by Mark Moyar
back to regular units: Kiper, Spare Not the Brave, 234–235; Black, Rangers in Korea, 196; Eighth US Army Korea, “Special Problems in the Korean Conflict,” http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll11/id/1695, 84–88.
“… inspiration to fight”: “The Rangers Lose,” Time, September 3, 1951.
deactivation of all Ranger units in Korea: Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry, 128; Kiper, Spare Not the Brave, 235.
flee northward: Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1950–1951: They Came from the North (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 286.
“… mad as hell”: Michael E. Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow: UN Special Operations During the Korean War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 33.
not yet dead: Ed Evanhoe, Darkmoon: Eighth Army Special Operations in the Korean War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 66.
2,000 to 30,000: Ibid., 70.
inside collapsible walls: Rod Paschall, “Special Operations in Korea,” Conflict 7, no. 2 (1987): 162.
“… ‘pass’ at a Korean woman”: Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 64.
retained control of its main island bases: Evanhoe, Darkmoon, 125–126, 150–151; Paschall, “Special Operations in Korea,” 165–166.
None of its men ever returned: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, “UN Partisan Warfare in Korea, 1951–1954,” June 1956, 91; Evanhoe, Darkmoon, 158–159.
only a handful came back: Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 60; Richard L. Kiper, “Unconventional Warfare in Korea: Forgotten Aspect of the ‘Forgotten War,’” Special Warfare 16, no. 2 (August 2003): 30–31.
resistance experience to the CIA: Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 62.
ashore on coastal raids: Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War (New York: Times Books, 1982), 467; Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 150–151.
appointed hour: Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 99.
“… wounded were civilians”: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, “UN Partisan Warfare in Korea,” 5.
western coast at any one time: Ibid., 13, 17.
“We will withdraw”: Glenn Muggelberg, Oral History Interview, 1985, US Army Military History Institute.
locating enemy weapons: Kenneth Finlayson, “From a Standing Start: U.S. Army Psychological Warfare and Civil Affairs in the Korean War,” Veritas 7, no. 1 (2011): 1–3.
resembling OSS forebears: Alfred H. Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, rev. ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 123; Aaron Bank, From OSS to Green Berets (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986), 154.
less costly and time-consuming: Mike Guardia, American Guerrilla: The Forgotten Heroics of Russell W. Volckmann (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2010), 171.
1,500 men: Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 156–158.
“rub off on Special Forces”: Charles Simpson, Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983), 21.
“… that’ll be peanuts”: Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 164.
“… ‘country cousin’ to the Psychological Warfare Center”: Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 142.
“… essential qualities”: Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 177.
reduce their chances for promotion: Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, 22; Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 176–177.
signed up for Special Forces: Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 146.
no one else in the Army wanted them: Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, 22.
“… understanding of another culture”: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, “UN Partisan Warfare in Korea,” 115.
grounds for the practice of guerrilla war: Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, 39; Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 190.
“… solely responsible”: Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 131.
but to no avail: Ibid., 101, 133.
“… hadn’t thought the thing through very well”: Orr Kelly, From a Dark Sky: The Story of U.S. Air Force Special Operations (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997), 113.
air transport at the request of the Army and CIA: Ibid., 118.
CHAPTER 5: VIETNAM
defeating insurgency in underdeveloped countries: Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 413; Lloyd Norman and John B. Spore, “Big Push on Guerrilla Warfare,” Army, March 1962, 33; Douglas S. Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1977), 68–72.
“Boy Scouts with guns”: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 284.
could pass for soap: Norman and Spore, “Big Push on Guerrilla Warfare.”
skin snakes: Charles Simpson, Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983), 67.
Robert Kennedy once inquired: Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 35.
form the 5th Special Forces Group: Ibid., 103–105.
from 90 percent to 30 percent: David W. Hogan Jr., Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992), 160–161.
dangerous camps: Francis J. Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces: 1961–1971 (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1973), 168.
“… often doubtful”: Simpson, Inside the Green Berets, 70.
passenger seats: Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2005), 625; Philip D. Chinnery, Any Time, Any Place: Fifty Years of the USAF Air Commando and Special Operations Forces, 1944–1994 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 67–72.
twenty miles inland: T. L. Bosiljevac, SEALs: UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam (Boulder: Paladin Press, 1990), 16–17.
returned to their original units: Joel Nadel and J. R. Wright, Special Men and Special Missions: Inside American Special Operations Forces, 1945 to the Present (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1994), 61.
