Black Man Green Beret is an American story, a semi-autobiography of a man born in the ghettos of the South Bronx and raised on the mean streets of Harlem, in New York City. Experienced homelessness, became a NCO in the military, graduated the U.S. Army's Special Forces Weapons Sergeant "Q Course," and eventually became a master level military instructor who wrote Infantry Battle Doctrine for the U.S. Army. Traveled to over 30 countries around the world, including sites in the middle east; the Great Pyramids of Egypt, swam the Red Sea, climbed Moses Mountain and saw the actual Burning Bush. A Retired Military Combat Veteran, who then served almost seven more years in Iraq on the U.S. State Department's (DoS) WPPS/WPS HTP program in a extremely high threat environment culminating with his successful service on the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq's Personal Protection Detail (APD).
The shocking and affecting memoir from a gold-star widow searching for the truth behind her Green Beret husband's death, this book bears witness to the true sacrifices made by military families. When Green Beret Bryan Black was killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017, his wife Michelle saw her worst nightmare become a reality. She was left alone with her grief and with two young sons to raise. But what followed Bryan's death was an even more difficult journey for the young widow. After receiving very few details about the attack that took her husband's life, it was up to Michelle to find answers. It became her mission to learn the truth about that day in Niger--and Sacrifice is the result of that mission. In this heartbreaking and revelatory memoir, Michelle uses exclusive interviews with the survivors of her husband's unit, research into the military leadership and accountability, and her own unique vantage point as a gold-star widow to tell a previously unknown story. Sacrifice is both an honest, emotional look inside a military marriage and a searing investigation of the people and decisions at the heart of the US military.
The author of an award-winning memoir about growing up black in Mississippi, Chalmers Archer turns his attention in this book to his experiences as one of the first members of the U.S. Army's Special Forces. His perspective is unique, not only as one of the first to wear the Green Beret but as a black man in the early days of armed forces integration. Archer participated in some of the earliest forays into Laos, long before Southeast Asia was in American headlines, and he was a member of the first U.S. unit to go into Vietnam. He trained the first Special Forces teams of the South Vietnamese army and participated in some of their earliest operations, many of them unknown until now because of their highly classified nature. He saved the lives of the first American and Vietnamese soldiers injured in war and also witnessed the first American combat death in Vietnam, holding the man in his arms as he died. His unit operated alongside the Central Intelligence Agency and helped influence American foreign policy. A self-described soldier-teacher, he developed and spread the early gospel of special warfare while serving in the Philippines, Hawaii, Korea, Taiwan, and Panama, as well as in Southeast Asia. All of these activities are fully chronicled in this book, but Archer's perspective as an African American in an elite unit of the U.S. armed forces in the 1950s gives his memoir additional depth and insight. It is an uplifting--though sometimes harrowing--story of struggle in unfamiliar environments and an eye-opening account of events little known today.
Richard J. Flaherty's been called spook, assassin, dope smuggler, dwarf... but who was he really? Welcome to the strange and shadowy world of covert ops, cover-ups, conspiracies and the smallest and most unconventional man ever to serve in the US military.
From Beau Wise and Tom Sileo comes Three Wise Men, an incredible memoir of family, service and sacrifice by a Marine who lost both his brothers in combat—becoming the only "Sole Survivor" during the war in Afghanistan. Three Wise Men details the fate of three brothers intertwined when they voluntarily enlisted in defending their homeland after the devastating 9/11 attacks. Their extraordinary tale unfurls the severe toll of the Afghan war, particularly on a single family, underscoring the profound significance of the sacrifice and the indomitable resilience of a family's courage. While serving in Afghanistan, US Navy SEAL veteran and CIA contractor Jeremy Wise was killed in an al Qaeda suicide bombing that devastated the US intelligence community. Less than three years later, US Army Green Beret sniper Ben Wise was fatally wounded after volunteering for a dangerous assignment during a firefight with the Taliban. Ben was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, while Jeremy received the Intelligence Star—one of the rarest awards bestowed by the U.S. government—and also a star on the CIA’s Memorial Wall. The legacy of their sacrifice lives on in Beau Wise's account, the only “Sole Survivor” pulled from the battlefield, forging an enduring testament to the value of loyalty, service, and familial bonds.
