Shadow Warriors: Inside The Special Forces (Commander Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Having spent a chunk of my 12-year military career in and around Special Ops, I looked forward to reading this book. And as a continual student of unconventional warfare, I was expecting the book to be a detailed history of Special Forces, peppered with stories and detail from Stiner, someone who had obviously "been there, done that". It is not.
The subtitle of the book is "Inside the Special Forces", and it is very misleading. Early in the book, some of the history of the Jedburghs and the OSS is given, but the book soon turns into a memoir for Stiner, with Clancy giving a few explanations here and there, and basically heaping his stamp of approval and admiration on the material written by Stiner.
That's pretty much about all there is to the book. As far as the material goes, Stiner was on the inside during Just Cause, and so he presents an extremely glossed over and sanitized version of events. Anyone who was in or studying the military during that time knows that Just Cause was the epitome of a "charlie foxtrot" operation that barely came off. Special operations guys were used as shock troops and some of them - among them a platoon of Navy SEALs - were killed because the 'regular' military didn't know how to use them. He barely mentions this. Stiner was far enough away from the action not to have his career sacrificed by the fallout from Just Cause, so he gets to tell the story of how the military reorganized it's Special Operations Forces after that time. He had a part in that, so for that I guess the book is useful.
All in all, don't be fooled into thinking that the book is as advertised. A few tidbits of useful information are presented here, but not anything that isn't easily found elsewhere. Obviously Stiner is a mover and shaker, and deserves all the respect he commands, but I think it's too bad he felt he had to conceal his memoir in this book. I would have read his story if it was published seperately, but I guess if you could get Clancy to front for you, this makes a great deal of sense.
I'm a huge Clancy fan, fiction and non-fiction, but it's obvious he phoned this one in. Too bad.

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Operation Pseudo Miranda: A Veteran of the CIA Drug Wars Tells All Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an interesting story by a G. Gordon Liddy / Oliver North type individual. A man who is on the government payroll, breaks the law, and considers himself some sort of "American hero". He claims to be on the front lines of the drug war, yet he admits to taking air dropped deliveries of cocaine in the U.S Southwestern desert. He says he resents the fact that good Americans are risking their lives to keep idiotic Americans from snorting cocaine. After a party with Pablo Escobar him and his team members fly to New Orleans to party for Mardi Gras. Our hero Bucchi is very drunk in a hotel room and he takes out a bag of cocaine - a little souvenier from the party with Pablo Escobar. He is about to take a snort to find out why some people like cocaine when one of his team members walks in the room and says, "Don't do it. You'll become just like them." Bucchi is just like them. His strategy to combat the cocaine trade is to help the drug lords smuggle cocaine via Panama into the U.S. After the drug lords become rich with the help of the U.S. government, they will retire from the business and the cocaine trade will just disappear. It sounds ridiculous to the reader but Bucchi expresses very little doubt about what he is doing. After Iran Contra, CIA Director William Casey cancels Operation Pseedo Miranda, Bucchi enters the Air Force, talks about some of his drug smuggling adventures, and is judged to be mentally incompetent (insane) by the Air Force. That is certainly an affront to his ego and we get this book.

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Fighting to Leave: The Final Years of America's War in Vietnam, 1972-1973 Review

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(More customer reviews)Colonel Stoffey played a number of roles during 3 tours in Vietnam; helicopter pilot, Forward Air Controller in OV-10s and finally as Air Officer and Assistant Amphibious Warfare Officer on the staff of Commander, 7th Fleet. His experience makes him uniquely qualified to cover the final years the US involvement in the war, and he does not disappoint. As "the" Marine in the 7th Fleet Command element, he was able to see, participate in and evaluate the outcomes of every important action, whether by air, ground or sea, involving the South Vietnamese, US Navy, Air Force, Marine or Army in the desperate days as American forces were withdrawing almost totally from ground combat, leaving only the air and naval forces to prosecute the war with our Vietnamese allies. He gives a grunt's eye view of the furious battles fought as the North Vietnamese invaded through the DMZ and down the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the final months before the Cease Fire was signed in January 1973. His close relationship with the 7th Fleet commanders and the many staff officers from all services gives significant insight into the decision making by senior service leaders, DoD officials and Military Command Authority as these decisions drove military action, or sometimes inaction. The author is honest in his assessments of these key players, warts and all. Much of what is related here is going to be new to the readers of the Vietnam experience, carefully revealing strategies and tactics heretofore known only to those who where there. This is a book that has a good balance between the personal and sometimes painful narrative of a true warrior and the broader view of an unfolding tragedy as the seeds of ultimate failure by the government of South Vietnam to remain independent are sown. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Vietnam War.

