A CIA report completed in 1968 found similarly: The war and the bombing have eroded the North Vietnamese economy, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign aid. However, because the country...
The final toll of the Battle of Hue numbers well over ten thousand, making it by far the bloodiest of the Vietnam War.
What mattered in combat, what really mattered, was not only understanding why you asked men to risk their lives, but making them understand. Men would willingly risk their lives, but they needed to kn...
They had traveled the world, to Korea, Thailand, Central America ... they knew each other better than most brothers did.
Soldiering was about fighting. It was about killing people before they killed you. It was about having your way by force and guile in a dangerous world, taking a shit in the woods, living in dirty, di...
Richard Nixon was elected president mendaciously promising not victory, but a secret plan to bring the war to an honorable end. The secret plan prolonged the conflict seven more years, spreading miser...
Nearly everyone had a father or uncles who had fought in World War II or Korea, or both, and many had grandfathers who had fought in World War I. War was stitched deep in the idea of manhood.
McRaven’s thesis, which would become part of the curriculum at the Naval Postgraduate School, set out the core concept of special ops: that a small, well-trained force can deliver a decisive blow agai...
General Garrison assembled all of the men for a memorial service, and captured their feelings of sadness, fear, and resolve with the famous martial speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V: Whoever does not...
Beware of men with theories that explain everything. Trust those who approach the world with humility and cautious insight. The
A secret Rand Corporation study for the Pentagon had concluded in 1966 that while the bombing had caused widespread hardship and even food shortages in the North, there is, however, no evidence of cri...
His days were reduced to trying to stay alive and not to disgrace himself.
Attacks. George Romney, the governor of Michigan and a Republican candidate for president, told newspaper editors, If what we have seen in the past week is a Viet Cong failure, then I hope they never...
Vivá Colombia! We have just killed Pablo Escobar!
Victory was for those willing to fight and die. Intellectuals could theorize until they sucked their thumbs right off their hands, but in the real world, power still flowed from the barrel of a gun.
Two hundred and fifty American marines and soldiers were killed, and 1,554 wounded.75 Another 458 ARVN soldiers were killed and an estimated 2,700 wounded. The Front’s losses are estimated to have bee...
The upbeat DHS report was some kind of high-water mark for government gall—a tough record to beat. After sitting back and watching the Cabal do all the work, and nearly succeed, Uncle Sam finally foun...
The Internet promised a truly global egalitarian age. That was the idea, anyway. The international and unstructured nature of the thing was vital to these early Internet idealists. If knowledge is pow...
The Americans had a wide range of feelings about it, but there is no question about their bravery and patriotism. In the worst days of this fight, facing the near certainty of death or severe bodily h...
Sometimes the fate of an entire nation can hinge on the integrity of one man.