yuzuk finally learned the man’s story and began a quest to discover all there was to know about this diminutive man who cast a giant shadow in combat.

As he began digging into Flaherty’s background, Yuzuk decided to write a book, having previously put together an award-winning documentary on the man’s fascinating life. To do so, he enlisted the help of his father, Neil. The book dives into some of the details of Flaherty’s life that weren’t in the documentary. The trailer for the documentary can be seen here.

The book begins with Flaherty’s bizarre death. He was killed by Leslie Socolov in a hit-and-run incident. Socolov who worked for the Miami-Dade homicide division and who, despite leaving the scene of a deadly accident, was never charged with any crime, recently made headlines for an anti-Semitic rant caught on camera.

Richard Flaherty was always sensitive about his height. When he was young growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, he set about achieving the best possible physical condition he could and started learning martial arts.

When he joined the Army, he was bullied and harassed by both fellow soldiers and drill sergeants. That was until he showed his mettle in the hand-to-hand combat pit against his largest and biggest bully. He went through much the same in OCS, but persevered and graduated. Evidently, his nickname, “The Giant Killer,” which was given to him back in high school, was apt.

His commander in Vietnam hated the diminutive lieutenant. Some of Flaherty’s men corroborated this. As a result of the commander’s animosity, they always got the short end of the stick when it came to operations. His men knew Flaherty to be fearless and ruthless in combat and a capable commander.

After the war, like many Army officers, Flaherty was riffed out. This was a devastating blow to him. A failed relationship, an assortment of jobs, and later the death of a fiancé devastated him and eventually left him homeless.

That’s when he met Yuzuk. After he told him his story, the veteran police officer was skeptical. He frankly thought that Flaherty’s tale of working with the CIA was pure fantasy. But after Flaherty’s death, he spoke with his fellow vets and found his awards and decorations.

Richard Flaherty then went through Flaherty’s storage unit and found his passport. It was full of stamps to the world’s hotspots: Cambodia, Venezuela, Iraq, and Jordan among other places. Why would a homeless man visit those places, and how could he afford to?

His work with the CIA in support of the Nicaraguan Contras ended up with him being arrested and spending time in prison for drug-running. That incredible chapter involves HALO jumps from aircraft over “Alligator Alley” in Florida, guns, and lots of cocaine during the wild Miami days of the 1980s. Flaherty eventually worked undercover for the ATF in an effort to stop the flow of cocaine and weapons in the Fort Bragg, NC area.

His manner of death and his adamant statement to Yuzuk not to look into his undercover work, only raised more questions.

Yuzuk’s book is a fascinating look at one of the most extraordinary characters ever to wear a Green Beret. It is a story that sounds so off the wall that it could never be true. But it is.

The book is very well-written and guaranteed to keep your attention throughout. It is the incredible but true story of a man determined to beat the odds and make a difference. We highly recommend it. It can be ordered on Amazon.

Remembering Gordon Yntema, 5th SFG(A), Medal of Honor, 18 Jan. 1968

Gordon Yntema was just 22 years old at the time of his death, but he was a Green Beret assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, ODA-431 and was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery while fighting in Vietnam in 1968. The enlisted men’s club was named in his honor on Ft. Bragg.

Yntema was born on June 26, 1945, in Bethesda, MD. He graduated high school from Holland, MI and entered the United States Army on July 10, 1963, in Detroit, MI. He volunteered for and passed the Special Forces Qualification Course. In October of 1967, he was assigned to Vietnam as part of Company D, 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, 5th SFG(A) and stationed with ODA-431 at Camp Cai Cai, in the Plain of Reeds as an Operations and Intelligence Sergeant.

Camp Cai Cai was a frequent target of Vietcong mortars and artillery since it opened in April of 1965. The camp also flooded twice in 1965 and 1966 and was rebuilt as a floating camp. On January 16 and just prior to the Tet Offensive, Yntema was an American advisor accompanying to companies of CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) strikers as they became embroiled in a two-day firefight with Viet Cong troops.

The senior American and South Vietnamese commander were wounded in the fighting. Yntema took over as the CIDG strikers tried to conduct blocking positions east of Thong Binh. Under heavy fire from Viet Cong bunkers, Yntema advanced the strikers to within 50 meters of the bunkers before being forced to withdraw to a trench line.

The Viet Cong deployed a company to the flanks, taking the strikers on three sides with intense fire, which included accurate mortar fire which caused several casualties. The strikers began to pull back. Yntema, already seriously wounded himself, refused to abandon his wounded commanders. He carried them to a gully about 50 meters away to shield them from enemy fire.

With his ammunition gone, the Cong tried to take him as a prisoner. But Yntema was going to be captured. He turned his rifle around like a club and took on the 15 Viet Cong who were attempting to capture him. So intense was his fighting the Viet Cong were forced to shoot him.

His body was returned home to the U.S. and he was buried at Pilgrim Home Cemetery in Holland, MI. He left behind his young wife Peggy and two young daughters.

Gordon’s decorations include the Medal of Honor, the Silver Star, two (2) Purple Hearts, the Combat Infantry’s Badge, and the Parachutist’s Badge.

Gordon is honored on the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC. Name inscribed at VVM Wall, Panel 34e, Line 73.

A 1966 Army video of the camp at Cai Cai and the camp’s defenses are shown here:

An interesting side note about Cai Cai, Sean Linnane wrote an interesting blog post about Martha Raye, the entertainer who would visit the SF troops in Vietnam in places most entertainers would never venture in.

Colonel Maggie was visiting the A and B camps of D Co in the Delta and the S-4 Air Ops was assigned to be her escort officer. She had visited Cai Cai A-431 and moved on to RON somewhere else. They were hit that night. When she heard the news the next day, she ORDERED her slick to go back to Cai Cai so she could see if they needed her. She was a qualified nurse. The escort radioed back for instructions and IIRC, the CO (Colonel Bob Hassinger) said HE wasn’t going to countermand Maggie and he didn’t think it would be a good idea for anyone else to try either. She ALWAYS put the men first.

