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What secrets lurk in the filecards?
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10-13-2009, 09:02 PM
Tanksmasher
Hog Driver
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Georgia
Posts: 12,236
Okay, so here's some more info on SOG. I'm thoroughly enjoying this book btw. It is full of some incredible stories. A SOG team typically consisted of three Green Berets and 9 or 10 Nung or Montagnards, indigenous South Vietnamese troops trained by our SF. The Nungs were naturally great trackers, hunters and trailfinders.
The SOG team leader was known as a One-Zero, the assistant leader was a One-One, and the RTO a One-Two. At the start of SOG operations, the One-Zero was usually a master sgt (E8), his One-One was a SFC (E7) and the One-Two a staff sgt (E6) but later teams, due to the high attrition, might consist of an E5 One-Zero, an E4 One-One and even an E3 One-Two in some circumstances. Some guys didn't survive their first mission. Rank however didn't determine leadership positions. Experience did. Sometimes a highly experienced sgt led a new staff sgt or even an officer, who never dared pull rank in the field.
These men were inserted in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, directly into the backyard of the NVA with the odds for survival stacked against them. One of their primary missions was to surveil logistic/supply roads and trails that were hidden from the air. Sometimes the NVA literally tied treetops together to hide camps and roads.
Over 50% percent of the SOG recon missions were successful making SOG men valuable assets but they took high casualites. Sometimes a whole team was wiped out immediately after insertion. In 1968, the SOG base at Danang had 18 SOG Americans KIA, 18 MIA, excluding those lost during the sapper attack at Khe Sanh, and 199 were wounded in Laos. Just about every SOG recon man was wounded at least once that year and about half died, according to Plaster. "SOG casualties exceeded 100 percent, the highest sustained American loss rate since the Civil War."
Plaster sums up the lifespan of a recon scout best: "...a SOG man's cross-border missions measured merit: Until he had three missions he shouldn't open his mouth; after five missions he could be relied upon to tell a war story honestly; ten made him seasoned and probably a one-zero; fifteen and he was running out of luck; twenty and it was hard to explain why he was still alive."
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