“The Bright Light missions would seldom be deployed under today’s Rules of Engagement,” Meyer told Sandboxx News. And rules of engagement were quite different, with less bureaucracy impeding the guys on the ground. Legendary SOG operator John Stryker Meyer, for example, was running recon as a One-Zero (team leader) at the age of 22 and just an E-4. What stands out about SOG is how much responsibility was placed on its young operators. MACV-SOG commandos training on the obstacle course.

Some notable SOG missions include Operation Tailwind, a Hatchet Force operation in Thailand and one of the most successful missions in SOG’s history the Thanksgiving operation, when SOG operator John Stryker Meyer’s six-man team encountered and evaded 30,000 North Vietnamese the Christmas mission, when Meyer’s team went into Laos to destroy a fuel pipeline but almost got burned alive by North Vietnamese trackers who lit the jungle on fire Operation Thundercloud, in which SOG recruited and trained captured North Vietnamese troops and sent them to recon operations across the border dressed like their former comrades and Recon Team Alabama’s October 1968 mission that accounted fora whopping 9,000 North Vietnamese killed or wounded in action. Related: ELDON BARGEWELL, AN AMERICAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS LEGEND For example, at one point, CCC ran almost 30 recon teams.

States, but they also used other titles, such as “Bushmaster,” “Adder,” and “Viper.” The number of active recon teams fluctuated throughout the war, reflecting casualties and increasing demand. Usually, SOG commandos named teams after U.S. The first SOG recon teams were called “Spike Teams” (ST), for example, ST Idaho, with the term “Recon Teams” (RT), for instance, RT Ohio, becoming more popular later in the war.

Assassin? by Joe Craig