The COMPANY THEY KEEP

An inside look at the real world of the legendary Green Berets discusses the special qualities of members of the Special Forces, their rigorous training and intense teamwork, and their changing role in the U.S. military. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

An anthropologist audits the US Army's Special Forces with the analytic rigor and vigor she would apply to any intriguing, albeit alien, culture in her sights. UCLA professor Simons (who married a Special Forces soldier she met while doing fieldwork in Somalia during the late 1980s) offers a cool, corrective briefing on an elite branch of America's military, which (owing mainly to Hollywood hype and sensation- seeking journalists) has an at best ambiguous image. Drawing on the apparently open access she was afforded to an SF battalion stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., the author provides a quick and dirty history of America's modern involvement in unconventional warfare. She stresses that behind-the-lines operations are but one aspect of the SF's largely clandestine missions; in addition to direct action (ambushes, hit-and-run raids, sabotage), they encompass assisting foreign governments in establishing defenses against subversion or insurgency, the tutoring of indigenous irregulars or their state-supported counterparts, and reconnaissance. Employing unit designations and names of her own devising, Simons delivers a detailed picture of how SF soldiers train for low-intensity conflicts, intelligence-gathering, and instruction assignments in offshore venues. Noting that all SF endeavors place a premium on cooperation, she puts paid to any notion that such outfits welcome rugged individualists, let alone Rambo types. Covered as well are the divisions of labor within a 12-man A-team (the basic SF unit), the motivations of NCOs who make a career of the Special Forces, the constant competition for good duty, and the role of shock troops (Rangers or paratroopers) compared with the use of an ultraflexible, ``impressively low- tech'' detachment with the capacity to hold remote territories for long periods. An offbeat but consistently absorbing assessment of an unorthodox military organization that has experienced periodic difficulties in living down (or up to) its press clippings. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Simons is uniquely qualified to study the U.S. Army Special Forces (who may wear them but do not like to be called green berets), for she is a professional anthropologist and the wife of a Special Forces sergeant. And hers is a unique and excellent book that focuses less on the history and combat achievements of the Special Forces than on their current personnel selection, training, corporate culture, internal politics, and relations with an army bureaucracy predominated by downsizing and conventionality. It is full of memorable personal portraits (including those of wives) that demonstrate that "male bonding" is not just a phrase, and it argues persuasively for keeping the emphasis of Special Forces missions the training of foreign soldiers rather than firefights. Although some background knowledge of both military history and anthropology will make reading the whole book more rewarding, Simons' unusual set of insights into the world and people of special operations is invaluable. Roland Green