“… fight under the sea”: Kevin Dockery, Navy SEALs: A Complete History from World War II to the Present (New York: Berkley, 2004), 237.
other supporting assets: Nadel and Wright, Special Men and Special Missions, 64.
multitude of counterinsurgency tasks: US Army John F. Kennedy Center, “Multipurpose Force Study: The US Army Special Forces—A Review of their Indochina Commitment and a Projection of Future Tasks,” October 28, 1976, www.governmentattic.org/12docs/ArmySFreviewIndochina_1976.pdf, II-4.
Buon Enao for training: Christopher K. Ives, US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam: Military Innovation and Institutional Failure, 1961–63 (New York: Routledge, 2007), 16–21.
repairing roads and bridges: Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 60.
“… nice bonus”: Henry G. Gole, Soldiering: Observations from Korea, Vietnam, and Safe Places (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005), 154.
62,000 Montagnards: Ives, US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam, 101, 104.
sobriquet “Raider” Johnson: Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 41–50.
North Vietnamese in the near term: Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 305, 342.
“… believed this myth”: Richard H. Shultz Jr., The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 293.
principal motive was monetary: MACSOG Documentation Study, Annex N to Appendix B, “Comments by These Interviewees on MACSOG’s Operations and Intelligence,” July 10, 1970, Texas Tech University Virtual Vietnam Archive, Item 2861211001, B-n-57; Shultz, Secret War, 37–38, 94–107.
November 1963 coup: Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, 304.
missions could not be performed: John K. Singlaub, with Malcolm McConnell, Hazardous Duty:
An American Soldier in the Twentieth Century (New York: Summit Books, 1991), 303.
blow a leg off a footbridge: Shultz, Secret War, 58, 83–88.
internal security apparatus: MACSOG Documentation Study, “Comments by These Interviewees”; Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andradé, Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 200.
“… no chance of success”: Conboy and Andradé, Spies and Commandos, 208.
against large North Vietnamese assaults: Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 40.
unexpected frequency: Shelby L. Stanton, Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975 (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985), 232–252.
100 rounds per second: Nadel and Wright, Special Men and Special Missions, 78–80; Chinnery, Any Time, Any Place, 98–103.
beyond the reach of enemy machine guns: Orr Kelly, From a Dark Sky: The Story of U.S. Air Force Special Operations (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997), 150–155.
“… bury themselves with concrete”: Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973 (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1987), 198.
advising the South Vietnamese: Army Concept Team in Vietnam, “Employment of a Special Forces Group,” April 20, 1966, National Archives II, RG 472, 5th Special Forces Group, Entry P131, box 137.
surreptitious movement: Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 52.
award for actions in Vietnam: Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, 301–303.
recalcitrant mutineer: Anne Blair, There to the Bitter End: Ted Serong in Vietnam (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2001), 99–100; William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 79–81.
conventionally equipped North Vietnamese battalions: Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry, 178–182; Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 141; US Army John F. Kennedy Center, “Multipurpose Force Study,” II-11.
137 in 1966: Mike Guardia, Shadow Commander: The Epic Story of Donald D. Blackburn (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2011), 166–177; Shultz, Secret War, 68.
big enough to take Cuba: Singlaub, Hazardous Duty, 297; Benjamin F. Schemmer, The Raid (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 60.
“… a shit and a dove”: Shultz, Secret War, 303.
secret factory in Japan: John L. Plaster, SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 34.
thirty to forty minutes: William Rosenau, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets: Lessons from Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2001), 20–21.
splice into the line: Robert M. Gillespie, Black Ops, Vietnam: The Operational History of MACVSOG (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), 233; Singlaub, Hazardous Duty, 298–299.
“… can’t handle it”: Plaster, SOG, 137.
man who always succeeded: Alan Hoe, The Quiet Professional: Major Richard J. Meadows of the U.S. Army Special Forces (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 23, 42–43, 84–85.
recovered all of the men: George J. Veith, Code-Name Bright Light: The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War (New York: Free Press, 1998), 124–125; Gillespie, Black Ops, Vietnam, 75; Conboy and Andradé, Spies and Commandos, 165–166; Hoe, Quiet Professional, 92–95.
served anti-Communist fare: Alfred H. Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, rev. ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 160–161.
grenade under the hat: John Mecklin, Mission in Torment: An Intimate Account of the U.S. Role in Vietnam (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), 55.
potent American weaponry: Mark Moyar, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 110–111.
“… broadcasts made”: Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 171.
remarkably few casualties: Moyar, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey, 164–173.
rude welcome for American rescue aircraft: Gillespie, Black Ops, Vietnam, 172–174; Plaster, SOG, 80–82.
