Sitting cross-legged on the rug, puffing on a pipe, wearing a fat gold Rolex on his wrist, Khamenei asked the colonel, If we were to release all of you now, without any conditions, how long would it b...
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...
In April 1967, Johnson had dispatched General Creighton Abrams to Vietnam as Westy’s deputy. Abrams, a famous tank commander in World War II, had more combat experience than any other officer in the u...
He knew the sound of an AK-47. It made a high-pitched, more mechanical crack than the American rifle, the M16, which made a deeper, rounder sort of pop.
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...
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...
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.
Leadership was partly showmanship, and Westy neglected no means of projecting confidence, strength, and moxie.
It was terribly risky, maybe even hopeless. But one or two properly armed, well-trained soldiers could hold off an undisciplined mob indefinitely. Shughart and Gordon were experts at killing and stayi...
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and...
And yet these Americans, with their helicopters and laser-guided weapons and shock-troop Rangers were going to somehow sort it out in a few weeks? Arrest Aidid and make it all better? They were trying...
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...
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...
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.
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 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...
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...
Beware of men with theories that explain everything. Trust those who approach the world with humility and cautious insight. The
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...