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(More customer reviews)Code Name Bright Light is a fascinating and highly revealing look into rescue operations in Vietnam performed under the auspices of the Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC) during the longest war ever fought by the United States.
In a six year period, more than 125 rescue operations would be launched to recover U.S. prisoners of war. Attempts to retrieve U.S. servicemen would also be tried by ransoms and prisoner exchanges. The latter methods were minimally successful at best due to the dismal cooperation from the North Vietnamese government and their unwillingness to recognize humanitarian overtures. The actual rescue attempts themselves were outstanding examples of bravery, courage, and audacity in the most harrowing of situation but were also mired in endless problems.
Rescue teams would suffer the indignity of inter-service rivalries and competition, mediocre intelligence information, numerous bureaucratic breakdowns, compromised missions, and bad luck in many cases. Much of this would lead to slow response times to initiate raids on POW compounds which in turn produced many near misses when trying to extricate POW's. On countless occasions, rescue personnel would assault POW camps only to find that prisoners and camp cadre had relocated to new areas only hours before. Although some missions conducted were successful, they would also be bittersweet at the same time. The JPRC teams, during their tenure in Vietnam, were able to rescue hundreds of South Vietnamese POW's but were unsuccessful in ever freeing any living Americans held in confinement.
Leaving no stone unturned, geographically speaking, George J. Veith covers the entire spectrum of Vietnam regarding rescue efforts with serious emphasis placed on Laos which has always been, and continues to be today, highly controversial concerning Americans that are missing in action in that country. In addition, Code Name Bright Light uncovers further high profile operations and rescue missions such as the Son Tay POW camp raid, Operation Thunderhead, the Bat-21 incident, and the notorious Lima Site 85 in Laos.
George J. Veith has composed a meticulous and brilliant narrative in Code Name Bright Light which probably deserves recognition for being one of the finest books ever written about the Vietnam war. For those interested in this subject matter, this book is immensely satisfying and comes highly recommended.
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