Sage Fire Review of The Red Dragon

Red Dragon

Historical Fears

Date of Review: July 21, 2008
Multi-format Ebook, Large Print Edition
Thriller, Adventure, Historical Fiction


Vlad the Impaler, created history. To the Christians of the Central Eastern European Steps, a prince, a hero, the savior of millions of lives. To the Muslims, the pilgrims, and serving class Turks he became the terror of the night, unable to be destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of Muslim supporters and military hanging and dripping blood. For them, he became their worst nightmare, the Dracul.

Centuries later, in the middle of the final stages of the Vietnamese civil war, when the Americans vied with the Russians for impressionistic control of the population; his own descendant's doom lay in confrontation with the most apt pupil of his reign of terror teachings ever. The clash of war titans became inevitable.



Synopsis:

Yuri Zukhov, brilliant historical tactician, student of Vlad Dracul's campaigns, from the Academy of Military History in Moscow, and Bondesque lady's man; found himself banished on a flight to Hanoi for the termidity of being caught in the act of screwing his commanding officer's mistress. His incredible tactical ability stood no chance against internal personal politics. By the time he reached the Hanoi command center, he already had arranged dates with the stewardesses and the new commanders mistress. He was not stoic, rather comfortable in his self abilities and importance of his military brilliance being applied to the North Vietnamese army.
Alexandru Mihnea, direct descendant of Vlad Dracul, top special forces Master Sargent returns to camp Hoa Binh, to shore up local support for the fire teams, and to clean out remaining pockets of Viet Cong. The problem remains, he is just a little too good at his job, prompting a re-evaluation of where the North Vietnamese army should strike first.
Neither man has control of their destiny anymore. Fate has stepped in, the biggest star pupil of Vlad Dracul's tactics will confront his direct descendant. No quarter will be given, on either side.



Impression:

This story quails the faint of heart, brings up memories of friends and comrades dieing, of listening to the tales of tunnel rats, and drinking with the Marines when they came home. An incredibly researched and studied tale from both sides of the Black Sea, Clifford Gissell captures both the idiosyncrasies of the Central European cultures and contrasting penchants of the Americans during the 1970's.
Red Dragon is NOT an easy read. It is NOT one of the stories you will casually pick up and finish in an hour. For those readers who had relatives and friends who lived and died during the Tet Offensive, it is even yet, a hard brick read.
For the student of cultures, Red Dragon drives home the differences between the gray world point of view of the Central Europeans and the rigid right and wrong view of the Americans. It demonstrates the complacency of a general population at war with itself for long decades, and the will it took to merely survive.
For the Military Historian, Red Dragon exemplifies the cross thoughts, tactics, and strategies used across a thousand years of conflict and turmoil. It delves directly into the reasoning and thinking of all sides of this bygone offensive.
For everyone else, it is headlong dive into a madness and terror the population refuses to acknowledge can exist, even today. Modern horror films have no edge on the reality this novel shows can and will happen. This is a novel you must dare yourself to read.

RATING: 9 Campfires

The Sage Fire Review URL is: http://sagefire.pencraft.biz/may08/Review.RedDragon.html

Camp Thien Ngon

Camp Thien Ngon – A323

The following information is from former 1LT David Fetters, XO of A323, Camp Thien Ngon, from March through August, 1969.

Camp Thien Ngon, a Special Forces border camp, was located in Phuoc Ninh District, Tay Ninh Province on the Cambodian border. It was a “5 pointed star” type camp with a pentagon shape as the inner perimeter. The helipad was just outside the main entrance although in a pinch a Huey could and did land inside the inner perimeter. The inner pentagon was surrounded by a moat filled with stakes and wire. Inside were the US SF Team, our VN counterparts, mess, vehicles, mortar pits (two 81mm and two 4.2 inch), generators, and three105 howitzers with their US firing team. Our airstrip was built on a dirt road designated as QL 22 which ran from Tay Ninh through Trai Bi past our camp, A323 Thien Ngon to Xa Mat on the Cambodian border about 8 klicks to the north. It was a rough 2-track and totally unused because of the constant threat of ambush and mines. Our camp was built as a “fighting camp” since we were in a free-fire zone with no villages around. Our SF Team house was an above ground bunker using conex containers as individual rooms. The CO was at one end of a hallway with the XO (me) at the other with 5 others lined up on each side, side-by-side, down the middle. We had a small medical room just inside the entrance for our Bac Si to use as a clinic. We had the radio room and our common room under the same roof as well.

