Tom Clancy Books

All in all not a bad strategy guide. Walk-through is clear and will get you through the levels with ease. It gives you options on how to play your game either through stealth or kill everybody in sight. All objectives are given to you and where you can find them. The walk-through pictures suggesting where you should position yourself are a little dark. They could of been a little brighter.

...on a regular basis. After each mission, you get rated, one might think that a strategy guide would not only show you all the ins and outs, of a mission, but also how to get the 100% rating for it. There was sadly, very little useful information in this book. The maps and locations of things are nice, but that's pretty much where you have to put the book down and play the game on your own.
The book is setup for all the platforms that SC-CT appears on, but what the writers didn't take into account is how the game differs on each platform. Whoever wrote it, didn't play it on the Xbox, because the things he writes about, don't work in a normal setting. For instance, they never mention that the ambient sound levels drop as you progress in difficulty. Or they promote the use of your lethal attacks when that hurts your score. Not that it even gives good strategic advice there. When it mentions the cargo ship, it tells you to knock out the second of two guards in a hallway, and when the first guard turns around to see what's going on, you have a moment to shoot him. It never mentions that you could just shoot out the three lights in that area and silently grab each guard while they are standing around in the dark with no flares.
There are so many different paths in every mission, it is hard to cover them all. There are also a lot of things in each mission that don't change. For instance, it's always better to capture a guard and interrogate him, rather than sniping him from some distance off. Either hack everything you can or get a guard to open it for you.
Splinter Cell has always been a detail oriented game, lots of little things to pay attention to. To get the most enjoyment and playability out of this game, you can't go through any of the missions with your guns blazing. I only bought this because I was hoping to find out how to finish the Bathouse mission with 100%, and it didn't even help me do that.

For someone who hasn't played the game before, this book is a good one to help you get through it the first time. It gives some good basic pointers and discusses the weaponry and basic tactics. It is really more of a walk-through for first time players.

For anyone who wants a score of 100%, forget the book. It became quickly obvious that the author(s) didn't look past the obvious in each scenario. I found many ways in the stealth mode of avoiding bad guys altogether instead of knocking them all out or killing them (you lose 2% on your score per kill). Obvious ways around the map and ways of avoiding contact with the enemy (and resulting alarms or being spotted) aren't mentioned. Some situations have a very easy way out, but the author(s) didn't mention that - obviously because they didn't sit down at the game and try out all the possibilities.

The worst part of the book is the map section. There is no attempt to connect the various two-dimensional maps into the third dimension so you know, for instance, what ventilator shafts go where on different floors of a multi-level building. The map section was the primary reason for me getting the book and I was very disappointed. It wasn't as thorough as other Prima books I have purchased in the past.

Again, for someone just starting in the game, it is a great book to keep you from getting lost or frustrated. It provides you a way to complete the level. But after you use the book, play again and again, exploring other avenues of completing the scenarios. Do a quick save, then incapacitate all the bad guys in the area so you can explore it in detail. Then you can reload the quick save and move on. Every area has multiple ways of getting through them - some overt, some covert. Some are hard to find in the heat of battle or while hiding. That's where incapacitating, then exploring comes into play.

Chaos Theory is a great game. This book just doesn't do the game justice in my opinion.

Whenever Prima gets its hands around a project, it really gets its hands around a project. By looking through the guide you can get an accurate feel for what the game actually looks like. There are plenty of maps and screen shots to help guide you--not only through the game, but on whether the game is worth buying in the first place. I always check out a PRIMA guide before buying a game. So many of today's strategy guides are filled with empty swatches of page, or else LAME clip art. Just show me the game!

It really seemed like the designers of this guide put in the extra effort too. There are helpful tips and comments throughout. Nothing was left to chance. Visually stunning and magnificent.

I have used a lot of strategy guides for video games. Mostly, it is a strictly utilitarian venture.

I have to say, though, the design of this book BLEW ME AWAY. It is AWESOME! It accomplishes its utlitarian purpose with flying colors, thanks to the excellent writing. Even in that context, the layout and the design were phenomenal. I really don't think I've ever seen a more well-designed strategy guide, EVER!

This book is so amazing, I would recommend it to people who aren't even going to play the game. It is really that good. The design transports you to another world. I am going to be especially mindful of Prima Guides into the future. They have won my loyalty with this book.

