We Few

MACV-SOG — Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group — was one of the most classified special operations programs of the Cold War. Its recon teams, made up of American Green Berets and indigenous Montagnard fighters, slipped across borders into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam on missions the U.S. government officially denied. Casualty rates were catastrophic. Most teams never made it back. Nick Brokhausen was one of the men who went in anyway. We Few (2005) is his memoir of a 1970 tour running with Recon Team Habu, CCN — a firsthand account written in a voice unlike anything else in the Vietnam canon: irreverent, sarcastic, brutally honest, and shot through with the dark humor that only comes from having actually been there. It became a cult classic among SOG veterans and special operations readers. Whispers in the Tall Grass (2019) picks up where We Few left off. The war has entered a new and deadlier phase — the enemy now deploys special hunter-killer formations specifically designed to find and destroy recon teams. Missions that were already suicidal have become more so. Brokhausen writes with the same unflinching voice as the stakes get higher and the losses mount. These books are essential reading for anyone serious about the history of special operations — and they open up a world of gear, weapons, and equipment used by SOG operators in the field: CAR-15s, suppressed pistols, indigenous rucksacks, air assets, and the improvised kit that kept small teams alive deep in denied territory.