Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding Book
Review: An in-depth, accurate and immensely readable work. Possibly the best in the series. Particularly insightful and valuable reading for anyone interested in the special ops community, although it focuses almost entirely on Army Special Forces. My only problem with the book is that it repeats a great deal of information (especially regarding the roles and missions) and the "mini-novel" wasn't very good. Otherwise outstanding. If you interested, also check out "The Company They Keep" and "In Search of the Warrior Spirit"
Rating: 
Summary: Misrepresentation
Review: By depicting Special Forces from the Vietnam Era as just snakeeaters as opposed to the quiet professional of today you have misrepresented the brave, creative, and intelligent men that served during that era. Read the books on SOG in which Special Forces played a major part during the Vietnam War.
Rating: 
Summary: not useful, not entertaining
Review: Having just completed SF selection, I sat down with this book to find out more about my future training and assignments. It was the second time I made the mistake of buying a book because it said "Tom Clancy" on the cover, only to find it poorly written and not completely accurate. After the first few chapters, I started to skim through the rest, picking out the interesting parts. I was glad to see that the author had apparently included a visit to a team in Bosnia, since I plan to work in that part of the world. Imagine my surprise to read that the visit was cancelled. Why did he even mention Bosnia if he had nothing to say about it? Why didn't he make a plan to go again? Or interview people who had done SF business there in the past? If you're looking for a quality book written by Tom Clancy, this isn't it. As far as I can tell, Clancy's contribution starts with the front cover and ends with the introduction. The book has some useful information, but there are a lot of better books (more informative, better researched, and better written) out there.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Look at the U.S. Special Forces from the Outside
Review: I am not a reader of Tom Clancy's novels. This is not one of Clancy's novels. This is a biography of the United States Army's Special Forces unit. i have done a lot of reading of numerous U.S. military elite units, but never done too much on the Army's SOF. This is a very well researches and presented book. The reader can come away from this book with a thorough understanding of how to apply for the USA SOF, the training, the specialty training, unit selection, and what they do and why they are called to do it.There is a small biography of General Shelton, which I enjoyed because I saw so much of him after 9/11 but knew little about him. I wish he was given a little place to write in this book because I'm sure he's got lots to write considering he's the first SOF Joint Cheif Chairman. This book, I feel, leaves out much of the history of the Army's SOF history. The Army has such an interesting history I don't see how some of it was not written about. If you want a history book, you'll be upset when you get this book. This book is an excellent tactical view of the Army's Special Forces. After reading this book the reader will fully understand that The Green Berets and other Special Forces soldiers are not what are diplicted in Hollywood. Sometimes the truth can be quite boring, but not when it comes to this topic. Unfortunately this book is obviously written by a person who has never experienced life in the Special Forces. It would have been nice to read some commentary from a man who has gone through the training, endured the harsh physicality of SF life, and who can comment on various aspects of the life in this elite group of men. Clancy has probably done as good a job that a civilian could. The novel at the end was unecessary and I didn't read much of it. This book is well written and easy to understand. I enjoyed reading it. This is not typical Clancy, it's better.
Rating:
Summary: don't bother
Review: I gave up Clancy's fiction after _Red Storm Rising_, but I've continued to buy his nonfiction books because, well, he's a geek, and he likes to delve into the technical stuff, so the books are good at that. The writing as always been a little too much like a tour guide's writing and on the verge of a little cheesy, but with this one, I've truly had enough. Tom Clancy's soldier/sailor/airman/marine worship is just getting too much here. He practically grovels at their feet. It's one thing to pay proper respect to the men and women in uniform, it's another to act like one of the Fops, those baroque characters from Saturday Night Live who worshipped Norm McDonald. "Mr. Special Forces soldier, I have come to praise you! Fighting soldier from the sky, I praise thee! Ooh ooh ooh!" (Much hand waving.) The book is written in schizophrenic style. Clancy allegedly "wrote" it, along with his researcher John Gresham. The tone of the book is always as a guide, and the author, whoever he is, refers to he and the reader as "we". Who is we? We never know when Clancy is writing or Gresham (except in the case of the interview with Gen. Shelton.) Clancy--or whoever--buddies up to the author, and his politics never seem far from the surface. I haven't quite finished the book yet, but it appears as though Clancy continues his tradition of interviewing and talking only to officers--preferably short colonels and above. (Except for his beloved "gunnys".) This includes General Shelton. Reading his books, one sense the pattern that the people he talks to are probably the ones signing off on his tag-alongs, whether in a M-1, a CV, or a field exercise. It doesn't smell right. Just how much is this costing the taxpayers? Special Forces is like fast food: it looks nice, it seems to cover all the bases, but in the end it leaves you with indigestion. While the book covers the training, weapons, and typical deployments of SF (esp. ODAs), it really doesn't capture the heart and soul of the people who run the organization the way past books have. Then again, Clancy has never been good at portraying people in Fiction or Nonfiction. The recent history is spotty: Somalia, Haiti, and Panama I've yet to see mentioned. For a better book on SF, try Col. Simpson's _Inside the Green Berets_. It's not as timely, but it does capture the heart of the organization and the characters who staff it. (Is this a joke? Simpson's book is NOT in the bibliography, but Clancy's book _Submarine: A Guided Tour_ is? What gives?) Finally, I was rather disgusted by the ego-dripping photo of the author on the back page. There he is wearing a bomber jacket, a flight suit, a scarf of the American flag, a Navy cap with scrambled eggs, and aviator's sunglasses. Mr. Clancy, I never served, and despite all your ride-alongs and huddles with those who wear eagles and stars, neither did you. Can anyone say "poser"?
