Free Fire Zones

The U.S. Navy SEALs came to Vietnam to fight a new kind of war. They went home legends in the military annals of our nation. The truth is as astonishing as the myth. In a war shaped and shackled by politicians and C.I.A. "spooks"--in a fierce conflict rendered unwinnable by lies, miscommunication, and misconception-what the U.S. Navy SEALs accomplished was remarkable. In eight explosive years of combat in the jungles of Southeast Asia, they redrew battlelines and rewrote the rules of engagement. And in the midst of the chaos and indecision that doomed America's war efforts, no other branch of the Special Forces could compete with the SEALs' record of successful operations and engagements with the enemy.

Based on newly declassified information and interviews with the men who pulled the triggers, Free Fire Zones takes the reader inside some of the greatest SEAL missions in Vietnam and reveals how and why these legendary warriors beat the odds again and again. Gripping, fascinating, and authentic, here are the deployments and the detachments, the methods and the means, and the breathtaking firefights that indisputably prove that, when it comes to the exploits of the SEALs in Vietnam, the facts are far more incredible than the fiction.