The Company they Keep : Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces [Mass Market Paperback]

Anna J. Simons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1998

The Real Life Behind the Legend of the Army's Most Elite Force

U.S. Special Forces soldiers disdain the Hollywood "Green Beret" label, but they are still among the most fascinating and highly trained figures in today's military. They use expertise, intelligence, and self-reliance, whether conduction reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines, training ragtag bands of guerrillas, or simply honing their skills in backwoods training areas.

Anthropologist A.J. Simons obtained unprecedented access to a SF unit. From field exercises to the inner worlds of team rooms and base camps, and finally into the private spheres of soldiers' marriages and family lives, she shows how these unique soldiers think and function independently while belonging to small and close-knit teams.

Teams are the hear and the soul of SF, yet increasingly they are being pressured to conform to military bureaucracy. Conventionalism, and not an external enemy, could well destroy these most unconventional units. A soldier's-eye profile of what may be the most effective and unusual military organization anywhere, this is an enduring record of military excellence and unparalleled soldierly achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

By design, the U.S. Army's Special Forces--we call them Green Berets, but they tend to avoid that term--are very secretive. As a result, there isn't much to counterbalance their popular Ramboesque image. This book does a lot to set the record straight. Simons, a Harvard Ph.D. in anthropology, befriended some SFers while she was doing fieldwork in Somalia. Later, back in the States, she married one of them. The Company They Keep was written once she had the unrivaled access of a Special Forces team-member's wife; it covers more than a year in the life of some SF soldiers, covering every phase of their initiation and training. The reader will feel reassured as the narrative makes it clear that these forces America increasingly relies on in low-intensity scenarios such as Somalia and Haiti emphasize not individual bravado, but smooth functioning as a members of a team; so much so that loyalty to the team tends to take precedence over personal concerns and family. The divorce rate is high. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Simons is uniquely qualified to study the U.S. Army Special Forces (who may wear them but do not like to be called green berets), for she is a professional anthropologist and the wife of a Special Forces sergeant. And hers is a unique and excellent book that focuses less on the history and combat achievements of the Special Forces than on their current personnel selection, training, corporate culture, internal politics, and relations with an army bureaucracy predominated by downsizing and conventionality. It is full of memorable personal portraits (including those of wives) that demonstrate that "male bonding" is not just a phrase, and it argues persuasively for keeping the emphasis of Special Forces missions the training of foreign soldiers rather than firefights. Although some background knowledge of both military history and anthropology will make reading the whole book more rewarding, Simons' unusual set of insights into the world and people of special operations is invaluable. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books; Reprint edition (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380731274
• ISBN-13: 978-0380731275
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #399,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > History > Military Science

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not what you might think..., December 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Company they Keep : Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Former Special Forces and author--- get this book!, September 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The COMPANY THEY KEEP (Hardcover)

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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Are all of the "A Reader" revies by the same person?, August 17, 2005

By 

J. A Delashmit "James" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Company they Keep : Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces (Mass Market Paperback)

They all sound alike. Gee, a military-hater claiming that the author is biased while using multiple uninformative, anonymous reviews to try to run the book down? How original is that?

Anyway, I read this book when it was new. It is not about combat stories or Rambo wannbes are anything like that. It is the story of one woman's quest to better understand her husband. It succeeds quite well at that.

Inadvertantly, she reveals how far the current SF guys have fallen from the original high standards and how much their mission had changed by the time of the writing. (They and their new missions have changed just as much since this was published as they have become even the step-and-fetchits of the State Department and feel-goodism.) Instead of the level of excellence that the SF founders were (let's face it, most of those guys had 5-10 years of actual combat experience hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in occupied Europe before their ever was a SF)or the shake-and-bakes that were created to expand SF and replace casualties from 1964-65 or so onward. These guys are modern Americans in every sense.

Her descriptions of them reveal that they are flawed with all of the same shortcomings that characterize today's society from which they come. They frequently lack the age of experience that made the old SF what it was. They typically come through the Airborne/Ranger "Super Soldier" pipeline. They are still Type A personalities; some of them not-so tempered, either. And they are still very bright fast-learners.

Their standards are about what should be the minimum for a professional soldier. And that is what puts them so far ahead of anybody's average and makes them "elite" in comparison to the others. They are soldiers while the masses are just that, masses of uniform fillers.

Since this book was published the guys at SF have been adapting to new wrinkles on old missions. They still get more than their share of Ranger-type assignments; but they are getting to interact more with indigenious people than they were. They aren't training guerilla forces as stay-behinds against to harass the invading Red Army in Europe. And a lot of other units are also training people and attempting to engage them in constructive ways. With their relatively recent popularity (since the formation the joint special warfare command structure and the realization among the promotion-hungry types that in SOF is where they want to do their hiding behind "authority" and beneath desks act)come unrealistic expectations and delibitating interference as everyone wants to take credit for success.

Other things remain the same; changing only when they become worse. The strains of constant deployment upon the dream of having a family have always been difficult for any military; but it isn't as "easy" for today's guys to find understanding and supporting mates. Emails and videos home may not be too difficult for a REMF in a walled compound with electricity, mattresses, DVD players and refrigerators; but what about the guy humping the mountains on foot for weeks or months at a time with 180-200 pounds of mission essential equipment?

But as much as the SF mission changes and as much as it's practicioners reflect the ever-changing society from which they are drawn; one thing remains constant: SF guys have to better than most and able to accomplish a greater variety of missions in a greater variety of roles with less support and more responsibilty and, ususally, more criticism. I'm willing to bet that you will find guys in today's SF who are just like the guys in her book.

In my opinion, that speaks well for the it.