Sog: Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam

by John L. Plaster

Overview

“The most comprehensive examination of widespread covert American actions during the Vietnam War.”—Kirkus Reviews

Code-named the Studies and Observations Group, SOG was the most secret elite U.S. military unit to serve in the Vietnam War—so secret its very existence was denied by the government. Composed entirely of volunteers from such ace fighting units as the Army Green Berets, Air Force Air Commandos, and Navy SEALs, SOG took on the most dangerous covert assignments, in the deadliest and most forbidding theaters of operation.

Major John L. Plaster, three-tour SOG veteran, shares the gripping exploits of these true American warriors. Here is a minute-by-minute, heartbeat-by-heartbeat account of SOG’s stunning operations behind enemy lines—penetrating heavily defended North Vietnamese military facilities, holding off mass enemy attacks, launching daring missions to rescue downed U.S. pilots. From sabotage to espionage to hand-to-hand combat, these are some of the most extraordinary true stories of honor and heroism in the history of the U.S. military.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451195081
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/28/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	392
Sales rank:	78,259
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.77(h) x 1.07(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Major John L. Plaster is a national authority on sniping, firearms, and special operations, as well as the author of Secret Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines With the Elite Warriors of SOG and SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. He served three tours in the top-secret unconventional warfare group, Studies and Observations Group, in Vietnam. As a long-range reconnaissance leader, he led tiny intelligence-gathering teams behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia before leaving SOG in late 1971. He was decorated for heroism four times and retired from the U.S. Army as a major.

Table of Contents

Maps: SOG's Theater of Operations 12

1 Colby's Secret War 17

2 Shining Brass 29

3 First Blood 43

4 Code Name Bright Light 60

5 Prairie Fire 74

6 Daniel Boone 95

7 SOG's Darh Arts 116

8 Run Through The Jungle 131

9 The Snatchers 154

10 Bloody 68 175

11 A Pale Blue Ribbon 196

12 Through The Loohing Glass 218

13 Daniel Boone Again 232

14 Guns of The Hatchet Forces 251

15 The Searchers 272

16 Fighting Soldiers From The Shy 290

17 SOG Stands Alone 313

Afterword 339

Glossary 343

Bibliography 349

Index 353

Editorial Reviews

Praise for SOG

“Exciting [and] hair-raising...a detailed history of this little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.”—The New York Times

“Superb and compelling.”—Gen. William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army (ret.)

“A magnificent book of enormous power and a milestone in the literature of special operations.”—Col. Robert Howard, Medal of Honor winner, the Vietnam War’s most highly decorated soldier

“Authoritative and insightful…a true insider’s account.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Indispensable.”—Booklist
 
“Engrossing and thoroughly exciting.”—Library Journal

From the Publisher

Plaster (The Ultimate Sniper), a retired Army major, served three tours with the secretive "Studies and Observation Group," aka SOG, during the Vietnam War-a background he has put to good use in this authoritative and insightful look at the now defunct commando unit. Plaster does much to illuminate both this frequently misunderstood group and its extraordinary participants. Made up entirely of volunteers, SOG tackled a wide range of vital and dangerous duties, including missions deep into enemy territory and rescues of downed American pilots. Special Forces veterans in particular will delight in the descriptions of America's old tribal allies, the Montagnards of Vietnam. Specialists in poison-arrow warfare, the primitive "'Yards," Plaster explains, were both fierce fighters and a constant source of wonderment to the Americans. Plaster reveals the core of the relationship between 'Yards and Yanks in a telling anecdote in which two Green Berets win over a village chieftain with the help of some pipes and two cans of Prince Albert tobacco. Elsewhere, on a more somber note, Plaster sheds light on part of the ongoing mystery of POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia. The secretive nature of SOG, he writes, was such that its members were accounted for via a "double bookkeeping" system. The method "proved so confounding that the Pentagon had understated casualties, a fact that became evident when families of MIAs demanded more information." A true insider's account, this eye-opening report will leave readers feeling as if they've been given a hot scoop on a highly classified project. Photos not seen by PW. Military Book Club main selection. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

For all the negative imagery attached to Americans who served in Vietnam, an unbiased and sober review of the historical accounts reveals an astonishing record of valor and sacrifice. Largely unknown outside of military circles, the Studies and Observation Group (SOG) was a U.S. Special Forces detachment formed to penetrate the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to rescue downed airmen. Plaster (Ultimate Sniper, Paladin, 1993), a veteran of three tours of duty with SOG, has written the most complete account of the missions to date. Together with their Montagnard and Nung allies, these small-raiding, observation, and rescue parties were inserted within enemy strongholds on uniformly perilous missions. Always outnumbered, SOG volunteers suffered catastrophic casualty rates. They also earned ten Congressional Medals of Honor. Written as a tribute to the memory of fallen comrades, Plaster's narrative is an engrossing and thoroughly exciting account of this unknown aspect of the Vietnam War. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.-John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.

Library Journal

A heavily anecdotal recounting of the covert, behind-enemy- lines operations undertaken by American special forces during the height of the war in Vietnam.

Retired US Army Maj. Plaster served for three years as a Studies and Observation Group (SOG) commando in Southeast Asia. His book is a combat-heavy, laudatory accounting of the SOG's little- known role in the Vietnam War. From 1964 to 1971, SOG teams, made up of specially trained American volunteers (mainly Green Berets) and South Vietnamese hill tribesmen (known as Montagnards), took part in hundreds of combat, reconnaissance, and rescue missions in North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Plaster tells this story with a minimal amount of historical background, relying heavily on detailed recreation of individual SOG missions. Those action-filled accounts are based on the author's personal war-zone experiences and on interviews he conducted with dozens of former SOG operatives. Plaster writes about successful and failed missions, but accentuates the positive in assessing SOG's impact on the war. SOG "logged a combat record unequaled in U.S. history," Plaster claims. He cites the number of medals the SOG units earned; the vast amount of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) arms and materiel the teams captured or destroyed; the valuable information they provided on NVA troop locations and movements; the courageous rescues of downed American pilots; and the large number of NVA soldiers killed by the teams and by American bombers using information provided by SOG. The teams' ratio of 150:1 enemy kills, Plaster says, "was the highest documented kill ratio of any American unit in the war, exceeding the average by a factor of ten, and quite likely is the highest such ratio in U.S. history."

Although short on documentation, this is the most comprehensive examination of widespread covert American actions during the Vietnam War.

Kirkus Reviews