Medal of Honor Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life and above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Yntema, U.S. Army, distinguished himself while assigned to Detachment A-431, Company D.

As part of a larger force of civilian irregulars from Camp Cai Cai, he accompanied 2 platoons to a blocking position east of the village of Thong Binh, where they became heavily engaged in a small-arms firefight with the Viet Cong.

Assuming control of the force when the Vietnamese commander was seriously wounded, he advanced his troops to within 50 meters of the enemy bunkers. After a fierce 30-minute firefight, the enemy forced Sgt. Yntema to withdraw his men to a trench in order to afford them protection and still perform their assigned blocking mission.

Under cover of machinegun fire, approximately 1 company of Viet Cong maneuvered into a position which pinned down the friendly platoons from 3 sides. A dwindling ammunition supply, coupled with a Viet Cong mortar barrage which inflicted heavy losses on the exposed friendly troops, caused many of the irregulars to withdraw.

Seriously wounded and ordered to withdraw himself, Sgt. Yntema refused to leave his fallen comrades. Under withering small arms and machinegun fire, he carried the wounded Vietnamese commander and a mortally wounded American Special Forces advisor to a small gully 50 meters away in order to shield them from the enemy fire. Sgt. Yntema then continued to repulse the attacking Viet Cong attempting to overrun his position until, out of ammunition and surrounded, he was offered the opportunity to surrender. Refusing, Sgt. Yntema stood his ground, using his rifle as a club to fight the approximately 15 Viet Cong attempting his capture. His resistance was so fierce that the Viet Cong were forced to shoot in order to overcome him.

Sgt. Yntema’s personal bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and supreme self-sacrifice were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect the utmost credit upon himself, the 1st Special Forces, and the U.S. Army.

Photos: Hall of Heroes, JFK SWC, Virtual Wall

Remembering Humbert “Rocky” Versace, MOH, 29 October 1963

Humbert “Rocky” Versace was captured early in the Vietnam War on October 29, 1963, by the Viet Cong and showed his indomitable will by refusing to be indoctrinated by the Communists and resisted fiercely. He so enraged his captors by his insistence on adhering to the code of conduct and protesting their treatment of American POWs, the Vietcong executed him on September 26, 1965. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Early Life and the USMA:

Versace was born the eldest of five children in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1937. His mother was an author and one of her novels was later turned into the television series, “The Flying Nun.” His father was a Colonel in the U.S. Army. Like most military families, the Versace clan moved quite frequently and Rocky grew up in Alexandria, VA, right outside of Washington, D.C.

After graduation from high school in Norfolk, VA, Versace got an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as his father did. He graduated in 1959 as a Second Lieutenant in the Armor Branch. He went to Ranger School, the Class 4-60 and graduated on December 18, 1959. After attending airborne school, Versace was shipped to Korea where he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 40th Armor, 1st Cavalry Division as an M-48 tank platoon leader from March 1960 – April 1961.

After being promoted to Captain, Versace was then assigned to the 3d U.S. Infantry (Old Guard), the ceremonial unit near Washington at Ft. Myer, VA and known the “Escort to the President.” While in Virginia Versace volunteered for duty in Vietnam and was transferred to Ft. Holabird, MD for the intelligence course and then the Vietnamese Language Course at the Presidio of Monterey in California.

Vietnam Tours, Capture and Execution:

Versace began his first tour as an intelligence advisor serving with the 5th Special Forces Group in May 1962. At the end of his year-long tour in May 1963, he volunteered to extend for six more months. At the conclusion of that, Versace decided that he was going to join the seminary and become a Catholic priest and return to Vietnam as a missionary.

With only two weeks remaining on his tour and the Army, Versace went to visit an old USMA classmate at the 5th Special Forces camp A-23 located at Tan Phu in the Mekong Delta. The Special Forces men were advising a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) unit that was trying to dislodge a Viet Cong stronghold located in the thick U Minh Forest at the village of Le Coeur. Versace joined the men on the operation. The Viet Cong, however, ambushed the Montagnard/Special Forces patrol. While reacting to the ambush, an American Special Forces medic Dan Pitzer, broke his ankle, his A-Team XO, 1LT Nick Rowe moved to help him. Versace remained in place and put down enough covering fire to allow most of the CIDG troops to withdraw safely. However, Rowe was clubbed from behind by a Viet Cong and he, Pitzer and Versace were taken, prisoner.

The Viet Cong really had no idea on what to do with American prisoners so they subjected them to brutal interrogations, horrible conditions at a small jungle prison camp located deep in the U Minh Forrest. The Viet Cong, in addition to physical torture and interrogations, attempted to starve their American captives. Although he was wounded from the action at the ambush and very weak, Versace continued to display his absolute adherence to the Code of Conduct.

He tried to escape on four different occasions, once in such a weakened condition that he was on his hands and knees crawling outside the compound where he was easily recaptured by his guards. This infuriated the Viet Cong but not as much as his actions did. Using his Vietnamese language skills, he lambasted the Communists for their treatment of POWs, and their complete disregard for the Geneva Conventions. Using a mixture of Vietnamese and French, he kept the counterattacks going on his interrogators. Although his body was broken, his spirit was not.

The Viet Cong tried to separate him from the other captors and for a while left him gagged in his cell so that he couldn’t communicate with other Americans. The last time he was seen by his American countrymen, he was loudly singing “God Bless America.” His resilience after 23 months of brutal captivity, inspired his fellow Americans and infuriated the Viet Cong. On September 23, 1965, Viet Cong National Liberation Radio announced that Versace had been executed.

Versace was initially awarded a Silver Star for his actions but after a much-needed boost from many of his friends and family, his Silver Star was changed to the Medal of Honor and President Bush awarded it to his siblings in the White House in 2002.