Well this book is great i had the spanish version adn i can read and talk i spanish (my 1st language) so it's perfect ^^ and has a great plot

I need to get Without Remorse by Tom Clancy, spanish version ( Sin Remordimientos )

There was nothing in your ad that said anything about this book being in SPANISH. So therefore I received this book and of course I don't speak spanish. Thanks for wasting not only my time but my money. I will not order anything from Amazon again, since I am not sure that I will be able to read it.

In this booK FR Clancy Uses examples of every day living to start the story of the GOSPEL.eg The birth of the river from rivulets to the sea to illustrate the call of GOD

Just to make it *absolutely* clear, this was written by a priest from somewhere in the Republic Of Ireland, and not somebody with the same name from Maryland, USA.

It is possible that someone may be concurrently interested in the works of both authors; but perhaps not very likely.

i have heard people bought this strategy guide for the PC version. This is a 360 version. that cleared, the info in the guide help you plan your movements and has great specs on the weapons. many dont like it because it dos not tell you how to beat the game. to that i say. than what the fun of beating the game!

This guide won't be that helpful for PC users, since it is based on X360.
The game is actually very hard.

I have enjoyed all of the Clancy Op-Center books I've read, and this one is no different. "Games of State" has an entertaining and exciting story line with a great cast of characters. I still prefer the regular Tom Clancy novels, but the Op-Center books are a nice change of pace.

My first reading of Op-Center came about because I enjoyed Tom Clancy's previous novels. It led to me reading a number of other Op-Center books. I enjoyed them all.

I just reread the original Op-Center... it wasn't nearly as good the second time through.

Why is that?

Tom Clancy has a knack for spinning a complex story with many characters, and making each character stand out enough that the reader doesn't get mixed up. This didn't happen with this reading... I kept being confused who was where and with what agency. I think this is because I read it faster. The only other book I have read twice is The Hunt for Red October, and the second time was as a book on CD, meaning that I couldn't go any faster than the narrator. And it was great!

I'll try another Clancy book as a repeat in the future, and see whether I have the same reaction. Oh, and in Clancy's books, the good guys eventually win, technology works great, and guys are very manly. If you've read any of his novels, you know what I mean.

This is a Clancy classic! Keeps your interest and juices flowing from cover to cover!

A good read for anyone really. It provides a view of both sides, both US and the Kurds, and historical information and cultural background to the area.

Definitly a good read, and somewhat educational about the conflicts and ideals in the Middle East (atleast as far as the Kurds and Turks go).

First, I just want to say that this review IS about the first book. This book is not about Neo-Nazis or the Turks and Kurds. It is based in North/South Korea.

This book is an acceptable start to the series, but could have been much better. For one, it was a pretty lame "crisis". It didn't even last more than two days, which I realize is possible, but not very likely. Even more ridiculous is the marital problems mixed in that also last only two days and then are fixed (although in later books you find that it is not actually "fixed") as well as the son's sudden viral attack and even more sudden recovery.
One other pretty lame portion is where a major figure and two less heard-of figures go into a threatening position. The least mentioned of the three gets killed and the other little heard-of guy gets wounded, while the most heard-of guy is unharmed. The part of the one guy getting wounded is also somewhat ridiculous. He was knocked over and shot at from right above him, yet all he got was a shoulder wound. It does not seem right to be standing over someone and shoot him, but only get his shoulder, even if you are in a hurry.
Also, for being the first book in a series, it doesn't give very much information about op-Center as a whole.

As for the good parts, there are few that are easily mentioned. One part is how Major Lee is introduced. In the first section where he is mentioned, you are given the one detail that later reveals his true nature to you.
I feel that the subplot of Gregory Donald was a good and necessary inclusion. Without it, you wouldn't understand his great desire to get to the border and behind it.

Overall, I would recommend this book, but mainly just for those of you who have read other books in the series and want to know more about some of the earlier details. Otherwise, it is not very great material, especially for coming under Clancy's name. Read and enjoy.

With 146 other reviews listed here nothing I could say would probably be new, so I'll be brief. When I saw this series one thing that appealed to me was the books were not the normal Tom Clancy 'door prop' size. I enjoy the smaller size and the larger print, too.

Another reason I picked these NET FORCE books up was the hope that I might learn something more about computers, if they are supposed to take place in 2010, then at least cutting age tech will be present.

For me, the characters though very similiar to other Clancy characters are not cardboard and are interesting. My favorite in this book is the Selkie, bad gal that she is, she stands out. I know Tom Clancy did not write these shorter books, so either he has more ideas than he can cover himself, or he just wants extra cash. However, that may be, though the books were not written by him, I rather doubt much is in that he did not sanction.

