Hunting the Jackal: A Special Forces and CIA Soldier's Fifty Years on the Frontlines of the War Against Terrorism

by Billy Waugh, Tim Keown

Spanning more than five decades, here is a riveting true account of fighting America’s enemies around the world—told by the soldier/operative who was there I am not a hero. Billy Waugh has lurked in the shadows and on the periphery of many of the most significant events of the past half-century on active duty with U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA fighting enemies of the United States. In Hunting the Jackal, this legendary warrior reveals the extraordinary events of his life and career, offering a point-by-point eyewitness account of the historical events in which he participated. Serving in Korea and Vietnam, Waugh was among the first Green Berets in 1963. He has helped train Libyan commandos in the Sahara Desert, while spying on Russian missile sites in Benghazi, and has worked against Caribbean drug runners. He was the first CIA operative to watch Osama Bin Laden in Khartoum “from a spot close enough to kill him had I been allowed,” and tracked him over the course of two years. In 1994 he found the notorious Carlos the Jackal in Sudan, and tailed him until he was captured—a story that until now has never been told. And, just last year, at age 72, Waugh was on the ground in Afghanistan with a joint SpecForces/CIA unit. This is his remarkable true story.

Genres: Military Fiction, History, Nonfiction, War, Terrorism, Military History, Espionage

368 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published May 24, 2005

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very fast reading tale of a special ops guy who has seen action in many venues. He devotes far too much time to depictions of his Viet Nam adventures, overloaded with the text of walkie-talkie communications. It is more interesting when describing his work tracking both Osama and Carlos in Africa. Those parts make the book worth a look, but it is not one of the better things I have read.

[Steven Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the wake of special operations legend Billy Waugh's passing, I felt it prudent to go back and re-read his autobiographical novel Hunting the Jackal: A Special Forces and CIA Soldier's Fifty Years on the Frontlines of the War Against Terrorism. I'd read it previously while I was in high school and had told countless people during my SOF geekouts about the SF and CIA veteran who was part of the initial invasion of Afghanistan at the ripe old age of 71 years old.

Hunting the Jackal is a thrilling, true story of a die-hard American patriot. From an early age, Waugh knew he wanted to be on the battlefield, going so far as trying to run away to Los Angeles at the age of 16 because he had heard a rumor one could enlist underage out there. (It wasn't true, and he didn't make it to Los Angeles) As soon as he was of age, he enlisted in the US Army, where he saw combat in Korea. Waugh quickly made his way to Special Forces, where he established himself as an aggressive and fearless warrior.

Upon retiring from the Army post-Vietnam, Waugh experienced the acclimation pains which which many veterans are familiar. However, he quickly found himself working for the CIA as a contract agent, and through the 1980s and 1990s, worked as a surveillance specialist and paramilitary contractor. This culminates in Waugh working on the ground alongside other paramilitary types and Green Berets as a septuagenarian.

Only Father Time could kill Billy Waugh. He lived the dream to which many soldiers and operators aspire: to be a warfighter until the wheels fall off. Sergeant Major Waugh was a living piece of history, a man who experienced combat from the early days of the Cold War to the beginning stages of the Global War on Terror.

I definitely recommend his autobiography to history buffs, especially espionage and war history buffs. Sergeant Major Waugh was the epitome of a quiet professional and public servant and the United States has lost a treasure in his passing.

May he rest easy.

[Arya Moaref · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary

Billy Waugh has always been in love with trying to defend the United States. At first he is just in the army but he goes higher in ranks. He is almost killed in a battle, having to almost amputate his leg, yet he returns. He is put in the Vietnam War and has to defend and attack at the same time. Yet after that he signs on with the CIA and has to hunt down Carlos the Jackal. He follows him day and night and finally gives the government enough Intel that he is done and that the government is able to get Carlos and put him in jail.

