An authorized history of the Parachute regiment and its campaigns since 1941, based on interviews with members of the regiment. It includes an historical survey of parachuting, and is published to coincide with the regiment's 50th anniversary.

As Harry Wilknott stumbles thru life doubting himself, he encounters a riddle in the form of the man in the red beret. Who is he and why has he latched onto Harry? The answers create more riddles until he discovers an even greater riddle. Adriano Meis As a result of two words uttered by a person unknown to him, Harry Wilknott’s sense of himself is severely diminished during one despairing, comic, ironic situation after another. When things seem to improve, only paradox remains. Moe Juste ‘Red Beret’ is a comic look at the personal disasters of Harry Wilknott’s life. When the personal disasters seem to diminish, only paradoxes* appear.’ *a statement that, despite sound reasoning, leads to a conclusion that seems unacceptable and self-contradictory. Dick Fancy

Great Stories in Easy English

An unprecedented view of Green Beret training, drawn from the year Dick Couch spent at Special Forces training facilities with the Army’s most elite soldiers. In combating terror, America can no longer depend on its conventional military superiority and the use of sophisticated technology. More than ever, we need men like those of the Army Special Forces–the legendary Green Berets. Following the experiences of one class of soldiers as they endure this physically and mentally exhausting ordeal, Couch spells out in fascinating detail the demanding selection process and grueling field exercises, the high-level technical training and intensive language courses, and the simulated battle problems that test everything from how well SF candidates gather operational intelligence to their skills at negotiating with volatile, often hostile, local leaders. Chosen Soldier paints a vivid portrait of an elite group, and a process that forges America’s smartest, most versatile, and most valuable fighting force.

The first-person account of how a small band of Green Berets used horses and laser-guided missiles to overthrow the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11. They landed in a dust storm so thick the chopper pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. They were met by a band of heavily armed militiamen who didn’t understand a word they said. They climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They saved babies and treated fevers, trekked through minefields, and waded through booby-trapped streams—sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who’d shared food with them hours before. They found their enemy hiding in thick concrete bunkers, dodged bullets from machine-gun-laden pickup trucks, and survived ambushes launched with Russian tanks. They fought back with everything they had, from smart bombs to AK-47s. They overthrew a government, mediated blood feuds between rival commanders, and argued with generals and politicians thousands of miles away. The men they helped called them gods. One of their commanders called them devils. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.

Vietnam was the US Special Forces most complex and controversial mission, one that began in 1957 and ended in 1973. Camp strike forces, mobile strike forces, mobile guerrilla forces, special reconnaissance projects, training missions and headquarters duty provided vastly differing experiences and circumstances for SF soldiers. Other fluctuating factors were the terrain, the weather and the shifting course of the war itself. Gordon Rottman examines the training, life, weapons and combat experiences of the Special Forces soldier in this challenging environment.

Black Man Green Beret is an American story, a semi-autobiography of a man born in the ghettos of the South Bronx and raised on the mean streets of Harlem, in New York City. Experienced homelessness, became a NCO in the military, graduated the U.S. Army's Special Forces Weapons Sergeant "Q Course," and eventually became a master level military instructor who wrote Infantry Battle Doctrine for the U.S. Army. Traveled to over 30 countries around the world, including sites in the middle east; the Great Pyramids of Egypt, swam the Red Sea, climbed Moses Mountain and saw the actual Burning Bush. A Retired Military Combat Veteran, who then served almost seven more years in Iraq on the U.S. State Department's (DoS) WPPS/WPS HTP program in a extremely high threat environment culminating with his successful service on the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq's Personal Protection Detail (APD).

Inspired by the wartime experiences of her late father-in-law, award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason has written an unforgettable novel about an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe. When Marshall Stone returns to his crash site decades later, he finds himself drawn back in time to the brave people who helped him escape from the Nazis. He especially recalls one intrepid girl guide who risked her life to help him--the girl in the blue beret. At twenty-three, Marshall Stone was a U.S. flyboy stationed in England. Headstrong and cocksure, he had nine exhilarating bombing raids under his belt when enemy fighters forced his B-17 to crash-land in a Belgian field near the border of France. The memories of what happened next--the frantic moments right after the fiery crash, the guilt of leaving his wounded crewmates and fleeing into the woods to escape German troops, the terror of being alone in a foreign country--all come rushing back when Marshall sets foot on that Belgian field again. Marshall was saved only by the kindness of ordinary citizens who, as part of the Resistance, moved downed Allied airmen through clandestine, often outrageous routes (over the Pyrenees to Spain) to get them back to their bases in England. Even though Marshall shared a close bond with several of the Resistance members who risked their lives for him, after the war he did not look back. But now he wants to find them again--to thank them and renew their ties. Most of all, Marshall wants to find the courageous woman who guided him through Paris. She was a mere teenager at the time, one link in the underground line to freedom. Marshall's search becomes a wrenching odyssey of discovery that threatens to break his heart--and also sets him on a new course for the rest of his life. In his journey, he finds astonishing revelations about the people he knew during the war--none more electrifying and inspiring than the story of the girl in the blue beret. Intimate and haunting, The Girl in the Blue Beret is a beautiful and affecting story of love and courage, war and redemption, and the startling promise of second chances.

War has a way of shooting holes in your best-laid plans. Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Stube (Ret.) suffered life-changing wounds during the battle of Operation Medusa in Afghanistan in 2006, but using the Green Beret methods he learned in the Special Forces, Stube knew he could conquer anything. Service in the elite A-Team teaches you to come up with smart, well-researched, and flexible battle plans for completing the mission—every mission. Even when that mission is to spend an arduous year in a hospital recovering from being blown up, badly burned, and shot multiple times. Greg shares the leadership principles and values he learned as a member of an A-Team and teaches us how to apply Special Forces strategies to our personal and business lives. Conquer Anything is a Special Forces book, but even more than that it is a leadership book designed to help each of us achieve the highest goals possible in our professional and private lives. “The greatest leaders I know lead by example. They are role models who adhere to standards they set for others and never ask more of them than they demand of themselves. Great leaders don’t just “manage” or “motivate.” They inspire courage, tenacity, perseverance, resilience, and commitment in all who work with them. Greg Stube is such a leader—and an American Hero. In Conquer Anything Greg draws on a lifetime of “lessons learned” as a highly decorated U.S. Army Special Forces medic in this lucid, straightforward resource for parents, teachers, students, athletes, employers, supervisors, and soldiers. If “success” is in your vocabulary, Conquer Anything is a must read.”—Oliver L. North, Lt Col USMC [Ret.], Host of War Stories on FOX News