Medal of Honor Citation:

Humbert Roque Versace
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army, Intelligence Advisor, Special Operations
Place:Republic of Vietnam
Entered service at: Norfolk, Virginia
Born:Honolulu, Hawaii
Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while a prisoner of war during the period of October 29, 1963 to September 26, 1965 in the Republic of Vietnam. While accompanying a Civilian Irregular Defense Group patrol engaged in combat operations in Thoi Binh District, An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam on October 29, 1963, Captain Versace and the CIDG assault force were caught in an ambush from intense mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire from elements of a reinforced enemy Main Force battalion.
As the battle raged, Captain Versace fought valiantly and encouraged his CIDG patrol to return fire against overwhelming enemy forces. He provided covering fire from an exposed position to enable friendly forces to withdraw from the killing zone when it was apparent that their position would be overrun, and was severely wounded in the knee and back from automatic weapons fire and shrapnel. He stubbornly resisted capture with the last full measure of his strength and ammunition.
Taken prisoner by the Viet Cong, he demonstrated exceptional leadership and resolute adherence to the tenets of the Code of Conduct from the time he entered into a prisoner of war status. Captain Versace assumed command of his fellow American prisoners, and despite being kept locked in irons in an isolation box, raised their morale by singing messages to popular songs of the day, and leaving inspiring messages at the latrine.
Within three weeks of captivity, and despite the severity of his untreated wounds, he attempted the first of four escape attempts by dragging himself on his hands and knees out of the camp through dense swamp and forbidding vegetation to freedom. Crawling at a very slow pace due to his weakened condition, the guards quickly discovered him outside the camp and recaptured him. Captain Versace scorned the enemy’s exhaustive interrogation and indoctrination efforts, and inspired his fellow prisoners to resist to the best of their ability.
When he used his Vietnamese language skills to protest improper treatment of the American prisoners by the guards, he was put into leg irons and gagged to keep his protestations out of earshot of the other American prisoners in the camp. The last time that any of his fellow prisoners heard from him, Captain Versace was singing God Bless America at the top of his voice from his isolation box. Unable to break his indomitable will, his faith in God, and his trust in the United States of America and his fellow prisoners, Captain Versace was executed by the Viet Cong on September 26, 1965. Captain Versaces extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life above and beyond the call of duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Army, and reflect great credit to himself and the U.S. Armed Forces

Epilogue:

The full story of Versace’s actions was not known until Rowe escaped from captivity on December 31, 1968. Rowe had steadfastly stuck to his cover story that he was an engineer assigned to build schools and other civil affairs projects in the camp. He kept this up for years although the Vietnamese tried to catch him by forcing him to do different engineering problems to test him.

It was until the anti-war protesters including noted activist Tom Hayden visited Vietnam that he furnished the Communists with the background of several captives including Rowe. When the Viet Cong found out his background was intelligence and Special Forces, they were incensed.

They were taking him to be executed in the jungle when his guards were startled by an air assault nearby of U.S. helicopters. Rowe overpowered his guard and rushed out into a rice paddy and got the attention of the crew by waving his mosquito net. He was nearly killed by his beard (the Vietnamese rarely grew) convinced the crew he was an American and he was rescued after five years.

Rowe was brought back into the Army in 1981 as an LTC and was tasked with developing and running the Army SERE School at Camp Mackall, NC. His developed course left behind a lasting legacy in the Special Forces community. SERE – Survival Evasion Resistance Escape, is taught to all Special Forces soldiers and to selected other Special Operations troops. The mission is to avoid capture at all costs but if caught, to return home alive and with honor. Rowe wrote a book about his experiences as a POW called “Five Years to Freedom.”

In 1989, Rowe was assigned at the JUSMAG Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in the Philippines. He was assassinated while on his way to work one morning by Filippino Communists.

Photos: Rocky Versace with his father, Dan Pitzer and Nick Rowe- DOD

MG Sidney Shachnow, Legend in Special Forces Dies at 83

The Green Beret community lost a legend this week as Sidney Shachnow, who survived a concentration camp for three years starting when he was just seven years old. He served in a variety of Special Forces units and a few conventional billets and eventually retired as a Major General. He retired in Southern Pines, NC and passed away this weekend at the age of 83.

Early Life:

Shachow was born on March 5, 1934, in Kaunas, Lithuania. After the Nazis invaded the former Soviet Union in 1941, Shachnow and his family were thrown into the Kovno concentration camp because they were Jews. He survived by doing heavy manual labor and was a witness to the brutal treatment the inmates were forced to endure. Only 5 percent of the inmates of Kovno would survive until the camp was liberated.

The Nazis in March of 1944 decided to liquidate all of the children at Kovno by shipping them to Auschwitz to be gassed. Shachnow escaped and hid the woods, narrowly missing being murdered. He lived mostly in seclusion and nearly starved to death on a couple of occasions. When the Soviets liberated Kovno and began to implement communism to the people, Shachnow fled on foot, heading west and would walk nearly 2000 miles before ending up in the care of the Americans at Nuremberg. While there he engaged in black-market activities just to survive.

Shachnow was deeply affected by his experiences in the camp and it would shape how he viewed people for many years. Although he was not one to talk about himself and was, for the most part, a deeply personal man, he opened up a bit at the time of his retirement. He told the Fayetteville Observer in 1994 how this time shaped his outlook.

“After I finished that experience, I was very cynical about people,″ he said. “I didn’t trust people. I thought that there is a dark side to people.”

Life in the US and the Military:

He made it to the United States from Nuremberg and he and his family settled in Salem, Massachusetts, where for the first time in his life, he was able to attend school.

He later joined the U.S. Army as a private in 1955 despite barely speaking any English. After rising thru the enlisted ranks to Sergeant First Class, he applied and graduated from Officer’s Candidate School in 1960. Shortly after joining the Army, he would marry his high school sweetheart Arlene. They remained together until his passing last week.

Two years later he joined Special Forces and his life’s work was laid out before him. He would serve most of the next 32 years in SF.

As a Captain, he would command the 5th Special Forces Group’s A-camp, Camp A-121 at An Long. There he would be awarded the first of his Silver Stars for valor as well as a Purple Heart. Shachnow applied a tourniquet to his own leg wound and continued to lead his men. He was also shot in the arm.

While recovering from his wounds in the United States, he received his bachelor degree from the University of Nebraska and went back to Vietnam again where he received another Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with “V” device.