Review

I felt that the book had a slow start and always seemed to be a slow read. Yet when it got to the battles the book started to get faster paced and it finally got to the climax when he started to hunt down the jackal, Carlos. I felt that the author was trying to portray something that I didn't really understand. He tried to explain the ideas of Billy to us yet it was something that I found hard to believe. Billy did anything he could to serve his country and didn't care one bit about himself. It was an interesting read because I don't really read non-fiction books and that's mostly because I don't really enjoy them. I didn't enjoy this as much as I enjoyed Ender's Game or the other fictional books, but the author did a great job of characterizing the character and really making it seem like we were there the whole time next to him as he was following Carlos and trying no to get caught at the same time.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

A biting satire, showing the perfect soldier, devoid of any conscience or doubt. All he wants to do by his own admission is to kill people and wherever the government sends him he will happily go - whatever the circumstances. It shows the unreal cruelty of the American army in case you thought 3rd world dictators had the monopoly on pointless slaughter of innocent people.

But, as the main character would have it, we all know that America has never done anything wrong and all the history books are written by limp-wristed academics who frankly don't understand that what is important in life is to do what the general tells you to and not to question anything ever, in case your brain experiences a thought that does not involve imagining killing another human being (with a smile on your face). Otherwise the pinkos win.

Parts of the book made me ill. The deranged glee the author exhibits describing blowing up sleeping soldiers with grenades or killing a woman in case she woke them up with her screaming was just vomit inducing.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was OK. It seems that every book that mentions the all-powerful, one-dimensional Billy Waugh Wa also mentions something that Waugh didn't include in his book, though. Because of that, I expected a little more detail on his ops in Afghanistan. It was cool that was a 71-year old man was still in the thick of the action as a CIA "contractor",whatever that means.In Afghanistan, Waugh wangled his way into ODA 594, where the younger soldiers "worshipped" him. There he relished the new technology Special Forces had at their disposal, but doesn't provide much detail on operations. According to some accounts, Waugh served with Special Forces in Iraq and the Balkans, but he offers no information on that.
It provides a good recap of Carlos the Jackal, a character most Americans have never heard of before. But the title makes the average American think this is an action-packed cloak-and-dagger account of covert wars in every corner of the world, which is not always the case, usually more like "well, I drove around the ocean in my boat trying to stop the pesky Russians from stealing our tested missiles" or "well, me and some CIA officers spent long hours surveiling bin Laden and Carlos, trying to avoid the incompetent police and some pesky dogs."
The accounts of Sudan were very amusing, such as the disguises Billy wore and how he had his fun with the incompetent police and giving the finger up-close to bin Laden's bodyguards.
However, maybe Billy should have included some accounts of Special Forces/CIA training.
Movie junkies should read this, because their version of "black ops" involves Hollywood-style gunfights and assassinations, while in reality, covert action and espionage is a complicated business with rules that invilves plain, hard work.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Waugh is a legend. The book plays out as if it's a Netflix TV series, starting with the Vietnam war and him getting shot up so bad there's no way he could've survived on through to modern day. Billy pulls from different periods of his life where he's been in the background of every major conflict America's been involved in the past 50 years. Each one could easily be a, "So there I was.." type of story. Of course the focus point of the book is how he hunted down the "Jackal" one of the most notorious assassins of the 20th century, but you'll have to read it to find out how that all went down.

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author spent his entire career in the U.S. Armed Forces including the Special Forces, and the CIA and hunted some of the worlds most notorious criminals including Carlos the Jackal and Usama Bin Laden.

[Seth Harmon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars. The author acknowledges he can’t discuss a lot of his career at the beginning and that made the story a tad disheveled to me as it jumped around. At any rate, some very interesting stories. I am glad we have some folks like him on our side - I am not sure how well adjusted Billy would have been anywhere but the military, as he fully acknowledges.

[Nicholas Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommendation

It’s a hard book to recommend. I won’t recommend it for the vast majority of people. You have to be into Special Forces...really into them. You have to enjoy the on-the-ground storytelling from the soldier pulling the trigger.

Waugh is polarizing. You’re either going to like his style or you aren’t. I haven’t had much experience in this genre/subject, so I can’t speak that well to the benefit of reading from this book.
In what follows, I’ll relate my experience and you can make your own decision on this one.