There were five CIDG companies in camp – three Vietnamese and two Cambodian with lots of family living with them in the bunkers. We had one recon platoon that was Vietnamese and not much good. Our US security in the bush was always the Cambodes.

At one time a US Engineer Company set up camp next to ours with their own security for a month while they resurfaced our runway with laterite and oiled with pentaprime.

Outside the camp, approximately 150 meters of jungle was cleared of trees but the 6-8foot elephant grass was always present. We had trip flares, wire, foo gas, claymores, and anti- tank and anti-personnel mines throughout the grass surrounding the camp. In addition, the immediate jungle perimeter was also treated and defoliated with Agent Orange. We had listening posts out all the time just inside the jungle perimeter.

Our AO was a free-fire zone so any detected movement other than one of our operations was a potential target of opportunity. Operations were constant ongoing affairs with someone in the AO at all times. As one operation returned, another was ready to leave. All were about two-company sized (180 men), two USSF advisors (ha!), our two counterparts, and a modest HQ security force of 6-8 Cambodians who also carried our radios. A recon team may or may not have been along. Most were three-day jaunts in a big loop out and back. During my six months in camp I was on two of thee heliborne operations that were also about three days but we were dropped off in the far corners of the AO and swept back. The objective was always the same – look for recent NVA activity, find the enemy and engage if possible, look for any relevant intelligence, return any Chieu Hoi’s (one for us).

Thien Ngon was accessible by road but the road was unimproved and cratered and would have to be swept for mines if ever used. The engineers used it almost every day for about 2 weeks to haul in the laterite dug from the Suoi Ky River in our southern AO about 5 Klicks away while they were resurfacing the runway.

The terrain in our Area of Operations was perfectly flat with heavy jungle – so called “triple canopy” - with a few unexplained clearings that were irregularly shaped fields of knee deep grass-like growth. One river flowed from SW to NE. It varied from about 30 – 50 feet wide and about chest deep and chocked full of hungry leeches. A copy of the AO map I carried is on an internet web site: www.thespecialforce.com/Camps/thien_ngon.htm It will also come up if you type Thien Ngon into Google.

We saw few VC and only south near the river when they’d pick up water. The NVA were camped directly across the border in Cambodia and I would see them from our recon helo flights. I even threw a smoke grenade down on them once to see if they would fire back allowing us to engage them because they fired first, but they knew our rules of engagement as well as we did and just waved at us.

While I was there we had a few small probes and one sizable ground attack against the engineers. I was returning from an operation from the south of camp parallel to the road and had set up for the night about two or three klicks away from camp when the engineers took a direct attack from a force between us and the engineers. We could see the green rounds going toward camp while the red ones were coming toward us. The CO told us to lay low because the engineers had the upper hand. No penetration occurred.

Enemy indirect fire attacks were intermittent. We could go weeks with nothing and another week we’d receive 250+ rounds. Most were mortars, 60 and 82mm. We occasionally received rockets. There were two sizes that I recall. The big ones were 122mm and the others were the 107mm Katyusha. Before I got there a 122 hit the team house and exploded inside killing the medic. We had a chain link fence around the team house to set off RPG’s prematurely. There were a couple holes in the fence from them.


We often found older booby traps in the jungle and would destroy them when found. We would sweep the ends of the runway occasionally to be sure there were no mines set for the resupply planes. We missed a big anti-tank mine once just off the end of the runway but it was found by the VN when they took a ¾ ton truck without permission to replace the listening post personnel. That ruined our best truck!

