Word: greenes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Intensive Heat. At week's end the Army was still keeping silent and acting tough. Colonel Robert Rheault, a much-decorated West Pointer who commanded all Special Forces in Viet Nam, was being held in a house trailer. The seven other accused Green Berets were confined in small, metal-roofed rooms at the infamous Long Binh jail, noted for riots and p.o.w.-like conditions. There they were allowed only one exercise period a day and subjected to repeated interrogation. At least one officer has gone through several "strip searches," in which the prisoner is required to take...
...from only one source in Viet Nam-General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander. Why was Abrams reacting so strongly? Saigon's rumor mills have ground out at least three plausible theories: 1) The killing inflamed long-smoldering resentment between the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, with the Green Berets caught in the middle. It is said that Abrams made an issue of the case as a warning to the CIA to stop using the Special Forces to do its dirty work. 2) The victim was an extremely important agent, possibly a special emissary from President Thieu to Hanoi...
...nearly a decade after a new Special Forces group was set up at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1952 to cope with guerrilla forces, the organization languished. At first, the group's members were permitted to wear the Special Forces' distinctive green berets, borrowed from Britain's World War II commandos, within the confines of Fort Bragg. In 1956, the headgear was banned altogether because it looked "too foreign...
President John F. Kennedy, who read James Bond novels and foresaw the need for countering insurgency warfare, particularly in beleaguered Southeast Asia, gave a new lease of life to the Special Forces when he took office. The green beret was reinstated-almost enshrined. Said J.F.K. in 1962: "The green beret is again becoming a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom." Around that time, 600 members of the Special Forces were serving as advisers in South Viet Nam. In those palmy days, the Green Berets were the darlings...
Generally, the Green Berets work at a higher Intelligence level than the G-2s (Intelligence chiefs) of the Army and Marines, who are more or less limited to information-gathering. The Green Beret networks have a much wider range and tend, for example, to have closer contacts with the CIA, as was the case at Nha Trang. As the elite of the Army, the Green Berets are highly skilled: the communications men can repair their own radios; the medics are surgeons without diplomas; the demolition men can destroy almost anything. Most are multilingual, and all have had extensive paratroop training...