Billy Waugh and his hunt for the Jackal was the book-end of a journey into the world of War. It first started with Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos. Ryan Holiday recommended this book, which meant it would be well-written and engaging. I knew nothing about Mattis, but what an opportunity to read a memoir of a four-star General that is still living. And not only living but just finished a two-year stint as Secretary of Defense. It would be like getting a book from Patten during his era of leadership.

Jim Mattis, more than anything, opened my eyes and mind to the topic of the military and war.
From there, I went through the books we had around the house. My step-dad is an Army Veteran, former Military Police, former Lieutenant in the police force, and just recently, former Deputy Chief at the Department of Homeland Security. While I am a stranger to this world, he wasn’t, and I began to go a bit deeper.

I found myself becoming more interested in Special Forces, namely the SEALs. I texted my friend, who is more interested in the topic, for book recommendations. A book on the list was Hunting The Jackal: A Special Forces And CIA Soldier’s Fifty Years On The Frontlines Of The War Against Terrorism.

Summary
For more than half a century, Special Forces and CIA legend Billy Waugh dedicated his life to tracking down and eliminating America’s most virulent enemies. Operating from the darkest shadows and most desolate corners of the world, he made his mark in many of the most important operations in the annals of U.S. Spec Ops.

He spent seven and a half years behind enemy lines in Vietnam as a member of a covert group of elite commandos. He trailed Osama Bin Laden in Khartoum in the early ’90s, and would have killed the terrorist kingpin if his superiors had allowed it. And at the age of seventy-two, he marched through the frozen high plains of Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Hunting the Jackal is the astonishing true account of the singular career of a courageous soldier in his nation’s shadow wars — including his pivotal role in the previously untold story of the capture of the most infamous and elusive assassin in history, Carlos the Jackal.

The book is about more than just Hunting the Jackal. It’s about the Special Forces in Vietnam and then his work with the CIA as the war on terror started to grow more important. The chapters of his time in the CIA monitoring Bin Laden and Carlos were fascinating.

Thoughts on the Book
The book is either going to be music to your years or it is going to piss you off. Waugh has one passion, and that is War. He makes his opinions well known in this book about his stance on this topic.

He reminds me of Mattis. Both career military men that felt called to serve, and to serve as long as physically possible. Waugh, at age seventy, went to Afghanistan after 9/11.

The book is about more than just Hunting the Jackal. It’s about the Special Forces in Vietnam and then his work with the CIA as the war on terror started to grow more important. Waugh lived in the Middle East for months at a time and made it seem like the most normal thing in the world. Though, to be fair, it seemed like it was for him.

The book was interesting. Rarely do you get a history lesson from someone who served in special forces for 50 years. Mainly because there is a lot of death in that role, and in this book Waugh makes note of all the lives lost. An interesting tradition about the Special Forces is that they never leave a man behind — alive or dead. Some of the rescue missions to save fallen SF soldiers were the best chapters in the book. It showed the emotional side of the job and the depths these soldiers were willing to go to save a body — even though it usually meant losing more men on the mission.

I don’t know my stance on war. And that’s hard to admit in a world where everyone chooses sides. Was the 9/11 needed? I feel like it was, just as Waugh made note that (at the beginning) that was the sentiment of Vietnam as well. But Waugh makes a really interesting note here — and demonstrates that strong opinion that shows throughout the writing.

The post-Vietnam era turned the United States into a second-rate nation militarily.

From the president through to the federal agencies, namely the CIA, changes were made to de-militarize the country (his words, not mine). We try to put the blame on moments like this to mark a clear shift in mentality, but I’m not sure it is that easy to paint broad strokes on why we are in the position we are now. And this is where reading other books give us a better perspective. Mattis’ biography stays away from his time in the Trump administration, but he had that same fiery spirit as Waugh did, and because he was a General, he could use that influence to enact change. And that change was usually to send in the Marines to get the job done.

Towards the end of the book (page 306) Waugh writes this:

A sane man would never not go out of his way to join battle, at least not more than a dozen times.
It is in reference to reentering the war when he was already in his seventies. I think it just sums up his character and this book. You have to read it through the lens of a man that might not have been sane. These men have the capacity for heroism. The training and the vetting process exposes those not up for the task. It enables a man like Billy Waugh to be in an environment that fits him.

