John Stryker Meyer - SOG Chronicles: Volume One

Published by SOG Publishing

349 Vista Marazul

Oceanside, California 92057-7343

www.sogchronicles.com

Publisher: John Stryker Meyer

Copyright 2017 and 2018 by John Stryker Meyer All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470.

Request to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, SOG Publishing, 349 Vista Marazul, Oceanside, California 92057-7343

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Cover photo courtesy: Gene McCarley

Cover design and interior design by Jacqueline Cook

Back cover photo courtesy: Department of Defense

Names of real persons referred to in this book, may have been changed or modified as a courtesy

The SOG Publishing logo and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of SOG Publishing in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission.

ISBN: 978-0-9832567-9-3 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 978-0-9832567-8-6 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-9832567-7-9 (eBook)

BISAC Subject Headings:

HIS048000 HISTORY / Asia / Southeast Asia

HIS027180 HISTORY / Military / Special Forces

HIS027070 HISTORY / Military / Vietnam War

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Edition: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the SOG men and their courageous indigenous team members who went across the fence into Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam during the eight-year secret war and to the brave aviators and crew members from the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and our fearless allies from the 219th South Vietnamese Air Forces Special Operations Squadron, the legendary Kingbees who supported SOG teams on the ground. This book is also for every man in SOG and the aviators who made the ultimate sacrifice far outside the boundaries of the conventional Vietnam War that America saw reported on the nightly news.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

After my loving wife of 22 years, Anna Marie Avery Meyer, I would like to thank the following people for their support, encouragement, assistance and roles in getting the first edition of SOG Chronicles Volume 1 printed, first as an e-book and then as a paperback.

CONTENTS

This map insert in the upper right hand corner generally depicts SOG Area of Operations in Laos and Cambodia, west of S. Vietnam during the eight-year secret war. The red arrow points to the area in Laos where the men from Operation Tailwind were inserted west of the routine, deadly SOG Area of Operations, which was one of the major, unique aspects of this operation.
(Courtesy of Neil Thorne)

Welcome to SOG Chronicles Volume One, a book about an unconventional war, written in an unconventional style by a Green Beret who fought in the unconventional war.

For readers unfamiliar with the Vietnam War, there was a deadly, eight-year secret war fought outside the conventional war. It was fought by Green Berets and their indigenous troops in Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam from 1964 to 1972, run under the aegis of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, or simply SOG.

SOG Chronicles Volume One is non-fiction, nitty-gritty stories about the men who fought in the secret war, hidden from Congress, the nation, fellow soldiers in Vietnam and their families. If a SOG Green Beret died in Laos or received a Medal of Honor stemming from mortal combat in Southeast Asia, their families and the nation would be told they died in South Vietnam or received Americas highest award for valor in S. Vietnam not in the actual countries where the combat occurred. SOG men went across the fence in sterile fatigues, with no dog tags, no form of identification, no photos of loved ones or any detailed information that would indicate they were American. Why? Because it was a secret war, our government needed plausible deniability if any soldiers were killed or captured by enemy communist forces.

Most SOG soldiers signed federal documents agreeing to never speak about nor write about the secret war for 20 years under the threat of being prosecuted for any violation of that agreement. Photos were forbidden. Because of the top-secret nature of SOG missions, targets and after-action reports were approved and received by key staff at the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Army, Marine Corps and Air Force personnel who flew missions across the fence into enemy-held countries were also sworn to secrecy, or simply told: Forget that you went there, meaning Cambodia, Laos or North Vietnam, say nothing about those missions.

When the secret war ended, the government ordered all records, documents, after-action reports and operational photographs to be destroyed. Among the secrets destroyed was documentation that SOG suffered the highest casualty rate of the war, exceeding 100 percent casualties. How? Some Green Berets, such as Sergeant First Class Robert L. Howard, received eight Purple Hearts for being wounded by enemy soldiers in combat, most in Laos. He received the Medal of Honor for a mission in Laos in 1968.

For approximately 14 years after the secret war ended in 1972, little was written publicly about SOG and its top-secret missions. Soldier of Fortune magazine began running stories about SOG and SOG Team Leader David Maurer released one of, if not the first fiction book on SOG in 1986,