Later in the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany, Shachnow would command the highly secretive Detachment-A, known to the SF men simply as “Det-A”, Berlin Brigade, a clandestine unit of Cold War Green Beret who remained on high alert 24-hours a day. This covert unit consisted of selectively trained and language qualified members of Special Forces, who brought vital culture, geographical and language skills to the assignment. Their missions were classified. They dressed in civilian clothing and carried appropriate non-American documentation and identification at terrific risk if they were caught by Soviet or East German security forces.

For a fascinating four-part look at what Det-A did read the story by Jack Murphy here: Amazing that as part of Det-A, Shachnow commanded several soldiers who were in the American Army due to the Lodge Act and several, who fought for the Nazis in World War II.

In 1990, Shachnow would be a two-star, and command all of the US troops in Berlin and was a witness to the Berlin Wall coming down. For Shachnow, it was coming full-circle. He told the Observer in his 1994 interview, that the experience was moving for a Lithuanian Jew who spent time in a concentration camp.

“Here it is the very capital of fascism and the Third Reich. The very buildings and streets where they were goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering and the very system that put me in the camp and killed many people,” he said. “Here we are 40 some-odd years later, and I come back to be commander of American forces in that city and a Jew on top of that… It sort of adds insult to injury, doesn’t it?″

He also served as the Commanding General, United States Army Special Forces Command, as well as the Commanding General, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

It was there that our paths crossed a couple of times, albeit very briefly. We spoke one time during a briefing and he did a double take at me and at the conclusion of which he asked, “Where are you from Chief?” I told him Boston, at which time he smiled and said, “that’s pretty obvious,” to the chuckles of those close by. When I told him I had attended college at Salem State, he smiled, and said, “I know that place really well.”

When it was over, he spoke to the SF guys in a manner that resonated with everyone. He had tremendous respect within the community. Several SF guys could speak with much more familiarity than myself, but the results would be no different. His bona fides and respect within the community were impeccable.

Later he wrote a book about his life in the concentration camps, moving to the U.S. and his military career. It is titled, “Hope and Honor” which he wrote with author Jan Robbins and is highly recommended. It can be found here:

Despite his terrible experiences in a concentration camp, he and his wife raised a loving and close family with four daughters. His family would grow to include fourteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He never took his adopted family for granted and knew full well the struggles and price for freedom.

Shachnow came to this country as a penniless immigrant who could barely speak the language. He rose up to become a commander of one of the most prestigious headquarters in the U.S. military. And he did so without ever tooting his own horn.

He said of life’s struggles, “Oppression was still an enemy. But I realized how important it was to keep hope, courage, and perseverance, and we would someday erase this scourge from society.”

A memorial service for MG Shachnow will be held at 3 p.m. Oct. 13 at Boles Funeral Home in Southern Pines.

Photos: US Army

Remembering Ola Lee Mize, Korean War MOH, Vietnam, Special Forces

Lee Mize as he was known to his friends was awarded the Medal of Honor for incredible valor in the Korean War as an enlisted man, later became an officer and served in Special Forces for three and a half tours in Vietnam before retiring in 1981.

Mize was born August 28, 1931 in Albertville, Alabama as the son of a sharecropper. He was forced to leave school after just the ninth grade to help his family put food on the table as was very common throughout the United States in that era.

Mize tried several times to enlist in the Army but was rejected for being too light at just 120 pounds. He finally got in when his mother signed an affidavit to affirm his age as a tornado had destroyed all of his town’s records while he was young.

But once in the Army, a bigger problem was looming. Mize was virtually blind in one eye, which had been accidentally pierced with an ice pick when he was 5 years old.

The vision exam for the Army at that time involved holding a paddle over one eye and looking at the chart with the other. He passed the test by briskly switching paddles in a way that made it look as if he was switching eyes. He had practiced this bit of subterfuge with spoons beforehand.

Mize became an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division and was about to finish up his tour and go back to finish schooling and attend college when the Korean War broke out. He re-enlisted in the hopes of getting sent to Korea.

Medal of Honor Action at Outpost Harry: He would get his wish and be involved in some horrific combat there. Assigned to Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division, was helping to defend a strategic hill near Surang-ni in mountainous South Korea. The hill, called Outpost Harry by the Americans, sat between American and Communist lines, each several hundred yards away. Coincidentally, the 15th Infantry Regiment was the same unit that Audie Murphy served in during World War II.

During the previous few nights prior to June 10, 1953, Mize had observed numerous trucks behind the enemy’s ridgeline bringing in men and equipment. He called for artillery strikes and air strikes but those were denied.

A sergeant manning a listening post that night reported something amiss. Upon investigating, Mize came up and took a look himself to the unit’s front. “Where did all of those shrubs come from he asked the sergeant? They hadn’t been there before. Mize noticed one move. He crouched up and unloaded a full carbine magazine into them as Chinese soldiers, infiltrating the lines were cut down very close to the LP.

When an American machine-gun nest had been overrun, he fought his way to the position, killing 10 North Korean and Chinese soldiers and dispersing the rest. He had been knocked down and wounded but not seriously three times by artillery and grenade blasts, and his men were astounded that he returned alive.

The legend that was told of Mize was that when he took back the machine gun nest, he dispatched the last of the Chinese soldiers with an entrenching tool when his weapon ran out of ammunition. There was a bronzed “E-Tool” that would hang over his desk later in his career. He did tell the local (Gadsden, AL) newspaper that he went “combat crazy” during the pitched part of the engagement.

“I thought I’d bought the farm,” Col. Mize told VFW Magazine in an interview. “I just knew I was going to die. I knew it. I accepted it. All I wanted to do was take as many of them with me as I could.”

He and the remaining Americans convinced the Chinese that there were many more Americans left on the hill but throwing grenades and shooting from one position and then leaping into other holes and firing from there.

At one point, as an enemy soldier stepped behind an American and prepared to fire, Sergeant Mize killed him. At dawn, he helped regroup for a counterattack that drove the enemy away. He was personally credited with killing 65 of the enemy. In fact, it could have easily been much more. Of the 56 men on Outpost Harry, only eight survived.