When he starts to talk about the changing styles of war — from his time in the jungles of Vietnam where personal confrontation was so frequent, to the new-age technological war where ground-troops would send a location and a smart bomb would be dropped before anyone was the wiser.

It’s an interesting perspective and lends to the importance of this book. The man has seen a lot of war. But it also that lust for war that makes this a hard book to read. It seemed he craved the wars of old — hand-to-hand hunting (hence the title).

As someone that has never been in the military and would be considered this Millennial generation that hasn’t had to face many hardships, that is a hard perspective to read about. It is hard to understand the motivation behind that, but that quote just keeps popping up as I think about it. A sane man wouldn’t go out of his way to join the battle.

[Miriam]

When I read Emily Pollifax I could suspend disbelief and enjoy it. This book is supposed to be a memoir by Billy Waugh (with ghosting by Tim Keown). The first part about Viet Nam reads like a military novel. How can I reverse disbelief and take it seriously? Only when a Viet Nam vet tells me, "Oh, yes, this is the real stuff."

However, I didn't get the book to read about Viet Nam. I wanted to hear the story of the title, hunting the Jackal. I am on page 168 and we haven't gotten to the Jackel yet. (I had to skip through Viet Nam.) It really wasn't about Viet Nam so much as it was about ol' Billy.

Yes, the subtitle is "A Special Forces and CIA soldier's fifty years on the frontlines of the war against terrorism." I should have been more understanding that the title "Hunting the Jackal" was the publisher's idea to sell books. Billy's writing style improved because after Nam he went to college and earned two B.S. and a Master's.

So he gets to Khartoum and does surveillance on Carlos. Somewhat more interesting. The catch is the U.S. had to give the Carlos catch to the French because the French government had a warrant out on him and the U.S. didn't. Billy helped catch Carlos but wasn't there when it happened. Yawn.

[Mikel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book! I read Annie Jacobsen's 'Surprise, Kill, Vanish' (which I also highly recommend!) so I had no illusions as to what this book would be about. It is not exclusively about when Billy was hunting the Jackal as the title implies. Rather, it is about the remarkable career of one of America's finest special forces members. It is more about the evolution of special forces than anything.

It is a quick and, often times, inspiring read. At the end of Annie's book, one of Billy's bosses told her that most of what Billy has done will never be know, it has never been recorded. This is a great tragedy for me. I would like nothing better than to read a full account of his life. However, I know it would comprise the many brave young men and women who are out current "Billy Waugh's".

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding and unique combat from Vietnam to Afghanistan

Billy Waugh was 72, fighting alongside Special Forces and CIA experts when he was finally retired from active combat. This fascinating inside look at Special Forces, operating world-wide, starts in the jungles of Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh trail, and winds down in the freezing, barron, and desolate mountains of Afghanistan. It spans the career of a man who was very good in his chosen career as a US warrior and provides an insight into what it takes to defeat America’s enemies. A magnificent first-hand account and well worth the time.

[steven souder · Rating 5 out of 5]

1000% American Warrior.

My brother in law Ron Rydgren , was in Nam during the Tet offensive delivered by a slow moving transport to run for cover grabbing a weapon and finding a defensive position.
Hats off to Billy ! We've always needed a few more good warriors. For Ron ,RIP he was well decorated , but could not defeat the demons. scs

Reading some negative reviews ? One needs some Viet Nam history or a family connection to appreciate this book . Just the part with a shot up ankle and 30 leaches crawling for rescue should make a reader respect the commitment .

[Jim Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was a phenomenal book. He wrote it straight from his experiences. Whether you agree or not with his views isn't really the point. The point of the book is getting a deep inside look of Waugh. He is unabashed in the manner he writes. I'm sure it is very much how he speaks. The book is extremely interesting.

[Ana Maria Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five Stars

I meet Mr. Waugh in another book and just had to read more about his life adventure, which reads like a best seller thriller novel and you need to remind yourself this man is real.
Thank you Mr. Waugh for your service and passion. You are for sure an inspiration to all of us.

[Jerome V. Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nonstop action

Impossible to put down. It’s a great description of what can happen to special forces soldiers! Especially interesting are the attitudes of nonamerican military forces!

