Timothy Castle

A book on an interesting and unusual topic, a secret US radar site is established in Laos in 1967 to help bomb North Vietnam. Everything is secret because no foreign military personal are supposed to be in Laos, not American, not North Vietnamese, but of course both are there. The radar is set up and manned, it is attacked by bi-planes and a CIA helicopter flies after them and shoots one down with an M-16. Months later the base is attacked again by North Vietnamese commandos and Americans are killed, 10 go missing. But it all must be kept secret. This book is about why the project was started, how the men were recruited, why their mission failed and how it came under attack. It also includes post war information on the families court battles as well as the MIA search in the 1990's. It takes a little while for the book to get going as it needs to set the scene and I thought it got a little personal in the last few chapters. A good book about a little known but highly interesting topic.… (mais)