Rating: 
Summary: A "Must Read" for any Infantry or Special Ops vet
Review: ...Rather, Delta Force is the plain-spoken memoir of a real-life Special Forces officer's long career advancing his art, if not his army career. Charlie Beckwith was a prophet before his time, and his campaign for the creation of an SAS-style special ops unit in the U.S. Army was stymied at every turn for nearly his entire career. Branded a rogue, even a traitor to the S.F. community, in the end, of course, his ideas won out, and Delta came into being, with Beckwith as it's first commander. There are Vietnam war stories here, but this is not a book of "there I was. . ." tales. Beckwith also offers the reader a glimpse of Army politics, but this is not a book about vain and self-absorbed senior officers. A few chapters are devoted to Delta's baptism by fire in the Iranian Hostage rescue operation, but it's not really a book about the debacle at Desert One. In Delta Force, the reader will find a memoir of one of the pivotal figures in modern ground warfare. This is the story of one tough, dedicated hombre; what he learned, and how he learned it. I'm not sure the average reader would get all of Colonel Beckwith's humorous asides and throwaway lines. Some are pretty wry, and would probably require that the reader have a military background to even notice. This edition has a few annoying typographical errors (is proofreading truly a lost art?), and Beckwith's prose occasionally lapses from one tense to another and then back again, which creates a slight feeling of disjointedness. Given those very minor caveats, for a reader with some familiarity and interest in the operational art, this is a must read. Sua Sponte.
Rating:
Summary: The best laid plans...
Review: A fascinating example of how the best laid plans for military operations can be altered and undermined - to the extent of being doomed to fail - by personality clashes and turf wars within and between the services. (One would like to believe that the military learned from the failure of the mission described here in detail, but I wouldn't bet the ranch on it.) This is also a telling examination of leadership, and as such can be read profitably by those whose interests are not primarily military related (e.g.,by those in the corporate world).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Personal History of Early SFOD-Delta
Review: Beckwith's book is an excellent account of his development as a Special Ops soldier, in Vietnam and on exchange with the SAS. He then brings these ideas into Delta Force, goes through all the gov't hassle of getting it established, and then commands SFOD-Delta in Operation Eagle Claw, the Iran hostage resuce mission, 1979-1980. Beckwith's insight into these issues is second to none. Readers looking for more information on Operation Eagle Claw itself, particularly the Air Force fixed-wing and USMC rotary-wing elements of the mission, should read "The Guts to Try" by James H. Kyle, Col. USAF ret. This equally excellent but much less famous book covers the overall planning of Eagle Claw at a joint-forces administrative level above Beckwith, and covers the joint-forces command of the actual mission, since Kyle was the overall commander at Desert One. The mechanical and personal failures of the helicopters and their crews are also discussed, as well as Kyle's conclusions on why the mission failed. Beckwith's book gives an excellent account of his part of the mission, but does not cover these more global points.
Rating:
Summary: Colonel Beckwith tells the story.
Review: Charles Beckwith tells the story of the founding of Delta Force in his own words. And those words are irreverent, sometimes scary and burtaly to the point. It reads like fiction and is absolotuely true. One of the best books ever written aobut an eliete military force by a guy who was there and built it from the ground up. anyone who is interested in special forces, the military or just the guys who make hisotry on the gound behind the headlines should read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Much Organizing and Little Action
Review: Charlie Beckwith founded Delta Force and decided to write a book about it. And that's mainly what the reader gets: the founding details and problems of this highly skilled American counterterrorist unit. If you expect blazing action sequences like the '85 resque attempt of the hijacked cruise liner Achille Lauro or the destruction of SCUD missile sites in the Gulf War by Delta in '91, you'll be dissapointed. All that happened after the publication of the book in 1983. At least a third of it consists of rather boring meetings, talks, and frustration, that Beckwith goes through trying to set up his unit, and that's a pity. Like buying a book about the Chicago Bulls and reading all about it's organization and stadium but no basketball. The last third of the book fortunately is somewhat better. It's about Delta's extensive preparations to resque 53 Americans held hostage in the American Ambassy in Iran in '79. Alas, again not much 'bullet ducking action' because, as many people probably remember, the acual resque mission hardly got started, unable even to pass the first chopper refuelling point in the dessert. What went wrong? Beckwith here explains too little. Something with the RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters went wrong, but afterwards the reader still doesn't know *why* that one chopper crashed into the EC-130 transport plane and what *exactly* went wrong flying through the sand storm to the meeting point 'Dessert One'. Some inside pilot information afterwards would have been more than welcome. For a more action-oriented book that involves Delta, I recommend Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down" about the '93 Mogadishu (Somalia) firefight in persuit of warlord Aidid.
