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Whilst Marcinko is no doubt a legend, reading Rogue Warrior should be mitigated by following it up by Gormly's "Combat Swimmer". Gormly inherited the unit after

by crdb 11y ago

Whilst Marcinko is no doubt a legend, reading Rogue Warrior should be mitigated by following it up by Gormly's "Combat Swimmer". Gormly inherited the unit after Marcinko had some issues with his chain of command (whether justified or not, is up to you to decide - we all know Marcinkos) and has his own (or the Navy's?) opinions about the man. Like Kurosawa (Rashomon), it is often better to know more than one point of view... A more balanced account of what it is like to run these kind of units can be found in Beckwith's own "Delta Force" (also consider "The Mission, The Men and Me" by Blaber and "Inside Delta Force" by Haney). The ultimate such unit may have been the Rhodesian Selous Scouts, and whilst Pamwe Chete is out of most people's price range, there are numerous excellent books on the subject. Whether or not you agree with Rhodesian politics, the tiny unit who pulled off Operation Eland and allegedly caused the majority of enemy casualties in the Rhodesian Bush Wars is worth reading about. In the same spirit as Rogue Warrior, check out "The Phantom Major" which chronicles Sir David Stirling's efforts to create what became the SAS. "Mad Mike" Calvert's various books pick up where Stirling allegedly left (some, such as Stiff in "See you in November", claim that Watchman International amongst others was a front for the MI6's black ops, so Stirling never really "retired") and also has some nice stuff about Orde Wingate, another interesting leader (both in results, and as a person) who unfortunately did not survive Burma. On a separate note, in "19 with a bullet", Korff claims that the South African 1 Recce's selection procedure was 8 weeks of walking through the bush with no food except a weekly tin of beans and two slices of toast to share between two, and no weapons or kit. The unit generally sounded very interesting and I'd be grateful if anybody knows of any good books or writings, I personally have not found much.

venomsnake 11y ago
I think the main problem is that after 6's creation the Navy had no idea what they really had on their hands. It was unconventional unit for unconventional missions. That was problem with the first two SEAL teams in Vietnam too where their potential was wasted. Those units should be given clear mission and wide operational freedom, while it seems that the army top brass prefer to have predictable units with undefined mission (WTF is nation building and why and how should the military do it is prime example). The NYTimes article seems to confirm that - a lot of SEAL 6 one shot missions were stellar, while their conventional ones were messy. I would give Gormly's book a shot though.
- crdb 11y ago
  Always slightly embarrassing to comment on these things as a civilian (what do I know)... nevertheless... It was worse than that - the failure of Eagle Claw was due precisely to Delta Force's operating with the help of standard branches, and "not special" logistics. We never found out whether Beckwith's plan was any good as none of the men made it to Tehran, after too many of their helicopters literally crashed on each other on the refuel site. Beckwith was, obviously, incensed at having to cancel his first mission due to other people's incompetence, and began the lobbying process that led to the creation of JSOC in 1980. This allowed for the systematic creation of "special" units in many branches, most famously 160th SOAR and the ISA (which is very important - the Selous Scouts built their own Special Branch in part because of Reid-Daly's personality, but mainly because they found the existing one to be lacking or not quite as cooperative as required). At the risk of creating a simplistic narrative: JSOC grew in scope and power, particularly as COIN (Counter-Insurgency - under which your "nation building" falls - see Col. Gian Gentile's book for a fairly famous critique) was making its way into the Pentagon as the new, happy, less (visible) collateral damage, cheaper, conquer countries cleanly doctrine. So special operation forces went from being strange pariahs operating on the fringes and occasionally shunned by more traditional minded commanders (including, allegedly, Norman Schwartzkopf), to (today) a desirable career passage if one is aiming to collect stars on the collar (McChrystal is a famous example). It's important because it has changed US foreign policy. There is a large, thriving JSOC with direct contact with the President and wars have been renamed "low intensity operations", offering low cost high impact war in neat PowerPoint format. So, gradually, EO 12333, EO 12036 and EO 11905 (respective executive orders by Reagan, Carter and Ford prohibiting assassinations) were selectively relaxed starting in the late 90s. The extent to which this has impacted foreign policy is fuzzy, because anything written recently is of dubious accuracy due to operational security being maintained (should really get on to reading WikiLeaks some day). But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the Green Berets had been resurrected into JSOC as a "grow a cancer in the enemy's land" type force, except more deniable than SOG or the Contras ever were.
CamperBob2 11y ago
Like Kurosawa (Rashomon), it is often better to know more than one point of view... Of course, the theme of Rashomon was that multiple points of view don't necessarily leave you any more knowledgeable than you were before you heard them.
- crdb 11y ago
  I disagree with you somewhat: you ARE more knowledgeable, in that you now know that you cannot be certain of the facts presented by a single source, which itself is information (the information that some of your information is unreliable). This is an early foray into the famous known/unknown quip (in other words, watch out for unknown unknowns). The priest balances the various pieces of information and their uncertainty to make his final moral judgement, and it is more accurate than if he had only heard one of the stories.

