Rating: 
Summary: Not as interesting and exciting as I thought it would be...
Review: I am a great fan of Tom Clancy fiction, and this book was my first read of his nonfiction series. I agree with many of the less glowing reviews previously on this book - its really more a biography of General Stiner and his administrative and command decisions throughout the years. It wasn't bad, but I was expecting a more thrilling look into the evolution of the various Special Forces specifically.
Rating: 
Summary: A waste of time and money...not worth reading
Review: This book fails to live up to its title - Inside the Special Forces. First, it isn't about SF, its about Special Operations. Second, it isn't Inside anything - its a poorly researched and poorly resourced piece that fails to offer any new material on Special Operations other than some barely believable anecdotes of several retired general officers (come on, Mr. Clancy, we all know Sergeant Majors tell the best stories...). Before and during my 16 year career with the Army and the Special Forces, I have enjoyed Tom Clancy's novels and respected his deep understanding of modern warfare. Unfortunately, this hardly extends to the supposed subject of this book, Special Forces. It is quite obvious that Mr. Clancy made the most minimal contribution to this book, both in concept and writing. In my opinion, Clancy's name is on the cover to sell copies. Clancy's co-author, General Carl Stiner, appears to have done a little more work. Unfortunately, while Stiner's record is full of high-profile jobs, including the Commander in Chief of Special Operations Command, he fails to provide more than a few superficial anecdotes to a number of special operations missions that have been told and re-told in far greater detail by other authors. As an example of Stiner's failure to provide substantive information on Special Forces, the book takes two chapters, nearly 100 pages, to give a totally misleading account of one of the military's most-poorly led and executed invasions, that of Panama in 1989. While there are plenty of details on Stiner's relation to the XVIII Airborne Corps, there is very little information on Special Forces training, planning, or execution. Even the details on conventional units (why they are even mentioned in this book is incomprehensible) are misleading. The 82nd Airborne Division's decision to jump into Tocumen Airport hours after the Rangers had secured it is not criticized or even analyzed. (Could it be that Stiner was one of the supporters for this Hollywood-type maneuver when the 82nd could have landed quickly and safely at Howard or Tocumen and executed their mission by air assault or simply by walking out of their airplanes?). Stiner completely glosses over the worst operation of Just Cause, the failed Navy SEAL attempt to take over Paitilla Airport, a mission that never should have been approved by higher (failed not because of the brave men who executed the raid but because of the egos above them who approved an absurd concept of operations). Instead, he spends page after page congratulating himself on a perfectly planned and organized operation. Can you imagine how perfect Iraq would have been if the battalion level commanders had been able to do monthly rehearsals and terrain walks throughout Iraq? How could you lose? Don't buy this book for details on Somalia, Haiti, or any of the other SF operations in the 90s. They wouldn't fit with the 100 pages on Panama. In my opinion the problem with this book is that it claims to be about Army Special Forces. In fact, the book completely fails to focus on what makes Special Forces great, which is the non-commissioned officer. Instead, Clancy and Stiner spend the entire 500 plus pages talking about how this general did this and that general did that. What really makes SF is the NCOs, not the Generals. If you want to read a good book about Special Forces, read John Plaster's SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam, Greg Walker's At the Eye of the Hurricane (fantastic info on El Salvador, Panama, and the Gulf War), or Orr Kelley's Brave Men, Dark Waters. These books tell you all about Special Ops without any of the bravado that permeates Clancy and Stiner's unfortunate work. My advise to Clancy: stick to what you do best, fiction. My advice to you: skip this book!
Rating: 
Summary: A little something
Review: When I first opened this book I really didn't know what to expect. I've read many other Tom Clancy fiction and non-fiction books and have enjoyed them.
This book felt like a clutter reading it. It didn't seem organized and just seemed a bit half-done. I was fairly disappointed on how it was written but still all the information was useful and left me a bit satisfied.
This book isn't for someone who wants to be introduced to America's Special Forces unit and what they do and their nature, but this book is for people who already have and enjoy a knowing knowledge of America's military.
The contents are very accurate historically of course as most non-fiction books, but this definitely shows a raw side of SF in which msot books don't show; that not all missions have the greatest outcome.
This book can be read with some satisfaction to some, but it is not one that I would come and recommend much about.
Rating:
Summary: Kill Me Please!!!
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. I have read several Tom Clancy novels as well as his non-fiction books, but this is by far the most boring. This is along the same strain as his last book on Special Operations (Special Forces). I found both to be so mired up in the extremely high level administrative wranglings, that both fail to tell the story of the soldiers that actually go out and put the rubber to the road. Given the role of these special soldiers is largely classified, there are ways of protecting their identities and operations while still telling their story. I did find the Chapters on Panama interesting (I served there during the operations) and well laid out. I also found the story about Bulldog and his guys very good, although it sounded more like an after action briefing than telling the amazing story of this team of 6 special operators that were completely surrounded by an entire battalion of Iraqi's. There is a documentary about special operations on the History Channel that explains this story in detail if you want to know more. Tom Clancy just doesn't seem to do special ops books very well...