Rating:
Summary: a man with a plan
Review: Charlie Beckwith had a vision and he made it happen. That vision was to give the US military an entity that could do the kind of things the SAS does for the British. The result: the Delta Force. Most of the book talks about Beckwith's formative experiences in Vietnam and training with the SAS before his bureaucratic wrangling and efforts to bring Delta into existence. There is also an important section on the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980. Beckwith's writing is very conversational; it reads like you're sitting with him at the O club. If you're interested in special operations and/or the tragic story of the rescue mission, you'll definitely want to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: a man with a plan
Review: Charlie Beckwith had a vision and he made it happen. That vision was to give the US military an entity that could do the kind of things the SAS does for the British. The result: the Delta Force. Most of the book talks about Beckwith's formative experiences in Vietnam and training with the SAS before his bureaucratic wrangling and efforts to bring Delta into existence. There is also an important section on the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980. Beckwith's writing is very conversational; it reads like you're sitting with him at the O club. If you're interested in special operations and/or the tragic story of the rescue mission, you'll definitely want to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone interested in military operation
Review: COL. Charles A. Beckwith (Ret.) tells a great story.
The book is a page turner and I had a hard time putting it
down. This is a story of the creation of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta (SFOD-D), aka Delta Force.
The story is told from COL Beckwith point of view and
written with Donald Knox.
The story starts with a prologue of a meeting
with President Jimmy Carter in volving the rescue operation
of Tehran hostages crisis.
Then we go back to June 1962, when Green Beret CPT Beckwith and Sergeant Rozniak would participate in an exchange program with the British 22 Special Air Service Regiment aka SAS.
The story progresses forward from there to the creation of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta (SFOD-D) to finally the mission to rescue the hostages being held at the U.S. Ambassy in Tehran. The structure of the book is broken down as followed:
(This is a pocket book, 365 pages, 24 hours read time)
Glossary
Prologue
1-42 Chapters
Epilogue by C.A. Morbley.
Index
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating reading!!!!
Review: Col. Charlie Beckwith is the founder and first commanding officer of Special Forces Operational Detatchment-Delta, aka Delta Force. Col. Beckwith's book begins with his exchange service as a Special Forces Captain with the British Special Air Service. The SAS made such an impression on Col. Beckwith that he designed Delta's organization, selection and training on the British SAS model.
The book covers Col. Beckwith's service in Vietnam, with the precursor of Delta, whose mission was to go behind enemy lines and locate NVA and VC units. He continues with his battles with U.S. Army brass to get Delta established as a counter-terrorism unit and finishes the book with the aborted rescue attempt of the American hostages in Iran.
The book gives an insight of Delta Force as it was first conceived and organized by it's creator but does not cover any recent Delta operations.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating reading!!!!
Review: Col. Charlie Beckwith is the founder and first commanding officer of Special Forces Operational Detatchment-Delta, aka Delta Force. Col. Beckwith's book begins with his exchange service as a Special Forces Captain with the British Special Air Service. The SAS made such an impression on Col. Beckwith that he designed Delta's organization, selection and training on the British SAS model.
The book covers Col. Beckwith's service in Vietnam, with the precursor of Delta, whose mission was to go behind enemy lines and locate NVA and VC units. He continues with his battles with U.S. Army brass to get Delta established as a counter-terrorism unit and finishes the book with the aborted rescue attempt of the American hostages in Iran.
The book gives an insight of Delta Force as it was first conceived and organized by it's creator but does not cover any recent Delta operations.
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