Word: eglin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...people had recommended a P.O.W. camp at Son Tay as a likely target for search and rescue. Nixon was enthusiastic. On Aug. 11 he gave a go-ahead for planning the operation without actually authorizing the mission. The Pentagon assigned Brigadier General LeRoy Manor, head of air commandos at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and Colonel Simons, an ex-Green Beret then stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., to lead what became known as Joint Contingency Task Group Ivory Coast...
With some 100 carefully chosen Army and Air Force volunteers, most of them Viet Nam veterans, Manor and Simons set up a secret training center at Eglin. "It was sort of by invitation only," says an Army officer. "The invitation didn't indicate when the dance would be over, but it did mention that it would be dangerous." A full-size mock-up of the Son Tay camp was built in the vastness of Eglin's preserve, based on intelligence from travelers and diplomats who had heard about the camp in Hanoi, and aerial reconnaissance. It was put up each...