[Zare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had this book for long time on a TBR list and finally I picked it up and read about the US Special Operations Community "Celebrity" - Billy Waugh.

And what a mixed bag.....

Lets go first through good points. Billy Waugh was involved in the irregular warfare since Korea. From Korea 'till early 2000's (global war on terror era) he was intimately linked with finding ways of making US special forces teams as deadly possible. As he says [while witnessing the Afghan war in 2000's] US MACV SOG teams were ahead of their time - it took 40 years for concepts of what you might call combined special warfare to mature. Just for this segment, witnessing the development of key combat concepts for special operations, this is very interesting book. I also like how Billy Waugh is not so obsessed with firepower but with communications and navigation.

Now the bad sides of this book..... Quite a few that poke me in the eye as I read the book. Lets go from least bad element to worst bad point encountered.
First author does not disclose much, most of operations he talks about are "safe" for release. But even so, hunt for Jackal, Sudan investigations and MACV SOG activities are pretty interesting. Also interesting part is how he got recruited for CIA special operations team.
Second, author's stand on US policies and his view of actions overall. Impression one gets from the book is that Billy Waugh is 100% patriot and he just does not care what others think - if his superiors give him the mission he will do it. And this is trademark of professional soldier who dedicated his life to his country. Now is he just a killing machine as he portrays himself? I think he is very clever and capable professional soldier in profession where few reach his age alive and [mostly] with all body parts. I think if he wanted he would say a lot about his country policy but he is concerned only about one thing - finishing his task. He avoids politics because as every soldier he believes that people above him know what they are doing. This has its downside but unfortunately indoctrinated professionals like this who would lie down their lives on moment notice need to be this way. In the middle of conflict one cannot start doubting or one loses life very fast, and not just their own. Upper echelons are supposed to know the best (which is not always the case and here lies the tragedy). Billy Waugh is at best low level officer, tactics specialist, and this is what he likes - to go down and dirty against the enemy. As I said tragedy is when people like this are abused by higher echelons.
Third, his view of all other military or paramilitary he trained is very low. His comparison of Soviet Afghan war and US led Afghan war is ridiculous [but inline with general propaganda views] to say the least and while Soviet Afghan war lasted 10 years they at least left the more or less functional country. It took next six years for Talibans to take the power. West led coalition entered in 2001 and left in 2021 with only change in the field being left over Western arsenal picked up by the Talibans who just took over the power again while West and its allies fled the country in the most shameful way (making Saigon evacuation look like orderly event)! Like previous 20 years of bombardments and anti-guerilla war meant nothing at all, everything went back to square one. And I just wont mention Iraq, nor disasters in the rest of Middle East. Also when it comes to his opinions on military capability of Arabs - I think Jordanians would take offense.
Fourth (and this was the greatest issue for me) when one reads this book it becomes obvious that in entire almost 50 years of service in the most unforgiving field of counter-terrorism Billy Waugh's greatest challenge was getting heavily wounded in Vietnam. Everything else? According to Billy Waugh no challenge at all, because there is just no-one capable to stand against the might US Army, both in terms of technology and/or training (which sound ridiculous in light of recent conflict against Houthis). One of the readers was aghast of author's decisions to kill off witnesses or guards. While this might seem cruel it was all done on the battlefield. Sad events, true, but when guns are drawn there is no second thinking. Everyone not identified as ally previously is potential enemy and nobody wants to make risks that will endanger the entire team. As they say War is Hell.

Final conclusion is that this is book by true patriot, man who dedicated his life to safeguarding his country by fighting external enemies on their own turf. But while trying to build the legend of the US military supremacy (in parallel to author's own legendary status in the special operations community) author went into almost Captain America territory and thus unintentionally made parts of this work look ridiculous. Which is bad because lots of things could be made more interesting [even without entering politics].

Interesting book, but good parts of it read like Jason Bourne novel, which is very bad when you say this for [auto]biographical work. I can only recommend it for the author's perspective on development of US special forces from Korea to modern times.

