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Observation Group, or SOG. The Studies and Observation moniker was a joke, some idiot bureaucrat’s attempt to give the organization a low profile. You might as well name a pit bull Pansy.

    SOG’s mission was clandestine reconnaissance and sabotage missions into Cambodia and Laos, sometimes even into North Vietnam. The teams were composed of LURRPs, an acronym for men specializing in long-range reconnaissance patrols. Three Americans and nine Civilian Irregular Defense Group personnel, or CIDGs. The CIDGs were usually Khmer mercenaries recruited by the CIA, sometimes Montagnards. Three men would go into the bush for one, two, three weeks at a time, living off the land, no contact with MACV, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

    We were the elite of the elite, small and mobile, slipping like silent ghosts through the jungle. All the moving parts on the weapons were taped down for noise suppression. We operated so much at night that we could see in the dark. We didn’t even use bug repellent because the V.C. could smell it. We were that serious.

    We were operating in Cambodia at the same time Nixon was publicly pledging respect for Cambodia’s neutrality. If our activities got out, Nixon would have had to admit that he’d been lying not just to the public, but to Congress as well. So our activities weren’t just clandestine, they were outright denied, all the way to the top. For some of our missions we had to travel stripped, with no U.S.-issued weapons or other matériel. Other times we couldn’t even get air support for fear that a pilot would be shot down and captured. When we lost a man, his family would get a telegram saying he had been killed “west of Dak To” or “near the border” or some other vague description like that.

    We started out all right. Before we went, we talked about what we would and wouldn’t do. We’d heard the stories. Everyone knew about My Lai. We were going to keep cool heads, stay professional. Keep our innocence, really. I can almost laugh, when I think about it now.

    Jimmy became known as “Crazy Jake” because he fell asleep in the middle of our first firefight. Tracer rounds were coming at us from beyond the tree line, everyone was hunkered down, firing back at people we couldn’t even see, and it went on for hours because we couldn’t call in air support due to our illegal location. Jimmy said “fuck it” in the middle of things and took a nap. Everyone thought that was pretty cool. While they were saying, “you’re crazy, man, you’re crazy,” Jimmy said, “well I knew everything was jake.” So after that he was Crazy Jake. Outside the two of us, I don’t think anyone ever knew his real name.

    Jimmy didn’t just act crazy; he looked it. A teenage motorcycle accident had almost cost him an eye. The doctors got it back in, but couldn’t get it to focus in line with his good eye, so Jimmy always looked as though he was watching something off to the side while he was talking to you. “Omnidirectional,” he liked to say, with a smile, when he caught someone trying to steal a glance at it.

    Jimmy had been social enough in high school but got quiet in Vietnam, training constantly, serious about his work. He wasn’t a big guy, but people were afraid of him. Once, an MP with a German shepherd confronted Jimmy about some unruly behavior in a bar. Jimmy didn’t look at him, acted like he wasn’t even there. Instead, he stared at the dog. Something passed between them, some animal thing, and the dog whimpered and backed away. The MP got spooked and wisely decided to let the whole thing go, and the incident became part of the growing legend of Crazy Jake, that even guard dogs were afraid of him.

    But there was nobody better in the woods. He was like an animal you could talk to. He made people uncomfortable with his omnidirectional eye, his long silences. But when the sound of the insert helicopters receded into the distance, everyone wanted him