Bill Shanahan was troubled by his line company duty in Vietnam: whenever his unit went on patrol, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong could hear them coming. His unit didn't have a chance against an enemy that quietly emerged from the jungle like ghosts-and just as quickly disappeared. Shanahan wanted a better way to fight . . and to stay alive. And so, just four months after he arrived in Vietnam in 1968, he joined the LRPs (Long Range Patrol).The...

Set on retaking the Philippines ever since his ignominious flight from the islands in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur needed a first-rate intelligence-gathering unit. Out of thousands, only 138 men were chosen: the best, toughest, and most fit men the army had to offer. Their task: silently slip onto Japanese-held islands, stalk through the thick jungles, and assess enemy locations, conditions, morale, and troop strength, all while remaining undetected....

The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was a highly classified, multi-service United States Special Forces unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War. The unit conducted strategic reconnaissance missions in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, carried out the capture of enemy prisoners, rescued downed pilots, and conducted rescue operations...

On his second combat tour, Nick Brokhausen served in Recon Team Habu, CCN. This unit was part of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group), or Studies and Observations Group as it was innocuously called. The small recon companies that were the center of its activities conducted some of the most dangerous missions of the war, infiltrating areas controlled by the North Vietnamese in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The...

"In November 1968, 20-year-old Norman W. VanCor, a Recon Marine, would step off a Continental Airlines plane onto the tarmac in Da Nang, South Viet Nam and travel to Quang Tri on the bed of a 6-by truck, through mud and torrential rain. Quang Tri, the base camp and headquarters of Third Marine Division, Third Reconnaissance Battalion, Charlie Company, Team 2, would be his new home. This story chronicles VanCor's missions into the jungle with his...

Four American soldiers set out on the grueling ascent of an Italian mountainside in the closing days of World War II. Haunted by their evil sergeant's cold-blooded murder of a young woman and with only an old Italian man of uncertain loyalties as their guide.