Mobile guerrilla force

the long version

This authentic firsthand account of Operation Blackjack-31 chronicles the first foray of 13 hand-picked Green Berets and a company of free Cambodian guerrillas into War Zone D - the VC's secret zone about which allied intelligence knew little or nothing - in January 1967. Their orders were to conduct guerrilla operations for an undetermined period, without artillery support or possibility of reinforcement. Detachment A-303 turned the suicide mission into a dramatic success. With surgical precision and a novelist's grasp of dialogue, timing, and dramatic pacing, the author puts the reader on the ground with the force for 31 days without respite. A surprisingly fresh description of close-in combat, Donahue's account stands as a powerful testament to the few who mattered little in the big picture but who were all that mattered to each other. Blackjack-31 was a historic departure from the conventional military thinking that dominated the war in Vietnam, and it clearly demonstrated that American-led indigenous forces could conduct guerrilla operations against the enemy, and win.