INSIDE DELTA FORCE

INSIDE DELTA FORCE has been on my list for a while and I finally was able to take it down in two days.

From the beginning, you can tell Eric Haney (Command Sergeant Major, USA ret.) was authentic and that he cared deeply about the US Army and Delta.

My favorite part of the book was his experiences leading up to being selected for the first group of men that would undergo Delta selection. I’ve known that their selection was modeled after the British SAS but having a first hand account was fascinating as I was drawing comparisons of the “unknown” to my own experience in SEAL selection (BUD/S). I also feel his pain regarding the Clowns In Action and the upper echelons of government who often use good men as pawns for their own advancement.

I found the POW story fascinating and disturbing (you’ll have to read it for yourself) and can imagine that this, along with his other viewed government atrocities, were motivating factors behind Eric writing this book.

It’s a great story about the founding of one of the finest counter-terrorism units the world has seen and a very easy read. If you haven’t read the book then buy it here.

From Publishers Weekly

Haney, a founding member of Delta Force who retired a command sergeant major, was a career army man, having served in the elite Rangers; his memoir covers his experiences during the formation and early operations of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.

In the fall of 1978, Haney was recruited and ordered to report to a secret corner of expansive Fort Bragg, N.C., where he underwent a rigorous selection process familiar from similar memoirs. In the second section of three, Haney describes advanced work with explosives and weapons, studying airplanes to plan hostage rescues, and the “final exam,” in which the class was sent to the nation’s capital, given precise assignments and had to evade the FBI. (The result a red-faced FBI.)

Haney then relates his assignments: he served three times in Beirut guarding the American ambassador, participated in the invasion of Grenada, served in several Central American countries and narrowly escaped death during the abortive rescue attempt of the American hostages in Iran. Will he and a partner successfully eliminate a sniper harassing the Marines in Beirut? Will his unit rescue hostages aboard a hijacked plane without losing any hostages?

Readers of other special forces memoirs will find this one distinctive for Haney’s attention to interservice rivalries (he has a lot of negative things to say about the CIA) that he believes compromised several missions, as well as for Haney’s nuanced, often disgusted descriptions of the human cost of war.

(This post originally appeared on SOFREP.com.)

About the Author

Brandon Webb is a former U.S. Navy SEAL with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Middle East. His last tour in the SEAL Teams was as the Course Manager for the US Navy SEAL Sniper program, arguably one of the most difficult sniper courses in the world. He was formerly a contributing editor for Military.com, and currently the Editor-in-Chief of SOFREP.com. Brandon is regularly featured in the media as a subject matter expert on military affairs. An avid writer, his last two books (The Red Circle and Benghazi: The Definitive Report) both hit the New York Times best seller list, and his writing has been featured in print and digital media worldwide. You can follow him on Twitter @BrandontWebb.

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