Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967

by Warner Smith

During the Vietnam War, the CIA created and trained small teams of elite fighting men for reconnaissance and covert combat patrols in areas where the American military were forbidden to operate. These patrols operated in North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and even mainland China. Cryptically, they were known as FRAM 16, and their super-secret story has never before been told. CIA/Naval Intelligence veteran Warner Smith tells the remarkable, true account of a secret soldier's twenty-month combat odyssey through Southeast Asia.
Months of rigorous training taught Smith and the other fifteen men of his unit what it takes to become a CIA covert warrior. Adapting skills developed by their special operations brethren, Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Corps Force Recon, and Air Force Ravens, these shadow warriors operated in black pajama "uniforms" or camouflaged fatigues with no identification markings, routinely engaging unsuspecting North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Pathet Lao forces in their backyards, often far from the killing fields of South Vietnam.
Covert Warrior relates some of the most daring feats of combat ever described in print. One mission found Smith and his five-man team in Laos, sent to observe enemy troop movement when they stumbled upon a POW camp holding downed American fliers. In a superbly orchestrated attack, Smith, armed with his Stoner machine gun, and his team members ambushed the enemy guards, freed the POWs, and helicoptered them to safety and freedom courtesy of Air America.
Even more remarkable is the edge-of-your-seat story of being parachuted - alone - into southern China. The determine the origin of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that are shooting down U.S. warplanes attacking North Vietnam. Miraculously, Smith survived to tell the tale.

Genres: War, Military Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Tarash_bulba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it when I read it a loooong time ago.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The kind of story that can't be made up. Nobody's imagination is this vivid. If this guy weren't on my team, he might give me nightmares.

Worth reading, to find out what is possible by somebody with a "can do, will do" attitude.

After reading the book I found a write up about it from a former Navy Seal which says that the bulk of the book is fiction and he goes into detail about flaws or mistakes in the book.

Personally, I don't care! I served and know that time and distance has a strange way of distorting facts and commingling personal truths with other truths that you become aware of.

It remains a good read for no other reason then to vent the survivor's guilt that sneaks into life as PTSD and remains for a lifetime. This becomes apparent at page 229 when the author forgives himself with the sentence of, "I should not feel ashamed that I survived, but the thought persists to a degree in my brain even to this day."

Reality or not, this war is best left to the pages of obscure books like this. Success and/or guilt should be left to the historians of the future, to judge.

[Liam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book. It is the biggest pile of stinking horseshit I have ever had the misfortune to read, and if we were allowed to give negative star scores, this book would richly deserve the lowest score possible. Unfortunately, I did not remember to look up the title in Burkett & Whitley's 'Stolen Valor' before I read it, but I ended up not needing to do so- the stories in this book are so obviously lies that I would have had grave doubts about the author's veracity even as a child. CAVEAT EMPTOR!

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

My teacher gave it to me. Then I learned it was a fraud. DNF.