The Company they Keep : Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces

Rating:
Summary: Read the Rest of the Story First
Review: Anna Simons debunks the myth of the Rambo SF soldier. She explains the way they live train and execute missions. Although her specialty is in anthropology, Simons does a great job at illustrating the SF soldiers. On few occasions, her scientific background shows through and hinders her ability to vividly describe the soldiers, but overall the book is great. The true SF book without the Ramboesque quality that is so fictitious...excellent read!

Rating:
Summary: Company the keep
Review: Anna Simons, a Harvard-trained anthropologist, studies the dynamics of the U. S. Army Special Forces in THE COMPANY THEY KEEP. And she gets it totally right. This is one of the finest books written about Special Forces, the U. S. Army, and the role of the officer/NCO relationship in the American Armed Forces.

"The third Special Forces soldier I met I would up marrying." That's the hook for the book's Prologue. Given almost unlimited access to 3rd SF Group over an 18 month period. We see the team rooms, patrol bases, Q Course, the plain hard work that goes into training, analyzed from a professional outsider's point of view.

And Simons gets it right -- she joins the select group of outsiders -- Ward Just, Maureen Mylander, Mark Bowden, Rick Atkinson, among others -- who really understand the American military.

Rating:
Summary: Coming of Age on Smoke Bomb Hill
Review: Anna Simons, a Harvard-trained anthropologist, studies the dynamics of the U. S. Army Special Forces in THE COMPANY THEY KEEP. And she gets it totally right. This is one of the finest books written about Special Forces, the U. S. Army, and the role of the officer/NCO relationship in the American Armed Forces.

"The third Special Forces soldier I met I would up marrying." That's the hook for the book's Prologue. Given almost unlimited access to 3rd SF Group over an 18 month period, Simons shows us the team rooms, patrol bases, Q Course, and the plain hard work that goes into training, analyzed from a professional outsider's point of view.

And Simons gets it right -- she joins the select group of outsiders -- Ward Just, Maureen Mylander, Mark Bowden, Rick Atkinson, among others -- who really understand the American military.

Rating:
Summary: Former Special Forces and author--- get this book!
Review: As a former active duty Special Forces soldier and a current author, this book was probably the best look inside the life that I have read. It does away with the "Rambo" image so many people view us as. What I always found to be the most critical asset of SF soldiers was their high maturity level and ability to operate on their own, with less guidance being better.I recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn more about Special Forces and the men who comprise the A-teams that are the core of the unit, particularly the NCOs who are Special Forces

Rating:
Summary: Company the keep
Review: Great Book explores all aspects of the life of Special Forces folk from the myth that surrods them to the reality that is SF. Great read,one will not put the book down until it is finished.

Rating:
Summary: Not what you might think...
Review: This book is about what kind of people make up Special Forces A-team. The book does not tell any heroic stories or talk about dangerous missions. The book also does not talk about weapons or tactics. This is what I expected to be reading when I began to read the book. Even without this information the book is fascinating. The author is actually the wife of a former SF soldier. She basically tells the reader what kind of a person the Special Forces soldier is. She also explains what their lives are really like on a day to day basis. I found it fascinating because these people are a rare breed.

Rating:
Summary: Read the Rest of the Story First
Review: While Ms. Simons makes a few good comments, reading "The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces" is like sitting in a Team Room listening to all the team's grips and complaints. The only difference is that we use to keep them in the Team Room and not air our dirty laundry in public. Married to a former SF NCO, she has transformed the age old complaints that can be traced back to the beginning of SF about officers, politics in SF, and how everyone is ruining SF from "how it use to be" and tries to make them issues of great national concern. Get a grip. Special Forces is a dynmaic organization that naturally changes with its environment. It it unfortunate that Ms. Simons has to character assassinate those people she didn't like in the book(probably those who didn't want to talk to her) because her slant and bias really came through as she relates her adventures of walking point with the boys. What really troubles me about this book is two things; 1) Ms. Simons doesn't tell "the rest of the story" and 2)she takes the moral high ground upon neither she or her husband can claim title to. Ms. Simons made the age old mistake; she became too involved with her story. I would grudingly recommend reading this book only after one has read some of the great SF background books (Banks, Plaster, Simpson, etc.) and some of the more current writers (Adams, Marquis, etc)before falling in the trap of making a snap judgement that everything is terrible in SF. I give this book two stars only because the process doesn't have half-star ratings.