He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but initially asked that his name be withdrawn saying the honor should go to the troops that died defending it.

“That terrible night in 1953 in Korea at Outpost Harry was one I would never want to repeat,” he wrote in a foreword to “Uncommon Valor,” a book about Medal of Honor recipients.

“Too many good young men . . . gave their lives to take or hold that miserable piece of high ground.”

Eventually, in 1954 Mize did receive the Medal of Honor from President Eisenhower and recounted that he was so nervous it was obvious to everyone. He credited the President to calm him by joking about himself.

Mize remained in the Army and became an officer. In 1962 he attended the Special Forces Officers Course training and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. In late 1963, he was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he was deployed to Vietnam on his first tour as an A-Team Leader. In 1965, he was assigned to the Special Forces Training Group, where he was the Advanced Training Committee chief for SCUBA, HALO, and the SKYHOOK schools. Colonel Mize is credited for being the officer responsible for starting the present day Combat Divers Qualification Course in Key West, FL.

He returned to Vietnam in 1966-67 and again in 1969 as the Commander of the 3d Mobile Strike Force Command (Cambodian Troops). The Mike Forces as they were called were the quick reaction force for any of the Special Forces/CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) A-Camps in their Corps area.

In 1975 Colonel Mize was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was initially the Special Forces School Chief for the Field Training Division and Resistance Division and later the Commander of the Special Forces School. At that time, the US Army JFK Institute for Military Assistance, (IMA). Later this was changed to the Special Warfare Center (SWC). Mize retired in 1981.

Colonel Mize’s awards include the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, Legion of Merit
(with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star (with four Oak Leaf Clusters), Ranger Tab, Master Parachutist Badge, SCUBA Badge, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge (2nd award).

Colonel Mize passed away on March 12, 2014, from cancer at age 82.

Medal of Honor Citation:

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant (then Sgt.), U.S. Army, Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division.

Place and date: Near Surang-ni, Korea, 10 to 11 June 1953.

Entered service at: Gadsden, Ala. Born: 28 August 1931, Marshall County, Ala.

G.O. No.: 70, 24 September 1954.

Citation:

M/Sgt. Mize, a member of Company K, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. Company K was committed to the defense of “Outpost Harry”, a strategically valuable position, when the enemy launched a heavy attack. Learning that a comrade on a friendly listening post had been wounded he moved through the intense barrage, accompanied by a medical aid man, and rescued the wounded soldier.
On returning to the main position he established an effective defense system and inflicted heavy casualties against attacks from determined enemy assault forces which had penetrated into trenches within the outpost area. During his fearless actions he was blown down by artillery and grenade blasts 3 times but each time he dauntlessly returned to his position, tenaciously fighting and successfully repelling hostile attacks.
When enemy onslaughts ceased he took his few men and moved from bunker to bunker, firing through apertures and throwing grenades at the foe, neutralizing their positions. When an enemy soldier stepped out behind a comrade, prepared to fire, M/Sgt. Mize killed him, saving the life of his fellow soldier.
After rejoining the platoon, moving from man to man, distributing ammunition, and shouting words of encouragement he observed a friendly machine gun position overrun. He immediately fought his way to the position, killing 10 of the enemy and dispersing the remainder. Fighting back to the command post, and finding several friendly wounded there, he took a position to protect them. Later, securing a radio, he directed friendly artillery fire upon the attacking enemy’s routes of approach. At dawn he helped regroup for a counterattack which successfully drove the enemy from the outpost.
M/Sgt. Mize’s valorous conduct and unflinching courage reflect lasting glory upon himself and uphold the noble traditions of the military service.

Photos: US Army

Orange, MA Hosts Armed Forces Weekend Military Expo

The small town of Orange, Massachusetts was the scene of a large Armed Forces Expo over the weekend complete with battle reenactments from the Civil War, World War I and World War II. They even had a flyby with a C-47 Skytrain, complete with markings from the D-Day invasion. A few lucky visitors got to take a ride in the vintage warbird as it skirted above the battlefield.

As the air raid siren sounded, soldiers scrambled on the battlefield and gunshots echoed. Smoke from artillery blasts clouded the air and a warplane droned overhead.

This World War II battle marked the first of three battles reenacted on the last day of Orange’s Military History Expo this year, which took place over Armed Forces weekend.

Reenactment soldiers depicted what a typical battle scene would look, feel and smell like during WWII, complete with accurate vehicles, artillery, and uniforms. At the end of the battle, spectators clapped and cheered.
As she left, a bystander commented to another about the realness of the scene, especially the smell of smoke lingering in the air.
Two more reenactments would be performed in the coming hours: Civil War and World War I. In the meantime, guests could meander through almost 20 acres of military history including WWI trenches, military vehicles from each era — including some horses — camps, first aid tents and more.
The event ran Friday through Sunday, each day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
One of the main attractions was a true WWII veteran: a rare C-47 warplane known as Whiskey 7, which some lucky event-goers got to take for a ride. This same plane deployed paratroopers over Normandy during the D-Day invasion.
The warbird flew over the battlefield during the WWII reenactment as spectators craned their necks to catch it in action.
The expo featured tangible military history from the Civil War, WWI, WWII and Vietnam. To add authenticity to the event, signs mimicked the WWII-era Burma Shave signs along the road leading to the battlefields. An announcer in an Armed Forces Radio Service tower occasionally interrupted his announcements with Burma Shave advertisements. In between, WWII-era music played over loudspeakers.
Re-enactors in a variety of uniforms strolled the grounds alongside visitors, many of whom were veterans themselves. Some drove historical military Jeeps around the grounds.
Military vehicles, including tanks and ambulances, were parked throughout the venue so people could tour them. Some younger event-goers got to climb inside.

