Review by Booklist Review
Anyone even moderately familiar with the Vietnam War has heard of the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, the famous LRRPs. Stanton, a decorated Vietnam veteran and prolific military historian, now provides a division-by-division account of how the army's LRRPs were organized, used, and disbanded. He covers tactics, training, notable feats of heroism, and both the patrols' triumphs and its disasters--the latter frequently the result of poorly conceived missions or inexperienced personnel. He uses massive amounts of military terminology, so the book is more for the serious student. Still, it belongs as background material in larger Vietnam collections. ~--Roland Green
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Stanton ( Green Berets at War ) makes a significant contribution to the operational history of the Vietnam War with this volume on long-range reconnaissance and patrol units. Depending on helicopters for insertion and extraction, usually employed in teams only a half-dozen strong, the Vietnam-era rangers specialized in intelligence collecting and small-scale raids. Their improvised role was the product of a war without stable fronts and terrain that defied conventional means of information gathering. Stanton describes the rangers' history company by company and discusses their use and misuse by generals often as bewildered by the war as were the men they led. The book is particularly useful as a background for the large number of memoirs by veterans of long-range reconnaissance units. Not every fire fight was a victory, not every ranger a hero, but in Stanton the men in black berets have a worthy chronicler. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This history of American combat reconnaissance units in the Vietnam War, the author's seventh book dealing in whole or in part with U.S. ground forces in Southeast Asia, will add to Stanton's growing reputation as a leading interpreter of that conflict's military aspects. Here, he covers the evolution and experiences of rangers from each of the larger American units (1st Infantry Division, 101st Airborne Division, etc.), including selected combat narratives for each. Reconnaissance troops, along with the tunnel rats and Medevac crews, remain unsung heroes of Vietnam. No other book to date has even attempted such an overview of how they responded to the tactical problems posed by Southeast Asia. Recommended for Vietnam War collections.-- John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