Though I am not a die-hard fan, therefore not reading every book Mr. Clancy writes, I do enjoy his books. I'm ex-military, Vietnam era USN/USMC, have seen him on a couple book review programs, and though he never served, am impressed with his respect for things military and certainly his expertise. I respect both him and his writing.

Semper Fi.

Parts of this book are good. Other parts, not so much. The VR stuff that is interspersed throughout as the way folks surf the net in this somewhere down the line time horizon isn't a strong point of the story at all, and neither is all the net slang used in the dialog. Actually, it's kind of a strange situation where the action part of this action book is actually somewhat weaker than the chartacter development.

I don't know if that means I'll read another Net Force book, though.

This series may not be written by Tom Clancy but you'll surely get a lot of info from it, from legal stuff to history to medical stuff to physics and oh yes...pentjak silat!

Set in the year 2010, Tom Clancy spins a yarn worth tons! Imaginations run wild in a virtual world and someone's crashing the system. How to find him/her in a VR World? Great reading bet you can't put it down!

Before starting the review on this book I think one thing needs to made extremely clear, although Tom Clancy's name takes up nearly a quarter of the cover this book is not written by Mr. Clancy. The series of Net Force is an idea that Tom Clancy fabricated along with Steve Pieczenik while Steve Perry was commissioned to write the series. Although not written by Clancy I would like to believe that Clancy is one of the first to read the book and makes any corrections that he sees fit. Having said that, the book is absolutely readable and does have a little of a Clancy feel to it.

Now on to the book itself, I really think that the series is going to be successful for a variety of reasons, and Net Force itself is something not all that far fetched. Net Force is basically a crime fighting organization that deals directly with the internet. I think that the most interesting thing through out the book is the idea of Virtual Reality (VR). This book really focuses on the fact that VR is not only a part of the future but a very intricate part of the future. The one thing that can become confusing in this book is that it will move all over the place during chapters. Without reading the few bolded lines that break apart the chapters telling the location of the following scene you can become easily confused as to what is going on. Another thing about this book is that there are a wide variety of characters that are all introduced, some lasting a matter of pages and some, hopefully, lasting the entire series.

The series seems to focus around the newly appointed director of Net Force, Alex Michaels. The book goes into the past of Alex's life discussing his ex-wife as well as daughter but I think the thing that this book really sets up is a possible office romance between Alex and his co-worker Toni Fiorella. Toni is madly in love with Alex and is determined to make Alex feel the same way. I guess time will tell whether or not Alex ever comes around to the idea of becoming involved with someone other than his ex-wife Megan, someone that he is still in love with.

Overall I really did like the book and the characters that seem to sticking around. The book is a bit confusing at times with all of the different characters and settings and was a tad bit harder to read because you had to keep all the stories straight and remember where each character was at a given time. Other than that I would recommend this book to really anyone, no only those interested in computers.

Brian Bowen

Steve Berry delivers another globe-hopping thriller with retired US operative Cotton Malone attempting to live a quiet life running a bookshop in Copenhagen. Retirement comes to an abrupt halt when he escapes the assassins who burn down his bookshop and tell him they have kidnapped his son. Cotton is forced to join forces with his acerbic ex-wife Pam when it seems assassins may be on her tail, as well. They get their son back, but then they find themselves caught between ancient organizations: the Guardians of the Library at Alexandria, pledged to keep its secrets safe, and the Order of the Golden Fleece, a ruthless sect of the powerful who meet in secret and who have vowed to claim the Library for themselves. Accompanying Cotton and Pam is the Order's pet assassin, who has a few plans of his own regarding the library.

At the same time, treachery is afoot in the US government with the president, vice president, secretary of state, and the heads of several security departments all mistrusting each other as a web of secrets and lies is unraveled. Some find this kind of thriller gripping. Unfortunately, I find it a bit tiresome, and in this book, everything that was happening inside the government was not essential to the main plot of Cotton Malone following a quest to the lost Library of Alexandria. This is also the third Steve Berry book I've read starring an idiotic and unlikeable female lead. When Pam Malone, yet again acting stubborn and stupid, gets herself shot, I found myself wishing they'd put her down then and there. This author obviously has some issues with women. The author also seems way out of touch with children. Gary Malone was supposed to be 15 but came across as a 10-year-old in size, maturity, vocabulary, and deed.

