TIP OF THE SPEAR
The Unknown War In Our Southern Backyard Against the Commies, Part 2
BY DOC SPEARS
Last week I blogged about my interview by special ops historian Bud Gibson on his channel The Reconnaissance Cast, where I talk about the civil war in El Salvador. I won’t rehash last week’s blog, but it’s a war we won, and one of the very few examples of a successful counter insurgency campaign—run primarily by a very small number of Special Forces guys.
Bud’s show has the best collection of interviews there are from real special operations folks who’ve been there/done that. If you’re an author trying to get inspired to write that next action scene, you’d do well to spend some time on his channel.
In this one I tried to keep things moving along, with a lot less of the geopolitical orientation and much more about the ground game in El Salvador, with stories about the good, bad, and the ugly of what I saw and did.
So if you do take the time, I tell stuff that’s never been told anywhere before:
I answer why our first Special Forces operator killed in combat did not receive his Silver Star until more than ten years after the fact.
I talk about one of our Salvadoran marine commandos who accidentally foiled a surprise attack and saved his whole brigade, then got thrown in prison for murder. It all turned out well for him in the end.
I tell the story of a Sandinista officer who paddled his whole family from Nicaragua in a dugout canoe to “defect” to the CIA. He didn’t get the dream vacation to the land of the big PX he’d hoped for. I got to embalm him.
Did you ever read Soldier of Fortune magazine? Do you know who Barry Sadler was? You know, “The Ballad of the Green Berets” guy, and the Casca, the Eternal Mercenary books? I knew Barry well, and many of the Soldier-of-Fiction guys.
“Doc, there are stories out there about super-secret assassination missions by SEAL and Delta guys. Are they true?” Pfft. No. Those stories make Chris Kyle’s seem almost believable. The reality is actually way cooler.
If you made a note to watch but haven’t, do what I do and listen to YouTube while you drive through your phone’s Bluetooth. It’s a great way to make the miles go by.
I’ll give everyone a break in my next blogs and return to ramblings about guns and such, and put up the part three to this interview another time.
DOL and KTF!