“… severe on Prairie Fire”: William C. Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, vol. 4 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 927.
twenty kilometers past the border: Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967 (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2006), 381.
during 1967: Plaster, SOG, 131.
“… hole to hide”: MACVSOG, Command History, 1968, Texas Tech University Virtual Vietnam Archive, Item 2861205001, F-III-4-2; Conboy and Andradé, Spies and Commandos, 172, 230; Shultz, Secret War, 120–121.
several thousand Vietnamese, Cambodians, Thais, and Laotians: Shultz, Secret War, 54, 68.
destroyed by American air power: Warren A. Trest, Air Commando One: Heini Aderholt and America’s Secret Wars (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), 220–223.
and 9 disappeared: MACSOG Documentation Study, Appendix D, “Cross-Border Operations in Laos,” July 10, 1970, Texas Tech University Virtual Vietnam Archive, Item 2860715001, D-57a; Shultz, Secret War, 250.
“… short-term loan”: George Hoffman, “In Memory of David Ives Mixter,” Special Forces List, www.sflistteamhouse.com/Memorial/mix.htm.
eastward toward safety: John L. Plaster, Secret Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines with the Elite Warriors of SOG (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 283–285; Plaster, SOG, 317; Headquarters, Department of the Army, Silver Star citation for David I. Mixter, March 30, 1972; Gene McCarthy, ed., Special Operations Association (Paducah, KY: Turner, 2005), 83–84.
drive to the camp: Schemmer, The Raid, 57–59.
outskirts of their own capital: Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 63–64.
“… just what they’d do”: Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 83.
hiccups and opportunities: William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995), 326–327.
whole rehearsal again: Schemmer, The Raid, 91.
“… ‘They’re still there’”: Ibid., 147.
intruded from the west: John Gargus, The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 120–132, 277–279; Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options, 55–57.
“… cells in a minute”: Schemmer, The Raid, 168.
meaning no prisoners: Gargus, Son Tay Raid, 202–203.
nearby Black River: Earl H. Tilford Jr., Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 (Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1992), 104; Jerry L. Thigpen, The Praetorian STARShip: The Untold Story of the Combat Talon (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2001), 157.
other a gunshot wound: Chinnery, Any Time, Any Place, 203–206.
brief history of the Green Berets: US Army John F. Kennedy Center, “Multipurpose Force Study,” II-5.
as much North Vietnamese traffic as ever: Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 158.
more than one hundred times the friendly casualties: Charles F. Reske, ed., MAC-V-SOG Command History, Annex B, 1971–1972, vol. 1 (Sharon Center, OH: Alpha Press, 1990), 10–11; Plaster, SOG, 340.
Admiral Elmo Zumwalt: Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1942–1976 (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2006), 479; Susan Marquis, Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 38–39.
CHAPTER 6: JSOC AND SOCOM
parachute, helicopter, and boat: David W. Hogan Jr., Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992), 198–201.
his past sins: Eric L. Haney, Inside Delta Force: The Story of America
’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (New York: Delacorte, 2002), 79, 207–209.
locksmiths, electricians, and climbers: Charlie Beckwith and Donald Knox, Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 112–117; Michael Lee Lanning, Blood Warriors: American Military Elites (New York: Ballantine, 2002), 129–130.
at year’s end: Rod Lenahan, Crippled Eagle: A Historical Perspective of U.S. Special Operations, 1976–1996 (Charleston, SC: Narwhal, 1998), 8–9; Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 108–110.
exacting standards: Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 139–140.
contact Meyer’s office: Ibid., 153–156.
wearing fatigues and boots: Haney, Inside Delta Force, 13.
eliminated from contention: Ibid., 35–36; Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 136.
shooter had hit: Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 158–159.
contempt for the white American male: Mark Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), 224–225; Lenahan, Crippled Eagle, 25–30.
overland phase of the operation: Alan Hoe, The Quiet Professional: Major Richard J. Meadows of the U.S. Army Special Forces (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 147–160; Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 126–128; Daniel P. Bolger, Americans at War, 1975–1986: An Era of Violent Peace (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988), 114–115.
calm and at ease: Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 4.
“… step-by-step rundown”: Hamilton Jordan, Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), 256.
“We certainly are”: Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options, 139; Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 8.
“… my many questions”: Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2013), 517.
bags of blood: Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah, 433; Jerry L. Thigpen, The Praetorian STARShip: The Untold Story of the Combat Talon (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2001), 213–214.