Camp+Thien+Ngon CIDG David+Fetters NVA Special+Forces Thien+Ngon Vietnam+War

Camp Duc Hue - The North Vietnamese Army

There were two major North Vietnamese Army units just across the Cambodian border from Camp Duc Hue, home of A325, A/5th Special Forces Group. The two units, the 271st & 272nd Regiments of the 9th NVA Division were based in Ba Thu, Cambodia. An NVA regiment had about 1500 men in it. The 9th NVA Division was often referred to as the 9th VC Division although its major troop units were NVA. The 88th NVA Regiment also belonged to the 9th division. I doubt that both regiments were ever at Ba Thu at the same time but Ba Thu was their base area. Did Camp Duc Hue keep the NVA bottled up in Cambodia? No. They moved to the north or south of the camp almost at will. Did they attack Duc Hue? Yes, but not a direct infantry assault on the camp. While I was there the most serious attack was an attack with automatic weapons fire, RPGs, and mortars. There were more than 100 mortar rounds fired within a short time, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Our casualties were light. The air support we were able to call in did some damage to the NVA. We found evidence of that the next morning. We joked that they were on their way back to Ba Thu and were tired of carrying all those mortar rounds so they unloaded them on us. I don't know it that was true or not but it sounded good. Much more common were mortar attacks with 82 and 120mm mortars. These were normally fired from the area of the Angel's Wing. Again, the humor was that they had a mortar school set up there, the closest point to us, and we were the final exam for their students. The rockets starting falling when I was there, mainly Katyusha 107mm plus some heavier stuff. Scarey stuff. Duc Hue a distinct terrain advantage, something that our sister camps to the north did not enjoy. It was mostly wide open around the camp. Anyone attacking the camp would be easy prey for return fire, both direct and indirect from camp, and any air assets we could bring to our defense. It would have been suicide for one of the regiments to attack. Ba Thu was not our only worry though. There were other enemy units across the border. I once watched an unknown aircraft fly along the border at several thousand feet. As he continued north from Ba Thu, twenty-three different anti-aircraft guns opened up on him, one after the other as he flew north. The largest appeared to be 37mm. An operation that I was involved with went into the armpit of the Angel's Wing and found what was estimated to be a battalion of NVA. The enemy owned the other side of the border, no doubt. We had around 500 lightly armed Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG)soldiers, two 105mm tubes from an ARVN artillery unit, two 81mm and two 4.2inch mortars. We were isolated, all supplies had to be hooked in by helicopter. The stress level was high but life went on inside the camp. We had decent chow, cold beer and soda, an occasional movie, mail from home and even left camp once in awhile for reasons other than combat operations. R & R was on everyone's schedule and business in Tay Ninh, Binh Hoa or Saigon wasn't all business. Things were not all bad.

Technorati Tags:
5th Special Forces Group, A325, Agroville, B32, Duc Hue, Hoa Binh, North Vietnamese Army, The Angel Wing, The Parrots Beak, The Red Dragon, Vam Co Dong River

A Vietnam War Novel - Part 8

Well, if it's going to be published, I've got to find a publisher. Up until this time I was looking for a print book publisher, exclusively. Under my pen name, C J Maxx, I had an erotic romance short story published by Whiskey Creek Press - Torrid. It was under 15K words and available only in electronic format. I knew they published other genres besides the erotic stuff. I sent them a query and they requested the full manuscript. This was all done electronically. I knew it would be months before I would hear anything. They had a backlog. After more than a few months I sent them an email asking about the status. They said they liked it but wondered about the marketability of the book. I told them about the Special Forces community and how I would sell the book to them. That was enough. They send me a contract for both the electronic and print formats. That was in November 2007. The release date was to be April 1, 2008. The only hiccup was that they changed to a staggered release during the month and the book was released on April 15th. Finally, I had a copy of The Red Dragon in my hand.