by crdb 11y ago

venomsnake 11y ago

I think the main problem is that after 6's creation the Navy had no idea what they really had on their hands. It was unconventional unit for unconventional missions. That was problem with the first two SEAL teams in Vietnam too where their potential was wasted. Those units should be given clear mission and wide operational freedom, while it seems that the army top brass prefer to have predictable units with undefined mission (WTF is nation building and why and how should the military do it is prime example). The NYTimes article seems to confirm that - a lot of SEAL 6 one shot missions were stellar, while their conventional ones were messy. I would give Gormly's book a shot though.

crdb 11y ago
Always slightly embarrassing to comment on these things as a civilian (what do I know)... nevertheless... It was worse than that - the failure of Eagle Claw was due precisely to Delta Force's operating with the help of standard branches, and "not special" logistics. We never found out whether Beckwith's plan was any good as none of the men made it to Tehran, after too many of their helicopters literally crashed on each other on the refuel site. Beckwith was, obviously, incensed at having to cancel his first mission due to other people's incompetence, and began the lobbying process that led to the creation of JSOC in 1980. This allowed for the systematic creation of "special" units in many branches, most famously 160th SOAR and the ISA (which is very important - the Selous Scouts built their own Special Branch in part because of Reid-Daly's personality, but mainly because they found the existing one to be lacking or not quite as cooperative as required). At the risk of creating a simplistic narrative: JSOC grew in scope and power, particularly as COIN (Counter-Insurgency - under which your "nation building" falls - see Col. Gian Gentile's book for a fairly famous critique) was making its way into the Pentagon as the new, happy, less (visible) collateral damage, cheaper, conquer countries cleanly doctrine. So special operation forces went from being strange pariahs operating on the fringes and occasionally shunned by more traditional minded commanders (including, allegedly, Norman Schwartzkopf), to (today) a desirable career passage if one is aiming to collect stars on the collar (McChrystal is a famous example). It's important because it has changed US foreign policy. There is a large, thriving JSOC with direct contact with the President and wars have been renamed "low intensity operations", offering low cost high impact war in neat PowerPoint format. So, gradually, EO 12333, EO 12036 and EO 11905 (respective executive orders by Reagan, Carter and Ford prohibiting assassinations) were selectively relaxed starting in the late 90s. The extent to which this has impacted foreign policy is fuzzy, because anything written recently is of dubious accuracy due to operational security being maintained (should really get on to reading WikiLeaks some day). But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the Green Berets had been resurrected into JSOC as a "grow a cancer in the enemy's land" type force, except more deniable than SOG or the Contras ever were.

CamperBob2 11y ago

Like Kurosawa (Rashomon), it is often better to know more than one point of view... Of course, the theme of Rashomon was that multiple points of view don't necessarily leave you any more knowledgeable than you were before you heard them.

crdb 11y ago
I disagree with you somewhat: you ARE more knowledgeable, in that you now know that you cannot be certain of the facts presented by a single source, which itself is information (the information that some of your information is unreliable). This is an early foray into the famous known/unknown quip (in other words, watch out for unknown unknowns). The priest balances the various pieces of information and their uncertainty to make his final moral judgement, and it is more accurate than if he had only heard one of the stories.