1st Special Forces Operational Detachment--Delta (SFOD-D) is the military's formal name for Delta Force. Delta is perhaps America's foremost elite counterterrorist unit along with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and Navy SEAL Team Six. Beckwith created Delta Force after spending a year with the British Special Air Service (SAS) and seeing how the US had a void that a unit like the SAS could fill. Thus, Delta was formed with the SAS in mind.

A word of caution to people who are considering reading this book. The book tells of how Delta Force was formed...from its beginnings as a US version of the British SAS to its failed first mission freeing the hostages in the Iran. If you're looking for something on what Delta Force currently does and how its operators are currently trained or selected, this isn't the book for you. Beckwith tells us how the first Delta operators were trained and selected, but that selection process has probably changed some by now. This book is more a detailed history on the formation of the Delta Force, and not a book on its current engagements and operations (which are most likely classified anyway).

I HIGHLY recommend this book.

20 of 20 found the following review helpful:


A "Must Read" for any Infantry or Special Ops vet  Mar 07, 2002
...

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.

21 of 23 found the following review helpful:


America's Elite Counter-Terrorist Unit  Mar 11, 1998 By TMac "busted_flush"
This was a fascinating book covering a fascinating topic. The creation of "Delta Force" is a topic that should interest all military history buffs. Col Beckwith gives a blow by blow account of the obstacles endured in creating Delta. He sometimes drowns you in the day to day bureacratic fight but the reader gets an appreciation for the difficulties he faced. Col Beckwith gives an excellent narrative of the fiasco at "Desert One" in 1980 while attempting to save the American hostages in Iran. It was a difficult time for all Americans and most would not wish to be reminded, but lessons are to be learned. And in order to learn those lessons Col Beckwith takes us back to that night in the desert. Overall a very informative read.

10 of 10 found the following review helpful:


Great book  Sep 23, 2002
Great book. Outlines the difficulties in getting a new idea sold in a rather inflexible/bureaucratic system.
It is a long way from identifying a requirement, to actually get someone interested to set measures to fill a deficiency. A lot of turf wars involved.
I actually expected a fact book on Delta's history/capabilities and ops involved. What I found was a really well written story of the man who pursued the issue of creating Anti-Terrorist capability within the US Forces. Now everybody will understand the vision this man had and how important this topic always was and always will be.
I liked the credit given to the SAS, that I consider the finest unit in this area of work.
I would have liked for the book to continue further than the Iran operation (especially as I actually bought the book for the purpose of getting information about the Somalia Ops), but it is clear the it ends when Col Beckwith left the unit, as he is the author. Great book that is really hard to put down.

13 of 14 found the following review helpful:


Light on the Action  Sep 27, 2002 By John G. Hilliard
I picked up this book thinking there was going to be a good amount of detail of past missions. After reading the book I found that my assumption was wrong. The book starts out with the author's career during the Vietnam War and ends with a description of the Iran hostage rescue operation in 1980. The majority of the book is a review of the author's struggles to set up the Delta Force and a lot of detail on the training that took place. If this is what you are looking for then the book will interest you. If you are after a lot of combat action then you will be disappointed.

I did find the slow and painful description of how the Army bureaucracy works to be an eye opener. I would have thought all the higher ups would have jumped at creating a group like Delta but that just was not the case. This could be a case study for persistence in how the author got his group up and running. Overall I found the book to be well written and interesting. There were a few slow spots in the middle, but not so bad that it would make you put down the book.

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