The Green Berets.

I received a completely different book

A classic book that everyone should read. Having grown up watching John Wayne in The Green Berets and listening to Barry Saddler sing "Put silver wings on my son's chest..." I should have read this book 30+ years ago. Many parallels to today's conflict in the Middle East. It's amazing how little has changed.

This book is a classic. Set in Vietnam, Robin Moore was one of the first people to expose America to the horrors of the Vietnam war. You get to see America's soldiers fighting and braving these nightmarish war. Pick up this, and The Secret Wars of the Green Berets

The new edition of Robin Moore's Vietnam War era classic "The Green Berets" is as timely and relevant today as it was when it was published over forty years ago. What is amazing is that the problems faced by the Green Berets in Vietnam described by Moore are the very same problems faced by our soldiers today in the War on Terror. These include the problems of corrupt local soldiers, relegious differences and the ago old cultural clash between the conventional military mindset and the unconventional warrior. If one changed the locations names from Vietnam to Iraq the stroeis would be ripped from today's headlines. The new edition also contains materials which were not in the original edition. It was also enjoyable to read the various stories which conributed elements to the John Wayne movie which was based on the book. The book is well worth your time.

In 1965, when I first read this book, I believed most of it because I didn't know any difference. During Infantry OCS (Officer Candidate School), I read it again as a book-report (1966) and did not believe any of it...any at all. Then on the flight back, after spending 13 months in Southeast Asia as a Special Forces officer, I read it again. The book is true...completely true. As a-matter-of-fact, it actually left out some of the things we experieced and the "politics" we had to deal with, but what he told in the book was true. Robin Moore holds our respect for what he had to accomplish (at his age) in order to write this factual book. We loved the book and laughed at the movie. Understand that Special Forces, at that time, were very different from Special Forces today. Remember, we were the most highly decorated unit in history for a reason. The ones today are great, but they built on our experieces. We were not the "quite professionals"...but we were the "movers and doers" of our time. I add this only because some authors today should recognize this hard-earned fact. H. G. Kidd Ex-Special Forces.

I was blown away that some people did not like this book! I absolutely loved it! Before you begin reading it you must put it in the context of the time it was written. This is a book written before any of our main troops were sent to 'nam and therefore the things we know now are simply hindsite and can not be applied to this book. This book, while called fiction, is the closest you will ever get to truly understanding our most well known and almost mystical special forces group. It details, with fake names due to govt regulations at the time, many Beret missions that were, until lately, highly classified. This book will take you on many missions that seem like they are straight off of a hollywood script...in fact these stories are what created most of those scripts. You will join the berets in battle, deep behind enemy lines and see how they fought before the days when rescue was an artillery shot away. You will love each chapter of this book and it will be a very quick read. Please do yourself the favor, if you have any interest in this subject, of picking up this important book and learning a bit about America's Green Berets!