The inspiring true story of a US Special Forces soldier who was medically retired after stepping on an IED, and his incredible return to active duty. Sergeant First Class (SFC) Ryan Hendrickson is a brave, determined, and courageous soldier -- a Green Beret clearing the way for his twelve-man team while conducting combat operations against the Taliban. As the "tip of the spear," his role is to ensure the route taken by U.S. and Afghan troops are free of IEDs -- improvised explosive devices. Many soldiers do not survive their last step; those who do often lose at least one limb. While rescuing an Afghan soldier outside a mud-hut compound in 2010 -- knowing that he was in "uncleared" territory -- Ryan stepped on an IED with his right foot. The device exploded, leaving his foot dangling at the end of his leg. American soldiers losing a limb is an all-too-common occurrence. But what makes Ryan's story different is that after undergoing two dozen surgeries and a tortuous rehabilitation, he was medically retired but fought to return to active duty. Multiple skin grafts to his leg and right foot successfully reattached his lower leg, and he was aided in his recovery by wearing a new prosthetic device known as an IDEO (Intrepid Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis). Once he passed a series of crucial physical tests, Ryan was able to rejoin the Green Berets within a year and physically perform his duties, redeploying to Afghanistan in March 2012. In 2016, he volunteered to return to Afghanistan with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group. During a firefight with the Taliban, he risked his life under heavy enemy fire to rescue three Afghan soldiers cut off from friendly forces and return the bodies of two dead Afghan soldiers under the ethos that "no one gets left behind." For his heroic efforts on the battlefield, SFC Ryan Hendrickson was awarded a Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for valor. An engaging and harrowing account, Tip of the Spear tells the amazing story of one Green Beret's indomitable spirit.
The rough-and-tumble life of Special Forces vet and Sixties pop star Barry Sadler The top Billboard Hot 100 single of 1966 wasn’t “Paint It Black” or “Yellow Submarine”--it was “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” a hyper-patriotic tribute to the men of the Special Forces by Vietnam vet Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler. But Sadler’s clean-cut, all-American image hid a darker side, a Hunter Thompson-esque life of booze, girls, and guns. Unable to score another hit song, he wrote articles for Soldier of Fortune and pulp novels that made “Rambo look like a stroll through Disneyland.” He killed a lover’s ex-boyfriend in Tennessee. Settling in Central America, Sadler ran guns, allegedly trained guerrillas, provided medical care to residents, and caroused at his villa. In 1988 he was shot in the head by a robber on the streets of Guatemala and died a year later. This life-and-times biography of an American character recounts the sensational details of Sadler’s life vividly but soberly, setting his meteoric rise and tragic fall against the big picture of American society and culture during and after the Vietnam War.
The perfect home-reference book for both seasoned outdoorsmen and average citizens to learn comprehensive outdoor survival techniques. This practical survival guide from U.S. Special Forces Captain and outdoor survival expert Mykel Hawke includes illustrated instruction on: shelter and water food and fire tools and medicine navigation and signaling survival psychology Hawke's engaging style and matter-of-fact attitude-not to mention his incredible resume in the survival arena-elevates this book above its competition.
The first-person account of how a small band of Green Berets used horses and laser-guided missiles to overthrow the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11. They landed in a dust storm so thick the chopper pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. They were met by a band of heavily armed militiamen who didn’t understand a word they said. They climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They saved babies and treated fevers, trekked through minefields, and waded through booby-trapped streams—sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who’d shared food with them hours before. They found their enemy hiding in thick concrete bunkers, dodged bullets from machine-gun-laden pickup trucks, and survived ambushes launched with Russian tanks. They fought back with everything they had, from smart bombs to AK-47s. They overthrew a government, mediated blood feuds between rival commanders, and argued with generals and politicians thousands of miles away. The men they helped called them gods. One of their commanders called them devils. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.