I think they're a dime a dozen, but thrillers involving clueless protagonists doing a lot of chasing around the globe while unaware of the web of lies surrounding them as they follow a trail of clues in close proximity to the know-it-all bad guys are pretty popular. Some such books are sometimes a thrill to read, but often they miss the mark and fail to grab my interest. Since this book also contained one of my least favorite plot devices of all the characters knowing something that was kept from me until the very end, it failed to grab my interest.

With the phenomenal success of the Da Vinci Code, it is no surprise that more novels of such genre surface the market. I bought this book expected to find some aspects of the Alexandria Library history, as I learnt about Da Vinci's work from the Code. To my disappointment, nothing of such nature is found here. The name Alexandria Library is mentioned only as the reference point as the origin of the Link. No other history trial is covered. The majority of the book is dedicated to the hunt of such "treasure." The most boring part for me is when they are trying to decipher the clues, the way it was portrayed in the Code, but this time only ten percent as good. I stopped reading it after having covered about 3/4 of the book, didn't want to waste my time further.

I got this book for free when I went to a free screening of Sweeney Todd which was sponsored by The New York Times. The book was not bad but I felt like I was watching National treasure. The beginning of each chapter was really frustrating because I was always, "wait who are these people again". The story was poorly organized the author could have added some clever conversations. The dialogue was so stiff.

Waaaaaaaaaaay too much description of the setting! Seriously, 1/3rd of this book could be eliminated, chalked up as irrelevant. The storyline itself, though, was really good. A completely enjoyable plot, once you get through being dragged through an architectural tour of a ton of different historical sites.

A well written novel that does well by drawing the reader into the story. But the premise is week and poorly researched. The author's understanding of Bibilical History and classical Hebrew are limited at best, as is his knowledge of the literarly devices commonly used in Classical Hebrew.

Having said that, this is yet another attempt to discredit Biblical truth, both that of the Jewish faith and of Christian faith. It seems every author has to try it at one point. Yet all who have tried have succeed only in showing their ignorance and unwillingness to accept truth.

I do like this author, though, and if you are able to look beyond these shortcomings, you will probably enjoy the tale.

I labored through about half of this book, anticipating that it would begin to relate in some way to its title. The first part about the origin of SF was interesting. But it went downhill once it commenced with the biography of a former Green Beret without any special ops combat experience, and with only a very short time spent in that community. Stiner's command experience in the spec-ops world seems overstated in this book. None of the other numerous historical books I've read on spec-ops - many by the operators themselves - ever mention Stiner. Clancy seems to know what a good story is, but somehow completely missed it on this one.

Why this book? You can understand why they are called special forces not only commando.

The book is boring. Stiner is a joke. Clancy is a joke. Clancy has no military background so why is it that he writes so much about the military? Get a life Clancy. We don't want to read boring stories about pencil pushers like Stiner.

Some of the events mentioned in the book were not detailed enough for the reader to reach to the same conclusions that the author did. Maybe because I know these events and I some what disagree with him. But I can't talk on behalf of the people that are not aware of these events.
I would like to stress that I did not rate 3 stars because I disagree with the author, a lot of other topics I think that he was spot on and could not agree more with him. The reason I gave him 3 because The author lost my attention in the middle of the book and because it is not TOM's best work.

Another fictional tale by Clancy passed off as the truth. Those who know the truth behind the Special Forces and Stiner are laughing their heads off. Well, after they wake up from reading this boring fabrication. It's a boring waste of time and money. Whats next for Clancy? Is he going to write a bio about the "Men in Black" and try to get the readers to believe that crap too? Maybe Stiner should try to write his own book without riding on Clancy's name. He could call it "How a four star general survives in the military without any leadership skills." Now thats a book we could all believe.

Despite being the 8th Op-Center, "Line of Control" lives up to the high standards the previous novels set. The book's focus is a terrorist plot in the Kashmir/Jammu region of the Indian Sub-Continent that may lead to nuclear brinkmanship. The story line will take you through twists and turns and leave you wanting more. The characters are are deep, interesting and leave you feeling as if you know them. An excellent of a military action/adventure novel.

WARNING: If you have not finished the previous seven Op-Centers, reading this book out of order will make the plot arbitrary.

The book's surprises are comparable to that of the plot of Fox's "24." Just make sure you read the Op-Center series in order!

I only borrowed this book because it said Tom Clancy on it and I was shocked to see that he had actually not written this book.