Rating: 
Summary: Very well written
Review: This book is a very fine example of what non-fiction should be. It is very informative and in depth, and has stories thrown in there to keep things interesting. It is also very accurate about the role of SF soldiers. Those people who expect an action packed non-fiction book, especially one about a secret world of the SF, need to have a whole lot of sense knocked into them. Anyone would know that a secret organization such as SF will not just go around and tell anyone anything and everything about they're operations. Overall, this is anything and everything a good non-fiction book should be and I highly reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in the SF world.
Rating:
Summary: Clancy clunker
Review: This book is a total lack of time. Clancy has no military background and it shows. He should stick to his make believe fictions. I live in the same town as Stiner and the General in the book is not the one we all know. I suggest you buy anything but this boring account of someones imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of disappointed with this Clancy non-fictuon novel.
Review: When I first picked up this book, I thought it was going to be a great inside of the Special Forces, but I was wrong. I love Clancy as a fiction writer, but non-fiction is not really something Tom Clancy cannot do to well. Sure the book starts out good, but it slows down with the history of the Special Forces (I am a HUGE history buff, so I didnt mind Clancy explaining the history.) and it kind of crashes and burn.
The book could of been much more better if Clancy would of brought some more action into this book, but he fail to do so, and so I was very disappointed, I did finish the novel, and it just made me realize that Clancy better stick to fiction than non-fiction. Sorry Clancy, this was not my cup of tea.
Rating:
Summary: Have the SOGs ever been successful???
Review: This is sopposed to be an inside account of the Special Forces. Instead it seems to be a water logged account of a series of totally useless failures of the Special forces. Now I dont know if this is what Clancy intended but its what the result was. The Special forces in fact were very effective in Vietnam and in other secret operation throughout the world but we dont seem to hear about much success in this novel. Instead we are treated to long build ups to failed or aborted operations. Take the Achille Loro inceident. The ship was hijacked. THen it wondered around the mediteranean, from egypt to lebanon and back again. AND THE SOG COULDNT FIND IT!!!! GIVE ME A BREAK! Its a big ship, its not that big an ocean, your telling me the sum total of americas security aparatus couldnt find it. That one sentence in the book just made me want to throw it away. Here are the SOGs sitting on the beach in Italy ot cyprus 'contemplating a take down'. Thats the end, if your guys cant get their craop together enought o go find a boat that size and board it then we might as well disband the SOGs. The book goes on to detail more failures in Greneda and in another incident where an american navy man is killed aboard a hijacked airplane. In this incednet what did the Special ops do? Nothing. They flew back and forth across the mediteranean and then wen thome after allowing the hostages to be taken into the labrynth of beirut. And Clancy spend a chapter on this, detailing all the sopposed importance of Special Ops. What was the help of having these anti-terror groups if we do NOTHING but watch. THis is a totally useless book. It doesnt do anything justice and voers operations that were all either aborted or failures. Like the operation it spoends pages talking about to free the embassy in kuwait, and then all of a sudden ABORTED. So why not tell us about something successful? I think the reality is that the co-author Mr. Stiner was a totally indecisive individual who mostly was not able to carry out orders because he didnt have a plan in mind and when he finally came up with a plan washington cancelled it. I think Mr. Clancy should have profiled a more interesting officer who actually took part in a successful operation. In fact Sepcial forces have been succesful recently in iraq and Afghanistan, but they were totally useless in the 80s, the period the book focuses on. And why doesnt Clancy talk about our work in Nicaragua and Afghanistan in the 80s, where our men did train guerillas? An awful book, that makes one question our anti-terror ability.
Rating:
Summary: Never really understood the format
Review: Summary:
The book is a combination of a personal history of Carl Stiner, the apparent co-author, and a look inside the history of the US special forces and several of their operations, both botched operations and successful ones (though ironically I don't seem to recall any real successful ones). My Comments:
I am fascinated by the US special forces. As a result of this fascination I like reading spy novels and novels about special forces groups. But this isn't a novel. This is a very loosely arranged conglomeration of special forces history and personal anecdotes by Carl Stiner. The organization of the material never actually makes sense. It jumps around from talking about some of the forerunners of the special forces to recountings of actual missions and then back to other seemingly unrelated events and then to personal anecdotes. If there was an organization I somehow missed it entirely. This was hands down the biggest problem with the book and actually, for me anyway, made it rather boring to listen to because I never knew if I was going to be listening to a complete story (the events of a mission for instance) or if I was going to be hearing about stuff from Ranger training or the special forces handbook. What's more, when Clancy does recount the events of special forces operations he does so without any real suspense involved. He pretty much tells you what the result of the operation was, then tells you everything that happened as it was pieced together afterwards for the official reports and not from the perspective of the special forces operatives involved - there is no suspense at all. Overall, if you are looking for a suspense-laden Tom Clancy novel, this isn't the book for you. If you are looking for a personal history of Carl Stiner, you'll be disappointed. And if you are even looking for a coherent history of the special forces, you still won't be satisfied. Clancy tries to accomplish a lot of things with this book, but being clear didn't seem to be a priority. He should stick to fanciful novels where the good guys always win and stay away from actual historical accounts - he has no clue how to write them in order to make them interesting and coherent for the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: You want details.....you've got SOG details out the wazoo!
Review: Clancy's immaculate attention to detail comes to life in this non-fiction look inside the Army Special Ops divisions. Great book for military history buffs and those wanting to understand the politics of incusions and counterops. The book reads like a Carl Stiner biography.....but what better way than to read it Clancy-style? Way too deep for a non-history buff.
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