Legend: The Incredible Story of Green Beret Sergeant Roy Benavidez's Heroic Mission to Rescue a Special Forces Team Caught Behind Enemy Lines
Eric Blehm
The unforgettable account and courageous actions of the U.S. Army’s 240th Assault Helicopter Company and Green Beret staff sergeant Roy Benavidez, who risked everything to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy lines
In Legend, acclaimed bestselling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War, as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A twelve-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia—where U.S. forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What the team didn’t know was that they had infiltrated a section of jungle that concealed a major enemy base. Soon they found them¬selves surrounded by hundreds of NVA troops, under attack, low on ammunition, and stacking the bodies of the dead as cover in a desperate attempt to survive the onslaught.
When Special Forces staff sergeant Roy Benavidez heard the distress call, he jumped aboard the next helicopter bound for the combat zone without hesitation. Orphaned at the age of seven, Benavidez had picked cotton alongside his family as a child and dropped out of school as a teen before joining the Army. Although he was grievously wounded during his first tour of duty in Vietnam and told he would never walk again, Benavidez fought his way back—ultimately earning his green beret.
What followed would become legend in the Special Operations community. Flown into the foray of battle by the courageous pilots and crew of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, Benavidez jumped from the hovering aircraft and ran nearly 100 yards through withering enemy fire. Despite being immediately and severely wounded, Benavidez reached the perimeter of the decimated team, provided medical care, and proceed¬ed to organize an extraordinary defense and rescue. During the hours-long battle, he was bayoneted, shot, and hit by grenade shrapnel more than thirty times, yet he refused to abandon his efforts until every survivor was out of harm’s way.
Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown
Eric Blehm
Fearless takes you deep into SEAL Team Six, straight to the heart of one of it's most legendary operators. When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn't know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan--but he was ready. In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen unless the worst happened, "I'm not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this Earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me. But long before Adam Brown became a member of the elite SEAL Team Six--the counter terrorism unit that took down Osama bin Laden--there was a fun-loving country boy from Arkansas whose greatest goal had been to wear his high school's football jersey. An undersized daredevil, prone to jumping off roofs into trees and off bridges into lakes, Adam was a kid who broke his own bones but would never break a promise to his parents, until he grew older, and his family watched that appetite for risk draw him into a downward spiral that eventually landed him in jail. FEARLESS is the story of a man of extremes, whose determination was fueled by faith, family, and the love of a woman. It's about a man who waged a war against his own worst impulses and persevered to reach the top tier of the U.S. military. Always the first to volunteer for the most dangerous assignments, Adam's final act of bravery led to the ultimate sacrifice. FEARLESS is the intimate story of a devoted man who was an unlikely hero but a true warrior, described by all who knew him as just that--fearless.