This is the most inaccurate Tom Clancy book I have ever read:

- Srinagar is not 25 miles away from the Line of Control
- India has a 'no first use' policy meaning that it will not be the first one to use nuclear weapons (this means the 'SFF' had no excuse to blow up anything)
- There is nothing like the 'naga naga' snake in India
- Cell phones do not work in Kargil or any city in Kashmir except Srinagar

The first problem is the story itself. The plot is simple, linear, very lacking in credibility and has a few major holes. (I will elaborate later, not to spoil).
There is a very long, uninteresting, and frankly juvenile sequence of events at the Kashmir border, spanning about the second half of the book. There is no thrill, and a lot of Washington-Kashmir Chit-chat that goes nowhere fast- "thank you, your'e welcome, good luck, whatever."

The second problem is how this book is marketed- bordering on fraud. It says on the cover- Tom Clancy's op-center, line of control, "created" by Tom Clancy. Only at the bottom it is revealed in small letters that the actual writer is a one Jeff Rovin.
If this is so, Shouldn't the writer be credited as the "Creator"?
And what in the devil is a "New York Times #1 best-selling phenomenon"? Since when are phenomena being sold? This statement is nonsense- Again, clever and cynical marketing, taking advantage of readers.

The major holes I found in the plot- Why bother trekking across the glacier for hours on hours just to make an audio recording of Nanda's confession?! Why not just use the communication devices? Why does anyone on CNN or India care about this anonymous woman's confession? It is unlikely that a nuclear war would start over a few terror acts (A sadly regular event in that area of the world. And if so- why hasn't it started yet? Also much of the Indian's actions have little sense.

In conclusion- If you like this genre, I can only suggest a different book.

I may be one of the lone proponents of this book, but I have been a fan of the Op-Center series and wanted to defend it. None of the Op-Center books are written by Tom Clancy, but by Jeff Rovin, and I agree it is misleading to have TC's name in large bold letters on the cover. I call these books Tom Clancy "lite" because they are quick reads and do not get so bogged down with military strategy and techno-jargon. (There have been times I have fallen asleep as Tom Clancy goes on & on about some piece of military equipment). True military affectionados will probably not like these books.

The main characters of Paul Hood, Mike Rodgers, Bob Herbert, and Brett August have developed over the series. I think it would be difficult to appreciate their reactions/emotions, etc. without the benefit of knowing what they have experienced together in the previous 7 books in the series. The tragic loss of so many of the Strikers in Line of Control is more meaningful if you were familiar with their parts in other crisis situations from the other books. That being said, a better author would be able to weave a compelling story without the reader having to be familiar with the whole series.

Some of the reviewers commented on the inaccuracies in this book and that may very well be the case. I am not very familiar with the geo-political situation between Pakistan and India and did not consider this to be a textbook or a documentary. Most likely, a real Tom Clancy book would have been better researched and more accurate.

In my opinion, it was a chilling fictional story set in the Himalayans that passed the time on a hot Summer day. In case anyone would like to read the Op-Center series in order, they are as follows:

Op-Center
Mirror Image
Games of State
Acts of War
Balance of Power
State of Siege
Divide and Conquer
Line of Control

This book was an excellent thriller by Tom Clancy. It is in the series Op-Center and if you have read any of these you know that they are very good books. It is about the border between India and Pakistan called teh Line of Control, and when Pakistan begins building nuclear missile silos turmoil begins to build up between the nations. The U.S. Striker team (a division of Op-Center) is called to paradrop into the Himalayas in search for these silos but when India and Pakistan learn about American involvement they quickly deploy their armys. Soon the American team find themselves trapped in an all out battle for survival stuck between these two armys. The finish to this book is amazing, so to find out what happens to the Striker team read Tom Clancy's: Line of Control.

Very dry, almost boring. Typical Clancy writing. I realize it is not a novel but I have read other books on SF and they are much more interesting although not as in depth as Clancy's. This book is a little outdated now. You can probably find more up to date information on SF.

I should have known when I noticed in the store that this book lacked an index, that I should have put it back on the shelf. The omission of an index in what is purportedly an information resource is generally a bad omen, as illustrated by this book.

The book feels rushed and half-hearted. The information included, whether on weapons systems or unit history is spotty, at best, and missing or incorrect at worst. Delta, which admittedly is not officially operational, rates only a single, offhanded mention. There is a definite biased slant towards Army Special Forces at the expense of other branches, and while it would be expected if this were written by an USASOC denizen, it is inappropriate and unprofessionial in this context.

The photos are grainy and rather oddly chosen and the use of black and white printing, presumably to save money, shows a sincere lack of attention when the book shows different SF unit badges as uniformly gray patches.

