FOR nearly a decade after a new Special Forces group was set up at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1952 to cope with guerrilla forces, the organization languished. At first, the group's members were permitted to wear the Special Forces' distinctive green berets, borrowed from Britain's World War II commandos, within the confines of Fort Bragg. In 1956, the headgear was banned altogether because it looked "too foreign."
President John F. Kennedy, who read James Bond novels and foresaw the need for countering insurgency warfare, particularly in beleaguered Southeast Asia, gave a new lease of...
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