Special Forces at War PDF Download

Author: Shelby L. Stanton
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 9780760334492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
This magnificent collection of photographs, which are accompanied by detailed captions and year-by-year chapter overviews, depicts for the first time the entire spectrum of Special Forces warfare in Southeast Asia.

Author: James Stejskal
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1612004458
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, “one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history” (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.

Author: Leigh Neville
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472813510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A fascinating insight into US and Coalition Special Forces operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Mali. Within weeks of 9/11, United States Special Operations Forces were dropping into Afghanistan to lead the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. For over a decade, special forces have been fighting a hidden war in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia, Mali and Afghanistan, facing off against a range of insurgents from organisations like al Qaeda, al Shabaab, Boko Haram and the Taliban. Leigh Neville draws on recently declassified material and first-hand-accounts from his SOF contacts to lift the veil of secrecy from these operations, giving an unprecedented blow-by-blow description of major Special Forces operations, culminating in SEAL Team 6's Operation Neptune Spear and the killing of Osama bin Laden. Detailing the special equipment, tactics, machinery and training that these Special Operatives received and used this impressive volume shows how the world's elite soldiers fought against overwhelming odds around the world.

Author: Chris Lynch
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545861632
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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"All the sizzle, chaos, noise and scariness of war is clay in the hands of ace storyteller Lynch." -- Kirkus Reviews for the World War II series Discover the secret missions behind America's greatest conflicts.Danny Manion has been fighting his entire life. Sometimes with his fists. Sometimes with his words. But when his actions finally land him in real trouble, he can't fight the judge who offers him a choice: jail... or the army.Turns out there's a perfect place for him in the US military: the Studies and Observation Group (SOG), an elite volunteer-only task force comprised of US Air Force Commandos, Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS, and even a CIA agent or two. With the SOG's focus on covert action and psychological warfare, Danny is guaranteed an unusual tour of duty, and a hugely dangerous one. Fortunately, the very same qualities that got him in trouble at home make him a natural-born commando in a secret war. Even if almost nobody knows he's there.National Book Award finalist Chris Lynch begins a new, explosive fiction series based on the real-life, top-secret history of US black ops.

Author: Tom Clancy
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101127422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
They are sent to the world's hot spots-on covert missions fraught with danger. They are called on to perform at the peak of their physical and mental capabilities, primed for combat and surveillance, yet ready to pitch in with disaster relief operations. They are the Army's Special Forces Groups. Now follow Tom Clancy as he delves into the training and tools, missions and mindset of these elite operatives. Special Forces includes: The making of Special Forces personnel: recruitment and training A rare look at actual Special Forces Group deployment Exercises Tools of the trade: weapons, communications and sensor equipment, survival gear Roles and missions: a mini-novel illustrates a probable scenario of Special Forces intervention Exclusive photographs, illustrations and diagrams Plus: an interview with General Hugh Shelton, USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and the former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command-USSOCOM)

Author: Jessica Donati
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541762576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A Wall Street Journal national security reporter takes readers into the lives of frontline U.S. special operations troops fighting to keep the Taliban and Islamic State from overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in the final years of the war in Afghanistan. A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “Powerful, important, and searing." —General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (ret.), former commander, U.S. Central Command, former CIA director In 2015, the White House claimed triumphantly that “the longest war in American history” was over. But for some, it was just the beginning of a new war, fought by Special Operations Forces, with limited resources, little governmental oversight, and contradictory orders. With big picture insight and on-the-ground grit, Jessica Donati shares the stories of the impossible choices these soldiers must make. After the fall of a major city to the Taliban that year, Hutch, a battle-worn Green Beret on his fifth combat tour was ordered on a secret mission to recapture it and inadvertently called in an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing dozens. Caleb stepped on a bomb during a mission in notorious Sangin. Andy was trapped with his team during a raid with a crashed Black Hawk and no air support. Through successive policy directives under the Obama and Trump administrations, America came to rely almost entirely on US Special Forces, and without a long-term plan, failed to stabilize Afghanistan, undermining US interests both at home and abroad. Eagle Down is a riveting account of the heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy experienced by those that fought America’s longest war.

Author: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062333836
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country’s cause In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.

Author: Ed Evanhoe
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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With the historian's eye for detail and context and the novelist's ken for an exciting story, Ed Evanhoe captures the seat-of-the-pants evolution of a motley group of Americans and Britons. Larger-than-life characters, they came from the U.S. military and the OSS, from the British Special Air Service and Jedburghs. Evanhoe lets the reader in on their training with Korean volunteers and their movement north, overland and by boat and parachute as well as in the first helicopter operations. Their unorthodox procedures, weapons, and tactics, he shows, led to great successes and tragic mistakes, both of which are examined in this warts-and-all approach.

Author: Shelby L. Stanton
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
ISBN: 1610601343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
“A rare insider’s experience paired with a scholarly historical approach, making it an essential standout for any military library.” —Midwest Book Review More than 8.7 million Americans reported for military duty in Southeast Asia, but only a select few wore the Green Beret, the distinctive symbol of the U.S. Army Special Forces. These elite soldiers played a crucial role during the protracted conflict. Special Forces at War: an Illustrated History, Southeast Asia 1957–1975 by wartime veteran and military historian Shelby L. Stanton shows Special Forces’ activity from the first deployments of Green Berets into battle, through their training, wartime advisory, border surveillance, strike force, and special operations roles. Unprecedented in scope, this photographic history features rare and unpublished images, providing an exclusive, insider view of covert activities such as Project Delta, whose Special Forces-trained Vietnamese commandos posed as North Vietnamese Army or Viet Cong troops behind communist lines. It depicts Special Forces’ camps before, during, and after enemy assaults. It features an array of lethal weapons used by resourceful Green Berets fighting to preserve their remote outposts, as well as allied and enemy documents and propaganda. From ordinary camp life to special missions, no aspect of Special Forces activities during the Second Indochina War has been overlooked. Stanton knows his subject first hand. During six years of active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, he served as a paratrooper platoon leader, an airborne ranger advisor to the Royal Thai Army Special Warfare Center, and a Special Forces long-range reconnaissance team commander in Southeast Asia before being wounded in combat in Nam Yu, Laos.

Author: Samuel A. Southworth
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786730811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
President George W. Bush has told all Americans that the war against terrorism would be like no other war. But what does this mean? Who will fight? How will they fight? What weapons will be used? Most informed commentators agree that the war against terrorism will be fought largely by "special forces"—that is, by a relatively new community within the American military known as Special Operations Forces, or SOF's. This new "branch" of the armed forces was created in the mid–1980s and is organized under its own unified command, called U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Consisting of special units from the other branches of the armed forces, such as Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, and Delta Force, this new fighting command is recognized internationally as the most well-trained and well-equipped special operations force in the world. Their missions are varied—including combat terrorism, search and rescue, reconnaissance, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping duty, and conventional and unconventional warfare.Despite special forces' international reputation for excellence, Americans know little about this remarkable fighting force. U.S. Special Forces provides a handy and comprehensive compendium, including descriptions of the units and their operational specialties, training, and organization, as well as the equipment and technological gadgetry, weapons, armor, planes, helicopters, and support vehicles used by each unit.