REFERENCE SOURCES ON U.S. SOF

Ross Hall’s The Ranger Book: A History, 1634–2006 (Hall 2007).

ROLES, MISSIONS, AND DOCTRINE FOR U.S. SOF

Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan’s Deadly Pech Valley and Ann Tyson’s American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant (Fry 2017; Tyson, 2015).

Almost a decade later Charlie Beckwith offered up his Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (Beckworth 2000).

THEORY, POLICY, AND STRATEGY FOR U.S. SOF

The Rangers and their precursors include some of America’s most storied military units.

Couch describes Ranger assessment criteria and major training phases in prose enlivened with interviews with current Rangers. He does a good job of explaining how the post-Vietnam Rangers have become a schoolhouse for army leadership, so that many army generals now earn the Ranger tab. Indeed, qualifying for the Rangers is now a preferred path to

GENERAL OVERVIEWS OF U.S. SOF