num_pages: 256
description: During the Vietnam War, the CIA created and trained small teams of elite fighting men for reconnaissance and covert combat patrols in areas where the American military were forbidden to operate. These patrols operated in North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and even mainland China. Cryptically, they were known as FRAM 16, and their super-secret story has never before been told. CIA/Naval Intelligence veteran Warner Smith tells the remarkable, true account of a secret soldier's twenty-month combat odyssey through Southeast Asia.Months of rigorous training taught Smith and the other fifteen men of his unit what it takes to become a CIA covert warrior. Adapting skills developed by their special operations brethren, Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Corps Force Recon, and Air Force Ravens, these shadow warriors operated in black pajama "uniforms" or camouflaged fatigues with no identification markings, routinely engaging unsuspecting North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Pathet Lao forces in their backyards, often far from the killing fields of South Vietnam.Covert Warrior relates some of the most daring feats of combat ever described in print. One mission found Smith and his five-man team in Laos, sent to observe enemy troop movement when they stumbled upon a POW camp holding downed American fliers. In a superbly orchestrated attack, Smith, armed with his Stoner machine gun, and his team members ambushed the enemy guards, freed the POWs, and helicoptered them to safety and freedom courtesy of Air America.Even more remarkable is the edge-of-your-seat story of being parachuted - alone - into southern China. The determine the origin of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that are shooting down U.S. warplanes attacking North Vietnam. Miraculously, Smith survived to tell the tale.
language: English
title: Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967
titlecomplete: Covert Warrior: Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967
genres: War, Military Fiction
ratings_count: 23
publisher: Presidio Press