Force Recon Command - 3rd Force Recon Company in Vietnam, 1969-70

Informationen zum Autor Lt. Col. Alex Lee, USMC (Ret.) Klappentext THE A SHAU VALLEYWHERE THE NVA WAS KING . . . In order to prevent surprise attacks on U.S. forces as they were pulling out of Vietnam, someone had to be able to pinpoint the NVA's movements. That dangerous job was the assignment of then-major Alex Lee and the Marines of the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company when he assumed command in late 1969. They became the tip of the spear for Lt. Gen. Herman Nickerson's III MAF. And each time one of Lee's small, well-motivated, well-led, and wildly outnumbered teams was airlifted into the field, the men never knew if the day would end violently. But whether tracking NVA movements, recovering downed air crews, or making bomb-damage assessments after B-52 strikes, Major Lee's Few Good Men never forgot who they were: Each of them was in Vietnam to live like a Marine, win like a Marine, and, if need be, die like a Marine. Forthright and unabashed, Lieutenant Colonel Lee leaves no controversy untouched and no awe-inspiring tale untold in this gripping account of 3rd Force Recon's self-sacrifice and heroic achievement in the face of overwhelming odds.1 THE SUMMONS   Janice Williams, the youngest, brightest, and hardest-working secretary in our office, was calling me over the loudspeaker. “Major Lee! Mrs. Brown is on line three. She says it’s very, very important.” That cryptic sentence, and the phone call that followed, altered the course of my military career, my personal life, and my view of my personal worth as a man and as a Marine. It also changed the lives of many who were drawn into the chain of events it foreshadowed. The call was important because Mrs. Brown was General Nickerson’s secretary at Marine Corps headquarters, and anything the general might have to say to me would surely matter greatly.   “Herman the German” was beloved by those who performed honorably and professionally, feared by petty-minded half-steppers and tea-sippers who were unable to meet his standards. He was a hard, yet fair, officer who clearly had the power to influence our lives. No thinking Marine would ignore anything that he might say.   Arrival at a point in my life where General Nickerson might call me was the result of a convoluted set of circumstances. Planning never entered into it. Assignment in early 1960 to a dismal tour as guard officer in the California desert at a Marine barracks placed me in close proximity to some of the best scientific minds ever assembled to address military problems. The Marines in that barracks provided security at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake, where the Navy undertook to meld science with operational know-how. When I agreed one day to a request that I look at some scientific ideas and comment on them from an operational viewpoint, a surprising thing happened. I was stolen from the daily grind of guard duty and assigned to a top-secret organization with a most enigmatic name—Weapons Planning Group, Code 121.   This interesting assignment would never have been possible if both of the officers senior to me in the Marine barracks had not been Marine tankers instead of infantrymen. I was an infantry officer, and the brains behind Weapons Planning Group needed a mud Marine, someone they could send out in the dark and the rain, into someone else’s country, to find out the answer to questions posed by the big bosses above them. They opened technology’s door to me, asked that I do some analytical work, and carefully examined my responses. Shortly after that, I was dropped from the muster roll at the Marine barracks, and my records for the next few years did not, in any way, accurately reflect either my whereabouts or my activities.   In 1965, after four years of seeing things from the supposed big picture level, I was fortunate enough to return to the Marine Corps to an operational Fleet Marine Force assignment in the 7th M...

Product details

• Authors: Alex Lee
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 30.09.1996
• EAN: 9780804110235
• ISBN: 978-0-8041-1023-5
• No. of pages: 344
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 169 mm x 22 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political administration