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting, funny, authentic. Billy Waugh's biography is a great read that tells the story of the 50 yeays he spent on the front lines of all the biggest fights.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill was one of those men who were built for war. With very little care for politics or public opinion he thought only about how to destroy an enemy. In his last deployment he was aged 71!!!

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rare first-person account into US Special Forces by one of its longest-serving operators. I first heard about Billy Waugh through another book recounting the start of the war in Afghanistan, where Sgt Waugh was once again in the fight, despite being in his 70's. The book recounts Sgt Waugh's experience starting from enlistment, and serving in SOG in Vietnam, conducting operations trying to shut down the Ho Chi Minh trail in countries where the US didn't have an official presence. He also covers a force multiplication mission in detail, where they trained and equipped local Cambodian troops to fight the NVA.

After his time in Vietnam, Sgt Waugh retires from the military and joins the Postal Service, in what must be one of the most extreme career transitions of all time, from adrenaline-pumping fighting secret wars in Vietnam, to working for the USPS.

However, it wasn't long before Sgt Waugh gets back into the action, this time with the CIA. He details some pretty interesting insights into Libyan "elite" forces, namely that other than having some solid basic skills, they weren't very good soldiers. His conclusion is that Arab units lack a strong NCO middle-management layer, which means units only function with direct orders from officers, and otherwise lack the ability to make independent decisions. While this might be tolerable in peace time, in the chaos of war this inability to make decisions will paralyze units. This, combined with a strange disdain by Libyan units to maintain technical equipment, or learn additional skills like swimming, doomed the usefulness of these soldiers.

Sgt Waugh's story continues with his time in the Sudan, where part of his responsibility was tracking Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately, while it was easy to track Bin Laden those days, no one understood how big of a threat he would eventually become, and it was also still taboo to execute/assassinate dangerous terrorist leaders, so Bin Laden lived.

A large portion of the book is spent retelling his time keeping an eye on Carlos the Jackal. The story is very interesting in itself, but what I found incredible was how long Carlos the Jackal's location was known and actively being tracked. However, no action was taken because of either indecision at top levels of government, or because other channels had to be used to legally apprehend him. This is totally unlike spy movies where some CIA operative is just waiting for an opportune moment to take out a target with a sniper rifle. Had that been the case, The Jackal would have been dead long before he was actually arrested.

The book finishes with Sgt Waugh's involvement in post-9/11 war in Afghanistan. Though he was 71 years old, he still felt it his duty to serve his country and went to Afghanistan as some sort of liason between the CIA and Special Forces. Despite his advanced age, it seems like Sgt Waugh still lived like any enlisted grunt, taking whatever living conditions were necessary to be where the action was. He talks a bit about how the Afghanistan conflict contrasted with Vietnam, as well as how far weapons had progressed (especially precision bombing).

All in all, this book is a rare look inside Special Forces, and one that manages to cover a half-century of how war has evolved. It's highly informative on multiple levels, in addition to being an easy read

[Dark Passport · Rating 5 out of 5]

At only 12 years of age, the attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted Billy Waugh’s desire to serve his country. He even ran away from home as a teenager in an attempt to join the military before finishing high school. His dream eventually came true, and he earned his spot among the elite of the U.S. Army Special Forces. The cloak and dagger stories of the Observations Group in Vietnam were interesting yet offset by Waugh’s disdain for the way 10 years of fighting in that country were thrown away to the North Vietnamese. This of course is relatable to the recent situation of 20 years of work in Afghanistan being shamefully given to the Taliban.

For his unconventional retirement ceremony, Waugh parachuted into the Special Forces parade grounds and allowed his men to spend the rest of the day enjoying adult beverages. During his time with the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 90s, Waugh would go running though Khartoum (the notorious “center of the bad guy universe”) past Osama bin Laden’s home and make eye contact with the man who would later become the most wanted terrorist in the world. “I wish we had known that one day in the dust in those streets in Khartoum would become the dust of the World Trade Center.”

The exploits of Billy Waugh are admittedly geared more towards military veterans or anyone who loves a good war story. But the look back in time that his book provides feels more like the written version of watching a late 80s or early 90s Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Anybody reading this book who follows global current affairs is sure to wonder if the world will ever learn from its mistakes.