A Vietnam War Novel - Part 4

I was going to make this novel authentic. I had been there, I had been in battle, I had called in close air support and medevacs,I had called in artillery and adjusted fire. The radio communications were going to just as I remember them. This book was going to be real in the technical details. The first little hiccup came with team suffixes. Every team member had a number as a radio call-sign suffix. If you were the junior, like the junior medic, you had an alpha added to the number. No one, and I sent emails to many old SF guys, including every Commo Sergeant I knew, and no could recall more than a few of the suffixes. Well, so much for that. I made up most of them. Everyone in SF knew and used the Vietnamese rank system. I did the research on the North Vietnamese Army and their rank system was almost the same. There were a couple differences in the NCO ranks. I used the Vietnamese ranks throughout the book. When the Russians were dealing with the Vietnamese, I called them by the VN rank. The only Russian word I used was Spetsnaz, the name of the Soviet Special Forces. That was critical for the story. I researched everything. I had the weaponry right, learned NVA tactics and their Order of Battle, learned their Table of Organization, used maps of Cambodia for the NVA base camps and the road system. I thought I did a good job on the military aspects. Now, war is not all seriousness, occasionallly there is time to play. Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is not unlike any other large city. When the Russians went whoring, I needed to know what the boys were paying. There was an SF contingent in Phnom Penh in the early 70s. I figured my brothers would know about that stuff. I was one of the brothers, I know what we did when given the opporturnity. Well, once again, foggy old memories failed. The price is pretty vague in the book. Finally, the book was finished. Although it only took me about an hour to write these first four blogs about this book, it took a year to write it. But, it was done, time to find a publisher.

A Vietnam War Novel - Part 1

I wanted to write a Vietnam War novel. I spent two years in Vietnam. Both years I served with the Vietnamese. The first year with the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) soldiers controlled by Special Forces and the second year as a District Advisor with MACV. The soldiers during the second year were mainly Regional Forces and Popular Forces, soldiers trained and deployed to protect their hamlets, villages and the district where they lived. Although I had been in combat on numerous occasions mostly they were small unit contacts, nothing to write a book about. My memoirs were not going to hold anyone's interest for long. But, things happened during both tours that could be used in a novel. I realized that I could weave these particular incidents into an interesting story that would still convey what things were like on the Cambodian border where the enemy was afforded sanctuary and we were officially prohibited from striking back at them across the border. This was my original rationale for writing this book. A straight war novel, written about the war I served in, the Vietnam War.

CIDG, Clifford Gissell, MACV, Popular Forces, Regional Forces, Special Forces, Vietnam War

The+Red+Dragon CIDG Clifford+Gissell MACV Popular+Forces Regional+Forces Special+Forces Vietnam+War

Website Now Active

My website, http://cliffordgissell.com , is now active. The Red Dragon novel dominates the site with pages on Special Forces, the CIDG program, and the historical Vlad Dracula. It's my website though and you can find out more about me through my bio and military service pages.

The Red Dragon has been released

I'm happy to announce that my action/thriller war novel, The Red Dragon, has been released by Whiskey Creek Press. I belong to the Northern Alabama chapter of the Special Forces Association. I introduced my book to the chapter members at our quarterly meeting last Saturday. It was well received. I had purchased a number of advanced copies and I sold one to each member present. One former Green Beret called me the next day to congratulate me on the book. He had finished it already and said that I had hit a home run with this one. That's the kind of feedback an author appreciates. The direct link for purchasing the book is: http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=637

The Red Dragon

The action/thriller war novel, The Red Dragon, written by Special Forces veteran Clifford Gissell, will be released by Whiskey Creek Press http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/ on April 15, 2008, in both print and electronic formats. The story is an account of a border campaign between a North Vietnamese Army Regiment advised by Soviet Captain Yuri Zhukov and Special Forces Camp Hoa Binh. As the battle for control of the border area escalates, tactics not seen since the Middle Ages are used by the NVA to instill fear in the Vietnamese peasants, tactics quite familar to the Special Forces Team Sergeant, tactics last used by his ancestor, Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad Dracula.