This book pales when compared to earlier efforts like Marine or Carrier and comes across as a quickly produced reaction to growing interest in U.S. Special Operations.

I want to say right at the front that I am a very big fan of Clancy, both his fiction and non-fiction work. After the current war in Afghanistan started and there were descriptions that the start of the fighting was being carried out by Special Forces, I thought this book would be a great educational tool to help me better understand the new reports. The book does give a broad understanding of the different US military Special Forces groups, a run down on training, tactics and weapons, but it did not offer much punch in the writing. I also felt like many chapters were almost cut and paste jobs from the chapters before. Overall I felt that the book could have been about 30 - 50 pages shorter and said the same thing, this disappoints me because those pages could have been filled with more real life examples as to the missions these guys actually perform.
Overall this is a good effort by the Clancy team; it is not as good as the Submarine or Carrier books in this line, but a solid effort. I guess I am just expecting more from one of my favorite authors.

Special Forces, the seventh and final entry in Tom Clancy's nonfiction Guided Tour series about America's armed forces, sets its sights on the shadowy -- and often misunderstood -- roles and missions of the men the author calls "the quiet professionals" of the Army's Special Forces command.

Although the public image of the Special Forces stems from such movies as John Wayne's 1968 cornball classic The Green Berets and the Rambo trilogy (Stallone's John Rambo is a former SF veteran who served in Vietnam) and Sgt. Barry Sadler's once-popular "Ballad of the Green Berets," Clancy and his co-author John D. Gresham point out that far from being hell-for-leather, shoot-first-ask-questions-later killing machines, SF soldiers are actually among the best troops in the U.S. Army. They have to be, because their missions -- ranging from blowing up a bridge or weapons factory far behind enemy lines to organizing, training, advising, and assisting foreign armies and police forces of "host" countries "to protect their societies or free them from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, and terrorism." This means that in addition to their combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, SF teams are among the busiest of America's soldiers.

One of the more interesting insights I got from reading Special Forces is related to the role played by SF deployments in El Salvador during the darkest days of that Central American nation's long-running civil war. The Reagan Administration, knowing that any major American military intervention would be very unpopular at home and abroad (a Vietnam II in our own back yard, to put it bluntly), was caught in a decision-making dilemma. Clearly they did not wish El Salvador to "go Red" as Cuba and Nicaragua had in the past, yet they knew the ruling class -- derived from the wealthy class of landowners and other top honchos -- was also very indifferent about the conditions of the Salvadoran poor, particularly those in the countryside. Using the army and national guard -- themselves derived from El Salvador's small middle class -- in repressive and counterproductive ways, El Salvador's government just made matters worse, using indiscriminate tactics and the infamous death squads. Surely, Washington couldn't be too closely linked to a small group of wealthy "patrones" whose only interest was to maintain their lock on power and to ignore the people's legitimate demands for justice and social reform.

The solution? To use Special Forces to gradually change the mindset of the Salvadoran army. It took time, and quite a few of the SF advisers lost their lives in the crossfire between leftist forces and the army. Nevertheless, the Salvadoran officers and soldiers were "re-educated" and, as Clancy writes, "the Salvadoran Army tried acting in other than brutal and repressive ways toward their fellow countrymen, they began to halt activities of their death squads and to actually show respect for basic human rights.

As a result, the rebels lost a lot of support, the Army started winning hearts, minds, and territory, and "by the end of the Cold War [a] peace treaty was a done deal, the civil war had ended, and today there is a coalition government...." Granted, the SF deployments alone were not responsible for this achievement, but they had a major effect in getting the Salvadoran people to see that the way things were being handled by both the government and the rebels were just leading to more bloodshed and chaos.

As in all the Guided Tour series, which are being updated to reflect changes in technology, doctrine, and world realities, Special Forces gives the general reading audience a look at the equipment, training, organization, and the soldiers themselves. There is an interview with Gen. Henry H. Shelton USA (Ret) former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an experienced Special Operations veteran who served with the Special Forces and also commanded Special Operations Command from 1996 to 1998. There are also overviews of the larger Special Operations Command and, finally, a short fictional account of SF personnel in action.

(Oh, and while the Special Forces troops are proud of their famous headgear, they really don't like to be called "Green Berets." As one of them told the authors, "We are NOT hats!")

I was in Special Forces Bad Tolz Germany July 1954 to Oct 1956. Most of the books I have read always say that we did not wear the "green beret" till after President Kennedy 1955. We took traning with the French in 1954, at that time they gave us the Green Beret. I have pictures of that. Carl Arndt