This is Jocco podcast number 186 with me, Jocco Willink

Among the newly minted special forces soldiers

Were Douglas L. Laterno a skinny 135 pound California cowboy

John Shore a blonde haired slightly overweight baby faced kid from Georgia and

Frank McCloskey a tough combat hardened veteran of the 101st Airborne Division

McCloskey arrived sporting seepage from a wound in the back of his head

This trio of green braze had completed their special forces in country training program in not train the fifth special forces group headquarters

We're a sergeant in not train asked for special forces soldiers to volunteer for a secret project. They raised their hands

In short order they were flown to FOB 4 in the northern sector of South Vietnam I Corps

Upon reporting in they were told camp commander Colonel Jack Warren would brief them in the morning on the CNC mission in

Southeast Asia

Finally after more than a year of training for Laterno the game was on

How much better could this get it seems all his life you've been preparing for this moment from writing

rodeo bronx and breaking nearly every bone in his body to wrangling animals for television shows like

Daktari and cowboy in Africa starring Chuck Connors

Laterno knew a little bit about taking a calculated risk and

After he had gotten his hands on Robin Moore's book of the green braze

He knew this was for him guerilla warfare check

Counterinsurgency training check unconventional warfare check

Laterno couldn't wait to write his own story

That he could someday share with his dad a world war to be 17 pilot and former POW

Nothing however could have prepared him for the site that greeted him as he entered the transient barracks

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