I’ve been reading up a lot on Military Advisory Command Vietnam – Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG) recently. In the last few months I’ve read a total of eight books from four authors. Since I know there is a lot of interest in the topic, I thought I’d take a minute to give my impressions.
First, the books by Dick Thompson. He wrote two books under the name “Callsign ‘Dynamite’.” These are based off his personal journals and are written very much as a collection of lessons learned. His books are very interesting to me because he portrays the mindset of a team leader very well. His books are full of notes on how they trained, what they learned, and how they could be better next time. Compared to the other books, his are less narrative and more after action. If there’s one quote that summarizes his entire mindset, it’s his saying that “every time you do something, you need to be better than the last time you did it.”
Second, John Striker Meyer. His three books that are more narrative than Thompson’s. While Thompson’s books are almost exclusively his own missions, Meyer’s books tell a lot of other people’s stories. If you’ve ever seen him in one of his recent interviews, you’ll get a good feel for how he writes his books.
Third, Lynn Black. Black’s book is a little hard to read – not so much because of the subject matter, but because of the writing style. He writes in the first-person, present tense, so he’s basically writing as if things are occurring as he relates them. He also jumps back and forth between the action and his thought process, which takes a little bit of getting used to. Lots of great stories in his book, but it definitely takes a bit of work to get into his storytelling style.
Finally, John Plaster. Plaster’s books probably do the best job of the four of covering the most of SOG. Thompson, Meyer, and Black focus almost exclusively on the recon teams, which is natural because that’s where they served. Plaster’s book “SOG” covers other groups, such as the SEALs and Air Force members. It still focuses heavily on recon, but it gives a much better historical overview of overall SOG operations. His other book, “Secret Commandos,” focuses primarily on recon and also contains more stories from his experiences, whereas “SOG” mostly tells other people’s stories.
Overall, I think all eight books were a good read. It’s really fascinating to read how much the recon teams (and SOG as a whole) accomplished and sacrificed. It’s great history and it also gives the prepared civilian a lot to think about on the patrol and recon sides of an action instead of the Instagrammable cool-guy range time and direct action gear.
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