The interactive, expo is striving to grow each year and the event is designed to show what life in the military was like in each of the eras right up through Vietnam

To read the entire article from Greenfield Recorder, click here:

Photo courtesy Christine Wisniewski, Greenfield Recorder of a WWII reenactment group battle scene

Captain Ernest Medina, Commander During My Lai Massacre Dies at 81

When one brings up the Vietnam War, invariably the subject of the My Lai massacre will come to the forefront. And Captain Ernest Medina, the commander of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 11th Brigade, Americal Division, who conducted the operation was court-martialed for his role in it. Medina was eventually cleared and acquitted of all charges but his military career was over. Medina recently died in Wisconsin. He was 81.

Medina was born in Springer, New Mexico in August 1936. He joined the army in 1956 and worked his way up the ranks until he reached the rank of Captain and was a company commander in Vietnam. His unit arrived late in 1967 and by the spring of 1968 had lost about 20 soldiers to mines and booby traps. By the time of the My Lai operation, just after the Tet Offensive, his unit’s morale was low.

The most well-known of the soldiers who took part in the operation was Lt. William Calley who was the only member of the army convicted for crimes in My Lai

Medina was the recipient of a Silver Star for heroism during a battle that took place just before My Lai, risking his life to save several soldiers.

In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, a Vietcong unit, the 48th Local Force Battalion of the National Liberation Front (NLF) as the Cong were called had dispersed and was hiding in the villages of Sơn Mỹ, in Quảng Ngãi Province. Charlie Company was to clear the villages named My Lai on the US maps (Sơn Mỹ).

Medina briefed his men that they were to kill all guerrilla and North Vietnamese combatants, including “suspects” (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells.

Early the next morning on the 16th of March 1968, the operation began. Calley’s platoon was supposed to take down the village with the other two platoons acting as a reserve and as a blocking force. The troops arrived and found no Vietcong. No military age men at all. Just old men and women and children. Calley’s men rounded them up and then the killing began. Indiscriminate and cold-blooded.

Most of the women tried to shield their young children from the carnage. They were shot down and their children executed. Many of the women were raped before they were killed. Everything was being burned to the ground, anyone trying to run away was gunned down.

Sgt. Michael Bernhardt, who later told his story to the press, said, “I saw them shoot an M79 grenade launcher into a group of people who were still alive. But it was mostly done with a machine gun. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else,”

“We met no resistance and I only saw three captured weapons. We had no casualties. It was just like any other Vietnamese village—old papa-sans [men], women and kids. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive,” Bernhardt added.

The killing continued until the troops took a break for lunch and then restarted. It only stopped when WO1 Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot flew his chopper between the soldiers and the civilians who were being slaughtered. He flew some injured Vietnamese children to safety.

Estimates for the killing at My Lai ranged as high as 504 people dead. Among the victims were 182 women—17 of them pregnant—and 173 children, including 56 infants. The unit wrote up their report as a great victory over enemy insurgents. The awful truth was kept under wraps for more than a year. It was another one of the events that turned the American public against the war and war effort.

Finally, some soldiers came forward and an investigation was started. In 1971, 14 officers were charged with various crimes as a result of My Lai. Medina, according to the official investigation:

“Planned, ordered, and supervised the execution by his company of an unlawful operation against inhabited hamlets in Son My village which included the destruction of houses by burning, killing of livestock, and the destruction of crops and other foodstuffs, and the closing of wells; and impliedly directed the killing of any persons found there.”
“Possibly killed as many as three noncombatants in My Lai.”

He was court-martialed for willingly allowing his men to murder non-combatants. His defense team was headed up by F. Lee Bailey. Medina admitted to killing one woman, who he said he believed was holding a grenade. At the end of his trial, the jury only took 60 minutes to acquit him of all charges. However, his Army career was finished. Shortly afterward, he resigned his commission and soon left the Army as well.

Calley was the only one convicted, his life sentence was reduced to just three years of home confinement.

In 1971 Medina moved to Wisconsin and went to work as a salesman for a helicopter manufacturer. Later he went into real estate.

In 1988, he broke his silence on My Lai and gave an interview with the Associated Press and admitted the operation and resultant illegal activity from troops under his command should have never happened.

“I have regrets for it, but I have no guilt over it because I didn’t cause it,” he said. “That’s not what the military, particularly the United States Army, is trained for. But then again, maybe the war should have never happened. I think if everybody were to look at it in hindsight, I’m sure a lot of the politicians and generals would think of it otherwise. Maybe it was a war that we should have probably never gotten involved in as deeply as we did without the will to win it.”

Medina lived quietly for the rest of his life and is survived by his wife, daughter and two sons.

An interview he gave shortly after the story broke while he was still a Captain in the US Army can be seen here:

Photos: Wikipedia

The Special Forces Branch is Created April 9, 1987

Today’s USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) operates in nearly 100 countries a day as Special Operations troops from all of the combined services do their part in defending U.S. interests abroad.

Special Operations troops are taking on the lion’s share of the fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as they are an integral part of the United States strategy for defeating our enemies there. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, the command (SOCOM) is a relative newcomer to the U.S. military. The creation of the Special Forces branch for Army officers on April 9, 1987, was a big moment for SF and changed everything.

Special Forces was created in 1952 as former members of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) were assigned with paratroopers and Rangers from the Army to fill out the ranks of the 10th Special Forces Group headed by Colonel Aaron Bank.

OSS and SF were tasked with training, equipping and leading indigenous forces in the art of guerrilla warfare. The mission of the 10th according to Bank was to “to infiltrate by land, sea or air, deep into enemy-occupied territory and organize the resistance/guerrilla potential to conduct Special Forces operations, with emphasis on guerrilla warfare.”

Special Forces grew steadily and the new unit was heavily involved in Vietnam with Special Forces A-Teams spread all over the country and found themselves a tremendously loyal ally in the Montagnard people of the mountains in Southeast Asia. By the time the war was over, SF soldiers had earned (from SF Assn) 20 Medals of Honor, one Distinguished Service Medal, 90 Distinguished Service Crosses, 814 Silver Star Medals, 13,234 Bronze Star Medals, 235 Legions of Merit, 46 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 232 Soldier’s Medals, 4,891 Air Medals, 6,908 Army Commendation Medals and 2,658 Purple Hearts.

