Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

10

A statue to Dick Meadows, another legendary Special Forces soldier, was also recently placed at Fort Bragg, not far from Simons's.

11

The CIA and Special Forces worked very closely in Laos, and later in the early days of the war in South Vietnam. The association is natural. From time to time, Special Forces have been an action arm of the Agency. On the other hand, the association has raised suspicions. As has been noted here, some in the 'big' Army, for instance, fear that Special Forces are not 'real' Army but some kind of rogue or private Army. The association with the CIA does not ease those fears.

12

In his book To Move a Nation, Roger Hilsman reports that Bill Yarborough was considered for this job but was too junior and too connected with unconventional operations to gain Army backing.

13

When Carl Stiner arrived in Vietnam a few years later, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was the main threat — not the VC.

14

Tear gas. When the drums hit the ground, they would burst and spread the powdery gas. It would remain inert until disturbed.

15

MIKE Forces were handpicked, specially trained, quick-reaction forces modeled along the lines of U.S. Army Ranger units. Each unit had about fifteen hundred men and an advisory detachment of twelve to fifteen U.S. and Australian Special Forces members. Each field force/corps area had its own MIKE Force. The first one to be trained was comprosed of Chinese Nungs, recruited for their fighting ability, but due to the shortage of Nung recruits, practically all other MIKE Forces were manned by volunteers from Vietnamese Army Ranger units.

16

For a fuller description of MACVSOG activities, see the recent and excellent The Secret War Against Hanoi, by Richard H. Schultz, Jr., HarperCollins, 1999.

17

The Secret War Against Hanoi, p. 240.

18

Operational tempo — A measure of the total demands placed on a military unit, typically the number of days per year the unit is deployed away from its home base or station.

19

In 1975, the Cambodians captured the freighter Mayaguez and held its crew hostage. In response, the United States mounted a major rescue operation, made up of a Navy carrier task force, Marines, and Navy and Air Force special operations forces. Two hundred Marines, plus helicopters, made an assault on Koh Tang Island, off the Cambodian coast, where the hostages were being held. The assault failed — as a result of intelligence, communications, and command failures — and the Marines had to be withdrawn, after losing fifteen KIA, three MIA, and most of their helicopters.

20

More accurately, he was proposing to resurrect STRICOM, which had been REDCOM's predecessor in the '70s and had had some contingency/strike responsibilities in places like Africa. When REDCOM was created on the bones of STRICOM, these capabilities were removed.

21

Bartholomew returned to Washington to become a principal deputy in the State Department. Rumsfeld is now the Secretary of Defense.

22