[Zack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly interesting read. Billy Waugh definitely led a life less ordinary. I do think the narrative was a bit hamstrung due to him not being able to share so much from long stretches of his career.

We got a smidge of early life, then just some vignettes from Vietnam as a Special Forces operator. I did like that he gave what seemed to be a good perspective on the boredom of operations work in the CIA. It seems similar to the military idea of "hurry up and wait" except with a lot more loneliness than you would get in the army, for example.

There were some interesting insights, but nothing truly groundbreaking here. I did also chuckle a few times at the seeming dissonance where from one paragraph to another, Billy was a badass for working to get the world's most wanted man-Carlos the Jackal-out of commission, but then Billy would share his perspective that Carlos was a has-been playboy who was well past his prime.

Still, better than average for the genre.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a career military guy, I had read many books about heros like David Hackworth, Nick Rowe, and others. As a career SF guy, I had heard of Billy Waugh, but never really knew his story. Well, this is it. This is Billy's story, and it grabs you by the short hairs and keeps you turning pages throughout. An amazing story about an amazing man who would not quit. Billy Waugh joined the military as a teenager, was one of the original SF soldiers, spent almost 8 years in Vietnam, spent decades chasing bad guys around the world with the CIA, and finally ended up in Afghanistan at the ripe age of 71 years old. What a grizzeled old badass! This was an incredible story of a true American hero.

[Larry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, interesting but sometimes repetitive stories about his war career. A bit of a bore after awhile, but I powered through. Can't decode if the author is a true hero or a braggart. He certainly has unambiguous feelings about right and wrong. He's right. I listened to audiobook which is read with a raspy old timers no BS style that made it real and enjoyable to listen to. Not a sophisticated treatment of war, just details of his personal exploits. If you enjoy that sort of thing, it's fine.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is deceiving. It's actually about Billy Waugh getting shot up in Vietnam, black ops in Cambodia (recruiting locals), surveillance of Osama bin Laden (before he was dangerous) and Carlos the Jackal (after he was mostly retired). The title makes it sound like Billy spent decades looking for Carlos and finally found him, but in actuality, it was just a few weeks of work after getting some info from the intelligence agency. I liked the details about tradecraft. Billy says he's done a lot more stuff he can't talk about. But just reading this, these missions seem very common.

[Joseph Freedom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Waugh is an undisputed legend of special operations - with over five decades of unconventional and guerrilla warfare, and clandestine operations experience to show for it.

He’s also funny as hell and more human than you might expect him to be - what with all his death-defying feats of pluck and daring. He also passes on some incredible wisdom that only a person with his life story could have.

This is a must-read for military leaders, those who fancy themselves James or Jane Bond, or just everyday folks needing a reminder that the journey isn’t over until you say it is.

[Robert McAusland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Waugh is a legend! He fought in the Korean War all the way up to an including GWOT. A blue collar, no nonsense warrior who never looked for accolades, medals, recognition or money. He just wanted the smoke! A true serviceman who loved his country and would stand up for what's right. This is a great book that goes over many of his tours but I felt that the Vietnam section was much more detailed pertaining to the battles. I tip my hat to Mr. Waugh and thank the proud men and women who serve just like him in order to keep our country safe.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

No idea why this book carries this title. Only two chapters talk about it. Also, most of this information is covered in “Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History Of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, And Assassins” by Annie Jacobsen.

Maybe I should be annoyed that Jacobsen’s book covers so much of Waugh’s book. This book could have covered stories where he wasn’t the central character like the Afterword covers.

[Paul Petrone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much just a rundown of his military exploits and can feel a bit in-the-weeds at times. Politics are interesting only in that they reveal a soldier's mindset who never questioned a single battle he was in and cared solely on winning. Still a compelling quick read, some interesting insights and you can say this about Billy Waugh - glad he's on our side.

[Jesse Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing isn't exceptionally good, but the stories are. Not the type of book I typically read, but it is eye opening to someone like myself with no military experience. For that reason, I think many people would do well to check it out and get a better appreciation for the gory details of how military and covert operations run.