After the Vietnam war wound down, the military cut back on special operations forces and tried to build a large conventional force for a large European land battle with the Soviet Union. As a result, the Army lost numerous Special Forces groups, the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th Special Forces groups were deactivated. The 7th SFG narrowly escaped the ax as the Pentagon, never a fan of “specialized” or “elite” units tried to wipe the slate clean of them.

The Special Forces side of the house in the military was left with just three active duty groups. The 5th, 7th and the 10th. Ronald Reagan’s election and the debacle at Desert One in Iran would change all of that. During the attempted rescue of American hostages in Iran, an ad-hoc force of Delta Force commandos, Army Rangers and Air Force and Marine pilots failed because the pilots weren’t specifically trained for that type of mission.

The planning, training, and execution were set back because the services weren’t accustomed to working together and no unified command existed. The government finally learned that the U.S. military needed a dedicated Special Operations force that was capable of handling any issues that arose, complete with air assets dedicated to Special Operations missions.

The Pentagon and Congress learned what Special Operations troops had long known and later became one of the Command’s “truths” that they live by.

Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

The Army created a Career Management Branch for their enlisted soldiers (CMF 18) in 1984. Now Green Berets in Special Forces groups would no longer have to serve “command time” as senior NCOs in conventional assignments. The Special Forces tab, recognizing being a graduate of SF training was adopted in 1983.

But the officers who served in Special Forces were still in No-Man’s Land. Serving more than one tour in Special Forces for officers was considered career suicide. Staying in SF would result in achieving no more than a Colonel’s rank. And those were few and far between. Something had to be done.

One of the weak parts of a Special Forces A-Team was the XO or 2LT position. Too many of the LTs didn’t have enough of a conventional background or experience to be effective enough. Many of the LTs were former NCOs who had gone thru OCS but there weren’t enough.

So the Army created the Warrant Officer Program for Special Forces troops not long after the CMF 18 was created. The LT’s slot was cut from the A-Teams and the slots would be filled by senior Special Forces NCOs who went thru the Warrant Officer course, held at Ft. Rucker and Ft. Bragg.

Finally, on April 9, 1987, the Army created the Special Forces Branch for Commissioned Officers (18A). Once a Captain or 1LT promotable applied he could attend the Special Forces Qualification Course and upon successful completion would become part of the SF Branch.

The results were a much better, more capable and more experienced core of officers and enlisted men. Troops dedicated solely to Special Forces operations. No longer would officers stick around only long enough to “get their ticket punched” and be forced to move on to other assignments and career fields. During this time frame, both the 1st and the 3rd Special Forces Groups were reactivated and have served with distinction. The Special Forces Command has a group area oriented to every specific part of the world complete with language capability and culturally experienced troops that know their area of operations, the people, and many of the personalities involved.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have put such a burden on the operational tempo (optempo) of the units that the Army authorized the 4th battalion for each of the Special Forces groups.

Today is a far cry from the lean years of the early-to-mid-1970s where Special Forces were on the brink of being eliminated by backward thinking officers. The troops today are overtasked as they’ve become a panacea by Washington to fix every problem that the country faces as they try to limit the amount of “boots on the ground” in the world’s hotspots.

But all of the SF troops come from the humble and austere beginnings of Aaron Bank and the original Special Forces troops formed on Smoke Bomb Hill in 1952.

Photo: US Army

Son Tay Raider SGM Joe Murray Will Be Laid To Rest Today

Special Forces Sergeant Major Joe Murray passed away on December 23 and will be laid to rest today at the Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake, NC.

SGM Murray spent 30 years in the service of the US Army, with the vast majority of it being as a Green Beret in the Special Forces. Murray served from 1962 – 1992 and at the time of his retirement was the School Sergeant Major for the USA JFK SWC (US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School).

Murray went to Korea in 1962-63 and then to West Germany where he was in the 3rd Armored Division as a 106mm Recoilless Rifle Gunner and an 81mm mortar section leader from 1964-66.

He joined Special Forces in 1966 and after graduation was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group (5th SFG) in Vietnam. There as the Intelligence Sergeant, he assigned to the 4th Corps Mike Force as an Airboat Section Leader, Reconnaissance Team Leader, Indigenous Company Commander, and Battalion Commander.

After returning to the US in 1968, Murray joined the 6th SFG as the team sergeant of a HALO Team (High Altitude Low Opening, military free-fall parachutists) and went on several missions to the Middle East, the Far East and in Europe. It was in 1970 that Murray along with about 100 other men volunteered for a dangerous mission that they didn’t know the destination or the actual mission.

Murray was one of the 56 Special Forces soldiers that were selected, and who flew from Thailand thru one of the most heavily defended air corridors in the world at that time outside of Hanoi, North Vietnam. There they assaulted the POW camp at Son Tay. The Raiders, however, found a dry hole. An intelligence failure doomed the mission to failure.

The prisoners were moved to another camp a few miles away due to a flood in their prison compound. Murray was wounded in the action and was awarded the Silver Star. All of the Americans were able to assault the compound, neutralize about 200 Vietnamese and Chinese troops, and successfully exfil without losing a man.

In an interview with Fayetteville Observer-Times in 1990, Murray said, “We scared the hell out of the Vietnamese and taught them we could get into the highest air-defended piece of real estate the world’s ever known and get out.”

“I still remember the feelings I had as the aircraft started the final approach,” he said. “I glanced out the window and the lights of Hanoi looked like any major city at night. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a basketball.”

“That’s what we trained for,” he added. “You have one time in your career you get a chance to do something that’s really important.”

His part of the raid was to secure the outside of the prison compound so that the assault element could safely exfil the prison compound. Two North Vietnamese soldiers had slipped behind his position and fired on him, wounding him in the back of his leg, where the blood was rushing down into his boot. He took out both soldiers and kept at it until the mission was complete.

He later served with the 1st Special Forces Group (1st SFG) and deployed to nine different countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. He returned to Ft. Bragg in 1974 and worked at the 18th Airborne Corps. Murray rejoined Special Forces in 1978 and served in the 7th Special Forces Group as the Company Sergeant Major in A/1/7. He trained El Salvadoran troops and took his company in 1983 to Trujillo, Honduras to set up the CREM (Regional Military Training Center).

