Chosen Soldier

January 8, 2007
Among America's Special Forces, the Green Berets stand out because they can "do it all," according to this enthusiastic account of their training. Ex-SEAL Couch (Down Range
) explains that Green Berets not only fight, they teach: living in the world's hot spots, they speak the language, win the trust of the locals, and train and fight alongside them to defeat a common enemy. They are the "Peace Corps with guns" and the key to winning the war on terror, he asserts. Only the most fit, smart, stable and multilingual need apply, but training is so rigorous that recruits first undergo 25 days of pretraining, from which only one-third proceed to Green Beret school, where attrition continues. Military buffs will enjoy the descriptions of exhausting marches, realistic combat simulations, high-tech weapons and dramatic instructor/student interactions. Though Thomas Ricks showed in Making the Corps
that one can write an admiring account of an elite military unit without neglecting its warts and missteps, Couch loves the Green Berets too much to look beneath the surface; still. he tells an entertaining story. 16-page full-color insert.

April 15, 2007
Few people ever get a glimpse of the world of military training, much less Special Forces training, but these books offer just that. Former Navy SEAL Couch ("Down Range: Navy SEALS in the War on Terrorism") gives readers an inside look at what it takes to become a Green Beret. Couch audited a Special Forces Preparation Course and was given months-long access to the training sites and the soldiers. The result is a unique view of the soldiers' world, as well as portraits of the soldiers themselves. Couch organizes his book into eight chapters, the first of which is an extremely useful discussion of the history, training, and organization of Special Forces in general. Most fascinating are the chapters on recruitment and selection processes. Couch's access to the training class and his smooth and easy writing style provide a human picture of these highly trained soldiers. Included is a short glossary of acronyms and military terms.

"Sunday Times" journalist Smith, a former member of the British army's Intelligence Corp, examines the U.S. army's most secret Special Forces unit, the one that captured Saddam Hussein and operates covertly in the world's most dangerous places: the Intelligence Support Agency, a.k.a. the Agency. Beginning with 197980, its formation after the Iranian hostage crisis in the 1980s, Smith uses newly declassified documents and interviews to explain the Agency's importance and its successes. He also includes an impressive glossary. Well written and well researched, both books add to a growing body of literature on modern American Special Forces and are recommended for all libraries.Lisa A. Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib., Lister Hill

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2007
Couch could have applied the opening chapter's title, "Special Forces 101," to the whole book, for it is a portrait of the men who arrive at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, and the minority who make it though the training and join A Teams. Few of them are Rambos, for they need to be able both to function alone and to be closer than brothers to their teammates and the frequently foreign soldiers they train in combat and nation building. Whatever the future role of special forces in particular may be, the book adds substantially to the serious layman's knowledge of the men now playing vital roles in the war on terror, and who may number in their ranks more of the army's future leaders than the general media anticipates. A book worthy of the quality of the soldiers it profiles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)