Rangers at War

May 4, 1992
Stanton ( Green Berets at War ) makes a significant contribution to the operational history of the Vietnam War with this volume on long-range reconnaissance and patrol units. Depending on helicopters for insertion and extraction, usually employed in teams only a half-dozen strong, the Vietnam-era rangers specialized in intelligence collecting and small-scale raids. Their improvised role was the product of a war without stable fronts and terrain that defied conventional means of information gathering. Stanton describes the rangers' history company by company and discusses their use and misuse by generals often as bewildered by the war as were the men they led. The book is particularly useful as a background for the large number of memoirs by veterans of long-range reconnaissance units. Not every fire fight was a victory, not every ranger a hero, but in Stanton the men in black berets have a worthy chronicler.