After serving in Pennsylvania with the 28th Infantry Division, Murray returned to Ft. Bragg in 1988 where he was the School Sergeant Major at JFKSWC. Murray would assign all incoming SF cadre men to one of the myriad of schoolhouse assignments where our paths crossed again. He had spoken to my O&I (Operations and Intelligence Course) class.

I’d been told by many of my friends in SF that the new course (SFOT which later became SFAS) was where everyone coming in was being assigned. They told me “he’ll show you the big board, and talk about all the needs, but you’ll end up at Selection.” And they were so right. SGM Murray showed me the big board and was lamenting the lack of NCOs to go to the O&I Committee. I told him I was O&I qualified. His eyebrows went up and he smiled, “You are?, that is good to know for down the road, but for now we really need you out at Selection,” he said with a wink.

We saw him occasionally because the Selection course was new and everyone wanted to check it out, but unfortunately, I didn’t know him as well as some of the other older guys did, and that was lamentable as he’s one of the pioneers of what became the Joint Special Operations Command.

In his interview with the Fayetteville paper at the reunion of the Son Tay Raiders in 2016, he summed up what it’s like to be in Special Forces. “When you join Special Forces, you join a family,” he said. “There’s not an organization like it. You got a family of your own, but you adopt the soldiers under you.”

RIP Sergeant Major.

Book Review: “War Stories of the Green Berets” by Hans Halberstadt

Frequently, we get emails or tweets here at SpecialOperations.com in the realm of questions about the training and the qualification course. Many of course deal with Selection and I have to tell people that the Instructors don’t actually kill anyone during the events and one doesn’t have to be 10-feet tall to pass. But one I got last week was different and an intriguing one so I’ve decided to post it and address it in our post today.

J.P- wrote, “as a young man getting ready to attempt Selection soon, I was wondering if you can reccomend (sic) any books that deal with Special Forces, specifically SF history and maybe some that aren’t as well known as others.”

Consider it done. The history of SF doesn’t really begin just with Aaron Bank and the SF of 1952. The OSS in World War II, with the Jedburghs and the Operational Groups (OGs) were the first true forerunners to what SF and CIA became down the road. There are plenty of great books about the beginnings of OSS and Special Forces and we’re compiling a list of some of the definitive great books to read in that regard.

But for today, if you want to understand where you are and where you’re going as a candidate in Special Forces, then look to the past. Special Forces got its reputation during many years of combat during the Vietnam conflict. And the more you can learn about the men and operations of that era then you can gain an understanding of what you are about to attempt.

“War Stories of the Green Berets”, The Vietnam Experience, by Hans Halberstadt is a great book for not only the military history enthusiast but for the potential candidates who someday hope to wear the Green Beret.

Halberstadt has done dozens of interviews with former Special Forces soldiers who fought in Vietnam and the stories are always intriguing, oftentimes funny and many times sobering.

Many of the legends of Special Forces tell their stories. Among them, Martha “Maggie” Raye, a Hollywood entertainer and trained nurse who would visit the austere SF A-camps and during rough times would pitch in and work as a nurse. Colonel Maggie as she was affectionately known by the SF troops, always preferred the Sergeants company to that of the officers and could drink many of those sergeants under the table.

Dan Pitzer (RIP), was the senior medic on an A-Team that got ambushed in 1963, during the ambush while moving up to help one of the Vietnamese, Pitzer broke his leg. Lt. Nick Rowe tried to help Pitzer but was clubbed from behind and both men were taken, prisoner. Pitzer spent the first year of captivity alone in solitary confinement. He set his own leg by suspending himself from the tiger cage bars and straightening his leg by hanging from it. He and Rowe spent a considerable amount of time as prisoners together.

Years later Pitzer would work for SERE Committee at the JFK Special Warfare Center that Colonel Rowe started after their return. In those days, you already had to be Special Forces qualified to go to SERE. Pitzer got up in front of the class, gave a long presentation on his experiences as a POW, his treatment by the Viet Cong and how he was subsequently “released” from captivity. He had a room of hardcore SF guys captivated. You could hear a pin drop. His story in the book about Christmas Eve as a POW is a must read.

Jon Caviani, who was awarded a Medal of Honor for valor in Vietnam and who spent time as a POW told some funny stories some sad and an eye-opener about killing an NVA sentry with a knife. His remembrances on the Medal of Honor and the hassles of remaining in the Army while being a Medal of Honor awardee as well being one while n Delta was interesting and different than one would expect. The secretive Delta Force wasn’t worried about Caviani’s experience level but his public profile, but they needn’t have worried, he didn’t give speeches, make appearances nor attend any functions.

Jim Morris, the former Special Forces officer who authored a few books, “War Story” one of which that should be required reading for Special Forces candidates. Morris later worked as a journalist for Soldier of Fortune magazine. One of his stories was made into a film, “Operation Dumbo Drop.” In this book, Morris penned a sarcastic piece that only someone who served in the military could understand with the jargon and acronyms that was wryly brilliant.

Vernon Gillespie was a Captain and Commander of a Special Forces A-Team in 1964 at Buon Brieng when the Montagnards, sick of oppression by the lowland Vietnamese revolted. Gillespie’s camp was the only one of six in the area that didn’t revolt. The Army sacked all of the Special Forces officers as if they were responsible. Gillespie became the first face of Special Forces in the mainstream when National Geographic ran a story on him. It coincidentally was my own first glimpse into what would become my own life, when reading it while visiting my grandmother’s house.

Halberstadt’s book is definitely worth the read, I understand a newer version is now available and has been expanded with modern stories woven in. That is fantastic because the book was already a great read. I absolutely recommend this one as a fantastic read, as the stories are quick, easy to read and gives a glimpse of what being a Green Beret was truly like in Vietnam.

In the near future, we’ll have some other books to choose from and have a “required reading list” for Special Forces troops.

Photos: Amazon