Designed for the wrong war. Rebuilt by the men who carried it.
The rifle, the ruck, the radio, the rations, the armor, the boots, and the paper trail behind all of them. Every claim sourced, two of our own films corrected.
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From an old 82nd Airborne LURP, my heartfelt thank you for this outstanding documentary.
My old man was MACV-SOG. Served in 70-71. He never spoke about any of it even on his death bed.
Thanks. That explains some of the things I saw.
Thanks for the real education that was shown.
Thanks for posting and doing your best to maintain accuracy through research.
The narrative arc on this is exceptional.
Very very interesting and very well told.
This is incredibly interesting. The mindset and tactical approach of the team is so ultra high performance.
I had no idea what was going on in 1968, but my guess would be SOG extractions after learning about them.
Every quote is a comment left under one of our YouTube documentaries, reproduced word for word. Names withheld, film named.
Every factual claim in the book is sourced. When serious sources disagree, it prints the disagreement instead of picking the prettier number. No dialogue is reconstructed, no composite characters exist, and where a story rests on the testimony of the men who were there, it tells you whose testimony it is.
Where the popular version of a story and the documented version part ways, the book prints a boxed correction. Here is one, free, from Chapter One:
The myth: the M16 was a bad rifle.
The record: the men who investigated it hardest said the opposite. The congressional subcommittee found that the rifle “as initially developed was an excellent and reliable weapon” (Ichord Report, findings, p. 5369), and the Army’s own reliability study at Aberdeen concluded that “Basically, the M16 Rifle is a reliable system.” What failed was the system around the rifle: a propellant it had never been tested with, an unplated chamber that rusted in a monsoon, and a supply apparatus that sent men to war without a chamber brush or a page of instructions. The myth blames the object because the object is easier to blame than the offices.
The full source trail is printed in the back of the book, and Chapter Nine follows the paper trail to its end: who decided, who was warned, and who was never held to account. And where our own films got it wrong, the book says so, by name. A myth is a myth, whoever told it.
Our film on the jungle boot told the story of a design that crippled the men who wore it. The veterans in the comments said no, and they were right: the Army’s own doctors tested every alternative and could not build a better boot. The harm came from the water and the time. Chapter Eight opens with that correction and stands on it.
Our film on the flak jacket called it a failure. Chapter Seven gives the vest its due: it stopped three-quarters of the fragments that struck a man’s chest, which was its whole purpose, and it could not stop the rifle bullet, which was never its purpose. The film’s title was wrong about which of those was the news.
Yes, and you’d be in good company; it’s the most common reason people buy it. Purchase it under your own email, then forward him the delivery email, or print either edition on plain paper and hand it over. The Large Print Edition exists exactly for him.
No. It’s the videos, researched past what a fifteen-minute film can hold. The book carries the full numbers with their sources, the contested figures printed as ranges, the complete glossary and bibliography, and Myth vs. Record corrections, including corrections to claims our own films repeated before the research caught them. Chapter Six has no film behind it yet; the book got there first. If the videos are the tour, this is the archive.
Two DRM-free PDFs, delivered instantly: the standard edition and a large-print edition set for tired eyes. They open on any phone, tablet, or computer, and they print cleanly on plain paper. No apps, no accounts, no expiry.
Seven days: reply to your receipt, tell us in one sentence what fell short, and we refund you. That sentence is the whole process. There is also a standing offer with no expiry: catch a factual claim that fails its own source and the refund comes with your name in the corrections log of the next revision.
Yes. Reports are still being declassified, museum collections still turn up the odd receipt, and sharp readers, including the veterans in our comment sections, catch things. When the record improves, the book is revised, and every revision goes to every past buyer free.
No. This is an independent work of history. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the U.S. Department of Defense or any veterans’ organization. Photographs are drawn from the National Archives and other public-domain repositories, each credited where it appears.
Both editions, the lifetime corrections, the 7-day guarantee, everything on this page, at the first-reader price. It applies itself at checkout. Nothing to type.
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