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Perhaps more vexing than any part of the Vietnam War--Americas longest--was getting out. This book offers a chronicle of those last difficult years, 1972 and 1973, that is at once a detailed and thorough overview and at the same time a vividly personal account. The year 1972 found Marine Corps pilot Robert E. Stoffey beginning his third combat tour in Vietnam. After flying 440 combat missions out of Da Nang and Marble Mountain Airfields in South Vietnam (and being shot down twice) between 1965 and 1970, Stoffey was in a unique position to judge the United States changed strategy. From the vantage point of the USS Oklahoma City, he fought--and observed--the critical and complex last two years of the war as Marine Air Officer and Assistant Amphibious Warfare Officer on the staff of the Commander, Seventh Fleet. As the South Vietnamese battled for survival against the onslaught from the Communist North Vietnamese Army, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, afloat in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea, was a significant supporting force. With the U.S. Navys mining of North Vietnams waterways, concentrated shore bombardments, and air attacks, this sea power was instrumental in leading to the negotiated end of the war and return of our POWs. This is the story that Robert Stoffey tells in his firsthand account of how the Vietnam War finally ended and what it took to get our POWs home.

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The Generals' War : The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf Review

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(More customer reviews)The authors provide interesting, behind-the-scenes accounts of the political and military players in this war, based on many interviews. What unfolds is far different from what was said publicly at the time.Occasionally, the New York Times reporter's and the retired Marine's apparent biases show through, detracting from an otherwise very good book. They seem to blame President Reagan's administration for not buying mine-clearing equipment for the Marines and the Navy, but then blame the Air Force--and not the administration--for using its money to buy items other than the latest survival radios for its aircrews. They also inaccurately claim that the Air Force developed a new doctrine for this war where they would be in charge of all theater airpower (a doctrinal concept developed by them during the North African campaign in World War II) and that the Strategic Air Command had controlled the B-52s deployed to Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam War (they actually were operationally controlled by the Theater), as well as a few other inaccurate items regarding the Air Force. It became rather apparent that all Services that were not Marines (and to a lesser extent, Navy) were denigrated. An example is their claim that the Air Force required that friendly aircraft obtain two means to verify an unknown aircraft's identification before firing on it in order to hold down the Navy's 'kill' rate (since the Navy had not invested in the systems to install two separate means of identification on each of their aircraft, they needed to contact the AWACS to obtain the second means). The Viet Nam War demonstrated this requirement and for whatever reason, the Navy had not addressed it in the interim--which the authors evidently refused to say. After summarizing what the politicians and military should do differently next time (after acknowledging that the media's outcry that the military had created killing zones north of Kuwait City partially caused the premature ending of the war), they also conveniently omitted a recommendation on what the media should do differently. Although the items cited above and a few similar ones throughout the book are distracting and cast some doubt on the entire book, their documented sources were sufficient (approximately one per page) to make them generally believable. I would recommend the book to anyone wanting to know what occurred behind the scenes, with a caution that it should be read critically and not be used as the reader's only source.

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Destined For Glory Review

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(More customer reviews)The thrilling twists and turns are what make this book a wonderful read. I wasn't able to put it down!

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Carlos Aguilar, possesses an inborn sense of duty unending devotion to his father and an unstoppable yearning for freedom. The son of a German Luftwaffe pilot, escapes from Germany at the height of WWII, he arrives in Cuba, where he matures into a man. After the revolution triumphs Carlos becomes a pilot in the newly reformed Cuban air force. When Captain Aguilar becomes disillusioned with Castro's communist leanings, he realizes that he is unable to change the system from the inside; Aguilar defects to the United States. After interrogation by security, Aguilar is granted political asylum. He takes part in the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. After, Carlos returns to the United States. At this time in his life, he falls in love; filling Carlos' soul with the love he has always longed for. Aguilar becomes a prime target of the Cuban government as a result of Castro's humiliation, stemming from Aguilar's defection to America; the Cuban dictatorship orders his assassination.

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