Rating: 
Summary: Informational
Review: I have read the other reviews and I find them quiet correct. I am VERY intersted in Special Forces so I was happy to hear that Tom Clancy came out with a book about it. I bought it and was not disappointed but I have not been through any of the training so it was a good basic informational book for me.
Rating:
Summary: A Weak Showing from the 'Master of the Techno Thriller'
Review: I should have known when I noticed in the store that this book lacked an index, that I should have put it back on the shelf. The omission of an index in what is purportedly an information resource is generally a bad omen, as illustrated by this book. The book feels rushed and half-hearted. The information included, whether on weapons systems or unit history is spotty, at best, and missing or incorrect at worst. Delta, which admittedly is not officially operational, rates only a single, offhanded mention. There is a definite biased slant towards Army Special Forces at the expense of other branches, and while it would be expected if this were written by an USASOC denizen, it is inappropriate and unprofessionial in this context. The photos are grainy and rather oddly chosen and the use of black and white printing, presumably to save money, shows a sincere lack of attention when the book shows different SF unit badges as uniformly gray patches. This book pales when compared to earlier efforts like Marine or Carrier and comes across as a quickly produced reaction to growing interest in U.S. Special Operations.
Rating: 
Summary: He Could Do Better
Review: I want to say right at the front that I am a very big fan of Clancy, both his fiction and non-fiction work. After the current war in Afghanistan started and there were descriptions that the start of the fighting was being carried out by Special Forces, I thought this book would be a great educational tool to help me better understand the new reports. The book does give a broad understanding of the different US military Special Forces groups, a run down on training, tactics and weapons, but it did not offer much punch in the writing. I also felt like many chapters were almost cut and paste jobs from the chapters before. Overall I felt that the book could have been about 30 - 50 pages shorter and said the same thing, this disappoints me because those pages could have been filled with more real life examples as to the missions these guys actually perform.
Overall this is a good effort by the Clancy team; it is not as good as the Submarine or Carrier books in this line, but a solid effort. I guess I am just expecting more from one of my favorite authors.
Rating:
Summary: He Could Do Better
Review: I want to say right at the front that I am a very big fan of Clancy, both his fiction and non-fiction work. After the current war in Afghanistan started and there were descriptions that the start of the fighting was being carried out by Special Forces, I thought this book would be a great educational tool to help me better understand the new reports. The book does give a broad understanding of the different US military Special Forces groups, a run down on training, tactics and weapons, but it did not offer much punch in the writing. I also felt like many chapters were almost cut and paste jobs from the chapters before. Overall I felt that the book could have been about 30 - 50 pages shorter and said the same thing, this disappoints me because those pages could have been filled with more real life examples as to the missions these guys actually perform.
Overall this is a good effort by the Clancy team; it is not as good as the Submarine or Carrier books in this line, but a solid effort. I guess I am just expecting more from one of my favorite authors.
Rating:
Summary: Early Sp. For.
Review: I was in Special Forces Bad Tolz Germany July 1954 to Oct 1956. Most of the books I have read always say that we did not wear the "green beret" till after President Kennedy 1955. We took traning with the French in 1954, at that time they gave us the Green Beret. I have pictures of that. Carl Arndt
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